Restaurant menu audit and menu engineering
A menu audit is for restaurants that have never checked profitability dish by dish. AETR reviews each item's sales, contribution margin after ingredient cost, price and kitchen complexity, sorts the menu into stars, workhorses, puzzles and dogs, and recommends which dishes to push, reprice, simplify or drop. It takes 5–7 business days.
Is this the right service for you?
Restaurants, cafés and cloud kitchens that have not looked at menu profit item by item, or that keep adding dishes without checking what each one does to margin and kitchen workload.
Not the right fit: If people order well but the money does not match what you expected, the gap is more likely in your payouts, so the payout audit is the better place to start.
What's included
- Sales and contribution margin for every item
- A review of your pricing
- Combo and bundle opportunities
- Trimming items that add kitchen complexity (SKU rationalisation)
What you receive
- A matrix placing every dish as a star, workhorse, puzzle or dog
- Specific recommendations on pricing and menu mix
Prices, timelines and scope last reviewed 25 September 2026. Prices exclude GST unless stated.
How the audit runs
Scoping call
We confirm what the audit covers and quote it based on the size of your menu.
Share sales and costs
You send item-level sales data and the ingredient cost of each item, so margin can be worked out properly.
Item-by-item analysis
We look at sales mix, contribution, pricing, bundling options and kitchen complexity for every dish, and place each one in the matrix.
Recommendations
You receive the menu engineering matrix and specific changes to pricing and mix.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is menu engineering, in simple terms?
It means looking at every item's popularity and profitability together, then deciding which dishes to push, reprice, simplify or remove. Items usually fall into four groups: stars sell well and earn well, workhorses sell well on a thinner margin, puzzles earn well but sell less, and dogs do neither. The menu audit builds that matrix for your menu.
Do you need our recipe costs for a menu audit?
Yes. Along with item-level sales data, we need the ingredient cost of each item. Without it we can only see the sales mix; with it we can work out the true contribution margin of every dish, which is what tells you whether a popular item is actually making you money or just keeping the kitchen busy.
How long does a menu audit take?
It takes 5–7 business days. Before it starts, a short scoping call confirms the size of your menu, what the audit will cover and the quote. At the end you receive the menu engineering matrix, with every item placed in it, and specific recommendations on pricing and on the mix of dishes you offer.
How much does a restaurant menu audit cost?
There is no fixed published price. The audit is quoted per engagement, based on the size of your menu, since a longer menu means more items to analyse, and the figure is confirmed on a scoping call. You know the cost and the scope before you share any sales or recipe data with us.
Can you plan our menu before we launch on Zomato or Swiggy?
Yes. For a delivery brand that is not live yet, the work centres on choosing items, setting portion sizes and pricing them against real demand in your area and how competitors are positioned, so the listing is built to sell profitable dishes from the first day. A new listing should have this settled before any money goes on ads.
People view our listing but don't order. Will a menu audit help?
That is a conversion problem, and it is one of the situations the menu audit is meant for, alongside better food photography. Compare your photos, dish descriptions and prices with similar listings nearby. The audit then works through pricing and mix item by item, so the dishes you push are ones that both sell and earn.
Will a menu audit guarantee more orders?
No. It gives you a clear, item-level view of which dishes to promote, reprice, simplify or remove, and how to price and combine them. How much that moves your orders depends on your brand, your market and how the changes are carried out, so no specific number is promised upfront. The recommendations are yours to act on.
Related guides, services and insights
Restaurant menu engineering and food photography
Menu engineering means deciding which dishes to promote, reprice, simplify or remove, based on how often each sells and what it earns after ingredient cost.
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3 min readAsk us about the menu audit
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