Set Your Menu Pricing Strategy

Last updated: Apr 8, 2026, 10:01 AM

Learn how to use different pricing strategies for your menus and items.

In this Article:

 

Menu Pricing Strategy Overview

Toast offers a variety of pricing options that provide flexibility to items and groups. This article will cover group pricing, time-specific pricing, item-level pricing, and size pricing configurations through the menu manager page. For price editing with the menu builder tool (base pricing, size pricing, and open pricing), see this Support Center article: Set Your Menu Pricing Strategy with the Menu Builder.
 

To begin, log in to Toast Web and navigate to Menus > Menu management > Menu manager.

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Group Pricing Strategy

Group pricing allows you to configure one set price for a whole group of items. This can be used when appetizers, drinks, or other items have the same price. 

  1. Within Menu manager, select the name of the menu group you'd like to assign a group pricing strategy to.
  2. A settings panel will appear on the right side of the screen. Select Advanced settings next to the name of the menu group. 
  3. Scroll down to the Pricing section and select Yes for Menu group provides pricing?.
  4. Then, add the price in the Base Price field
  5. Save and publish your changes when complete. 

 

Any new item added to this group will now inherit the specified base price. However, you can make exceptions to group pricing by entering a different price value for a new item in the group. Individual pricing can override group pricing. In the example below, all of the drinks except "Iced Tea" have inherited the group-level price.

 

example of individual price overriding group pricing


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Item-Level Pricing (Base Price) Strategy

The majority of menu items use item-level pricing, meaning the price is specific to each item on the menu.

You can enter an item-level price in a few ways:


To proceed from the Menu manager page:

  1. Use the arrow icons on the left side of the menu names to open your menu groups and subgroups as needed until you see a list of items. Select the name of the item you'd like to add a price to.
  2. A settings panel will appear on the right side of the screen. Scroll to the Pricing section.
  3. For the Pricing strategy setting, select Base price.
  4. Enter a value in the Base price field.
  5. Save and Publish all changes when you're finished.

 

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Time-Specific Pricing Strategy

With time-specific pricing, you can set the price of a menu group or menu item to automatically adjust based on the time of day or day of the week. This pricing model can be especially useful for Happy Hour or weekly special menu items.

To set up time-specific pricing: 

  1. Use the arrow icons on the left side of the menu names to open your menu groups and subgroups as needed until you see a list of items. Select the name of the item you'd like to add a price to.
  2. A settings panel will appear on the right side of the screen. Scroll to the Pricing section.
  3. Select Learn about other available pricing strategies.
  4. Next to Time-specific price, select Set up.
  5. This will bring you to the advanced settings page for the menu item. Select Time Specific Price for the Pricing Strategy setting.
  6. Enter a Base Price.
  7. A Time Prices table will appear in this section. Select + Add  to create a window of time when the price should be changed. Choose the Time and Day settings to meet your restaurant's needs.
  8. Repeat step 7 for any other time intervals when the price needs to be adjusted. You can select the trash can icon at any time to delete a Time Price rule.
  9. Save and publish your changes.


Note: Time-specific pricing will appear in reporting in the Product Mix (PMIX) report, where pricing is reported as an average of the price every time the item was sold. For example, if you sell 100 beers at $10 and 50 beers at $5 during Happy Hour, the price shown in the PMIX report would be $8.33. Learn more about menu reporting in this Support Center article, Product Mix (PMIX) Report Overview.


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Bulk Edit Time-Specific Pricing

Once you've configured individual items or groups to use time-specific pricing, you can modify the time-specific price from the item/group page or use the price editor tool to modify both base and time prices in bulk. For more information on using the price editor, check out this Support Center article, Use the Price Editor Tool. 

Note: You will not be able to use the price editor to modify time-specific prices unless you have previously configured the item(s) to use the time-specific pricing model.


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Size Pricing Strategy

Size pricing allows you to identify multiple size categories and create a price accordingly. Size pricing can be set at the group or item level. Additionally, size pricing can be used at the modifier level. This pricing strategy can be helpful for menu items like Chicken Wings -- you can create prices depending on the number of wings sold (6 or 12, for example).

To set up size pricing for a group or an item: 

  1. Use the arrow icons on the left side of the menu names to open your menu groups and subgroups as needed until you see a list of items. Select the name of the item you'd like to add a price to.
  2. A settings panel will appear on the right side of the screen. Scroll to the Pricing section.
  3. For the Pricing strategy setting, select Size price.
  4. Enter a value in the Base price field.
  5. A size pricing table will appear below, where you'll be able to set and name each size and the respective pricing. Select + Add size price to create a size and enter a name and price for it. Repeat for as many sizes as needed for this item or group. To delete a size, select the trash can icon.
  6. Save and Publish all changes when you're finished.

 

Note: Size pricing is limited in that it will not appear in reporting. For the Chicken Wings example, the number of wings sold would be reported, but it would not be broken down into how many of each size were sold. If you want to track the sizes, create "6 Wings" and "12 Wings" as different menu items.

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Other Menu Pricing Strategies

Depending on your restaurant setup, you may prefer to use a menu-specific pricing strategy. With menu-specific pricing, the price of a menu item changes based on the menu it was ordered from. For example, a menu item costs $5 when it is ordered from the Lunch menu and $7 when it is ordered from the Dinner menu. To learn more, check out this support article: Build Happy Hour Menus With Menu-Specific Pricing.