How much does a restaurant website cost in the US?

A US restaurant website typically costs $1,000 to $3,000 for a simple menu-and-hours site built by a freelancer, according to published ranges from Ajroni and Rovela, with DIY templates lower. Add reservations, events and properly designed menu pages and you're usually in the $2,000 to $7,000 band. A custom build with native, commission-free online ordering usually runs $8,000 to $20,000. Don't ignore the monthly bill, though. Reservation and ordering software, not hosting, is where most of the recurring money goes.

A lot of the pages answering this question come from platforms and builders with their own plans to sell, so I've pulled their published ranges together and priced it the way restaurants actually grow: menu first, then bookings and events, then your own ordering. Where I've built something similar, I say so.

What does a restaurant website cost in the US at a glance?

US restaurant websites range from about $1,000 for a menu-only freelancer build to $45,000+ for a multi-location group. Running costs go from roughly $20 to $1,500 a month. The table below breaks it down by stage. These are published ranges from US-facing sources, not my prices.

Who builds it changes the number too. Owner.com puts a 5–10 page freelancer build at $1K to $5K. Emergent quotes agencies at $1,500 to $10,000+ upfront.

How much does a menu-only restaurant website cost?

A menu-only US restaurant website usually costs $1,000 to $3,000 from a freelancer. Template builds on Wix or Squarespace can come in as low as $300 to $800. By menu-only I mean a homepage, a menu page, opening hours, a map, a phone number and maybe a gallery. Published ranges from Ajroni and Rovela put most freelancer-built basic restaurant sites around $1,000 to $3,000, and Evergreen says lightly customized Wix or Squarespace templates land around $300–$800.

What moves the price inside this tier:

• Menu as HTML, not a PDF. A real text menu reads properly on a phone, Google can index it and AI assistants can quote it. It takes longer than uploading a PDF. I'd still call it the most useful thing on the whole site.
• Who edits the menu. If your manager changes prices every week, the menu has to be a structured list they can edit, not a designed image.
• Photography. Your own food photos cost money. Stock photos of somebody else's dishes cost you trust.
• Local SEO basics. Restaurant schema, Google Business Profile details that match the site, and fast mobile load times. My free Schema Markup Generator writes the Restaurant JSON-LD for you.

This tier can move fast. For Raasa Restaurant, an Indian restaurant in Locksbottom, I built a coming-soon site on WordPress and Elementor overnight and put it live. If all you need is to exist online before opening day, a small site is the right call. You can add to it later.

What do table bookings and events add to the cost?

Table bookings mostly add a software subscription: $149 to $499 a month for OpenTable, or $289 to $459 for Resy. Event and private dining pages are what push the build itself into the $2,000 to $7,000 range. They're two different jobs. Table reservations usually run on a third-party system. Events and private dining are usually pages on your own site, sometimes with paid tickets.

Reservation software

Most US restaurants embed OpenTable or Resy rather than build their own booking system. That subscription often costs more than the web development does.

Eat App also points out that OpenTable plans sit on a 12-month auto-renewing contract. Read the terms before you sign. Embedding the widget properly is a small web job: styled to match your site, tracked in GA4, with a phone number as a fallback. You're paying for the subscription, not the embed.

Events and private dining pages

This is where having your own website pays off. A wine dinner, a holiday menu or a private dining room needs a page you control, an enquiry form that lands in the right inbox, and sometimes a paid deposit or ticket.

On Cyprianis, a restaurant in Locksbottom, I built a new Elementor homepage, an events listing and a private dining template from the Figma design. The templates are what keep costs down later. Once an event layout exists, your staff can add new events themselves instead of paying a developer each time.

If you sell tickets, Stripe Checkout on your own page means no ticketing platform takes a cut. I've built paid event pages for a Thames island venue, Ravens Ait, which has 20+ event pages with Stripe bookings and HubSpot forms.

How much does commission-free online ordering cost?

You can rent commission-free ordering from about $99 a month (ChowNow's entry plan), or build it into your own WooCommerce website for roughly $8,000 to $20,000. Compare that with DoorDash taking 15% to 30% of every delivery order. This is the biggest decision on the list and the biggest jump in price. There are three ways to go.

1. Stay on the delivery apps only. No build cost. But DoorDash charges 15%, 25% or 30% commission on delivery orders depending on your plan, and 6% on pickup. On a $40 order on the 25% Plus plan, $10 is gone before you've paid for the food.

2. Rent a commission-free ordering platform. ChowNow's entry plan, Launch Lite, is $99 a month for direct ordering with no commission. All-in platforms like Popmenu charge a monthly subscription that bundles the website, ordering and marketing; check Popmenu's pricing page for current plans. It's quick to set up. The catch is you rent it forever, and the platform controls the checkout.

3. Own your ordering on your website. That means a WooCommerce store built for food: Stripe payments, pickup and delivery rules, and kitchen tickets that print on their own. In the market data this is the custom build with native ordering at $8,000–$20,000. A single location with a simple menu and simple rules can come in lower. After launch you pay hosting, plugin licenses and card processing. No per-order commission.

I've built this one. For Whitfield Service Station in Dover, England, I set up WooCommerce online ordering with a custom delivery radius plugin. It checks the customer's address with the Google Maps Geocoding API, adds a fee based on distance and blocks addresses outside the zone. Paid orders print straight to a receipt printer through PrintNode, so nobody has to watch a screen. The client is in the UK, but a US build works the same way: it would take payments through Stripe, and the radius rules already run in miles.

The same WooCommerce setup handles click and collect time slots for pickup. If you want the full break-even maths between the apps and your own site, read DoorDash commission vs your own ordering site.

Should you use a restaurant platform or own your website?

Use a website builder or a restaurant platform while your order volume is still unproven. Own your website and ordering once regulars are paying app commission every week. You're trading upfront cost against monthly fees and control.

Here's how I'd think about it. If you've just opened, a builder or platform is fine. When you've got steady repeat customers and you're paying commission on them every week, owning the ordering usually starts to pay for itself. That's when it's worth adding up a year of platform fees and app commission and putting it next to a one-off build.

What are the monthly costs after launch?

Hosting alone runs about $20 to $100 a month. Reservation software ($149 to $499 a month) and ordering fees are usually the bigger part of the bill. Whichever route you pick, budget for:

• Hosting and domain. Rovela estimates $20 to $100 a month for a basic site.
• Reservation software. $149–$499 a month for OpenTable or $289–$459 for Resy, as in the table above.
• Ordering. Platform fees, or card processing and plugin renewals if you own it.
• Maintenance. WordPress and WooCommerce need updates, backups and someone keeping an eye on checkout. Get the scope of any maintenance retainer in writing first.

How long does a restaurant website take to build?

A coming-soon or menu-only page can go live in a day. A site with event templates takes longer, and online ordering takes the longest. How long exactly depends on scope and how quickly you send content. Raasa went live overnight. A full site with event templates needs design rounds and real content. Ordering needs the whole menu with modifiers, the delivery rules, payment testing and the printer set up before you take a single real order.

What should you ask a developer before hiring?

Ask five things: who updates the menu, where bookings go, how ordering works, what happens when something breaks on a busy night, and what every monthly cost is.

1. 1

   Who updates the menu?

   Ask to see how a non-technical manager changes a price or adds a special. It should take a minute, not a support ticket.

2. 2

   Where do bookings and enquiries go?

   Confirm the reservation widget, event forms and private dining enquiries each reach a named inbox or CRM, and are tracked in GA4.

3. 3

   How is ordering handled?

   Ask whether ordering is embedded from a platform or built natively, what each order costs you, and who owns the customer data.

4. 4

   What happens on a Friday night?

   Ask how orders reach the kitchen, what happens if the printer goes offline, and who you call when checkout breaks.

5. 5

   What are the monthly costs?

   Get every recurring line in writing: hosting, plugins, reservation software, ordering fees and maintenance.

Not sure what you need yet? My free Project Scope Generator turns a two-line idea into a feature list you can send to any developer.

What's the next step?

Pick the stage you need right now: menu only, bookings and events, or your own ordering. Then write down what you spend each month on reservation software and delivery app commission. Send me both through the contact page and I'll tell you which route makes sense for you. If ordering is the priority, have a look at my WooCommerce stores and online ordering service first.