ChowNow Pricing 2026: Plans, Fees, and Real Monthly Cost

ChowNow's cheapest plan costs $249 a month. By the time you add the setup fee, the per-transaction fee, and the app and hardware line items printed under the pricing table, a small restaurant doing $10,000 a month in direct orders pays roughly $641 a month on Launch.

That isn't a gotcha. ChowNow prints every one of those fees on its own pricing page. They're just easy to skim past. This article adds them up, explains the two customer-facing fees, and summarizes the contract terms in ChowNow's Restaurant Agreement, all as of 2026.

Disclosure: Menuline competes with ChowNow. ChowNow has real strengths, and we cover them below. Confirm every number with ChowNow before you sign.

What are ChowNow's plans?

ChowNow publishes three plans, per its pricing page as of 2026:

Every plan includes direct online ordering, an SEO website, a branded mobile app, ChowNow's commission-free marketplace, its Discovery Network, catering, loyalty and rewards, print marketing (500 flyers), fraud and chargeback protection, 20+ POS integrations, delivery management, reporting, and 24/7 phone and chat support.

What Launch leaves out, per the comparison table: QR code ordering, automated SMS, on-demand email and SMS campaigns, CSV upload of in-store diners, third-party order aggregation, and centralized menu management across direct and third-party channels. If you want your DoorDash and Uber Eats tablets consolidated, that's a Grow feature, so budget $349.

What fees come on top of the plan?

This is the "Additional Fees" list printed under ChowNow's pricing table:

Two details worth knowing:

• The setup fee may be the top of the range. The pricing page shows $119 to $499. ChowNow's Restaurant Agreement lists "a one (1) time implementation fee of four hundred ninety-nine dollars ($499) for Elevate, Grow, Launch, Premier and Pro." Ask which number applies to your quote.
• Flex Delivery can be split. ChowNow's Flex Delivery page recommends splitting the fee 50/50, $3.99 to you and $3.99 to the diner, with orders dispatched to Uber Direct or DoorDash Drive drivers. Coverage runs up to 10 miles with Uber and up to 8 miles with DoorDash Drive.

What does ChowNow cost at your volume?

The transaction fee is the one that grows with you. On a $30 ticket, 2.95% + $0.29 is $1.18, or about 3.9% of the order. Here is the Launch plan, billed monthly, at three volumes, assuming a $30 average ticket:

Moving up a tier adds a flat $100 a month each step. At the same $10,000 in monthly sales, Grow comes to about $741 ($349 + $392) and Elevate to about $841 ($449 + $392). On annual billing, each total drops by $20 (Launch), $30 (Grow), or $40 (Elevate).

To be fair to ChowNow, the transaction fee is card processing, and every platform that takes cards pays for processing somewhere. What matters is the rate you'll pay, so ask every vendor for it in writing, us included. ChowNow's advantage is that its rate is printed on the pricing page.

What does ChowNow's savings calculator assume?

ChowNow's pricing page has a "How much could you save?" calculator. It asks for your daily third-party orders and average order value, then estimates savings "based on an average 22% commission rate charged by third-party apps."

That's a reasonable middle figure. DoorDash's own pricing page lists 15%, 25%, and 30% delivery commissions depending on plan, and 6% on pickup. But the calculator answers a different question from the one on your invoice. It assumes the orders you move to ChowNow would otherwise have paid a marketplace commission. Orders from regulars who already call or walk in weren't paying 22% to begin with. When you run the calculator, enter only the delivery-app orders you realistically expect to move, then subtract the plan, setup, and transaction fees above. The honest savings number is usually smaller than the headline, and still often positive.

What does year one cost?

Fixed costs are where first-year budgets get surprised. On Launch, billed monthly:

Annual billing on Launch drops the plan line to $2,748 ($229 × 12), which puts year one at $2,966 to $3,766 before transaction fees. Transaction fees then add $2,300 to $9,400 a year across the volumes in the table above.

Does ChowNow charge diners a fee?

Sometimes, and it depends on where the order is placed.

• ChowNow App and eat.chownow.com: 7.5%. ChowNow's support article says: "to keep ChowNow 100% commission-free for restaurants, we apply an affordable 'Support Local Fee.'" It is "7.5% of the subtotal" and "only applied on orders placed on the ChowNow App or eat.chownow.com."
• Discovery Network: menu prices may be raised. Orders that come through ChowNow's Discovery Network (Google, Apple Maps, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Snap, and others) carry fees. ChowNow's FAQ says orders are commission-free "with Profit Protector enabled." Its Discovery Network page describes Profit Protector as "an optional feature that automatically adjusts menu prices on Discovery Network to offset standard fees," which you can switch on or off. So the diner covers the fee through a higher menu price. The pages we read don't publish the fee percentage.

Our side, symmetrically: Menuline adds a 5% platform fee at the diner's checkout on direct orders, including orders on your own website. Per ChowNow's support article, its 7.5% fee applies only to its app and marketplace site, not to your website. On your own site, that's a point in ChowNow's favor, and you should weigh it.

What do the contract terms say?

ChowNow's Restaurant Agreement (last updated August 6, 2026) has three clauses to read before signing:

1. Auto-renewal. The agreement "shall commence on the Effective Date and continue to auto-renew for the same plan term agreed upon by the Restaurant." If you pick annual billing to save the $20 to $40 a month, expect an annual term that renews.
2. How to cancel. Launch, Grow, and Elevate subscribers must submit a cancellation request form or complete a cancellation consultation call with a Restaurant Success Manager. "Upon completion of this cancellation process, the Agreement shall automatically terminate in thirty (30) days."
3. Fee changes. "ChowNow may modify any of the foregoing fees at any time on written notice to Restaurant," effective 30 days after notice.

None of that is a red flag on its own. It does mean the smart move is to calendar your renewal date the day you sign.

When is ChowNow worth the price?

ChowNow was selling commission-free ordering before most of the market, and some of what it includes is hard to match:

• Discovery channels. A marketplace app plus ordering buttons across Google, Apple Maps, Yelp, and more. Menuline doesn't run a consumer marketplace.
• SMS marketing. Grow and Elevate include 2,000 and 5,000 SMS credits. Menuline's marketing is email only.
• Order aggregation. Grow and above pull third-party orders and menus into one place.
• Courier delivery on tap. Flex Delivery dispatches Uber Direct and DoorDash Drive drivers. Menuline's ordering is pickup only today.
• Fraud and chargeback coverage. ChowNow's FAQ says it covers chargebacks "no questions asked."
• 20+ POS integrations, including Toast, Square, Revel, and Clover, per its FAQ.

If you run meaningful delivery volume without drivers, or you want SMS and marketplace exposure in one bill, ChowNow's Grow plan is a reasonable buy.

How does Menuline's pricing compare?

Menuline is $29/month (Starter) or $99/month (Growth), with the first 3 months at $1/month, month-to-month, and 0% commission on every plan. Starter includes an AI-optimized SEO website, commission-free online ordering, automated SEO pages, and loyalty and rewards. Growth adds a branded iOS and Android app and AI-powered email marketing. Menuline handles setup and migration with a dedicated specialist, and there's no setup fee.

ChowNow figures per its published pricing page, support center, and Restaurant Agreement as of 2026. Confirm current details with ChowNow.

On subscription alone, Growth costs $150 a month less than Launch, or $1,800 a year, before setup fees. You'll want to weigh that against ChowNow's discovery channels, SMS, and courier network, and against the diner fee difference above. For side-by-side profiles of other options, see the best ChowNow alternatives. If you're also pricing Popmenu, our Popmenu pricing breakdown does the same math.

How should you decide?

1. Estimate direct sales honestly for the next six months. Use the volume table above to get your ChowNow total.
2. Decide if you need Grow features. Aggregation, SMS, and QR ordering are the usual reasons to move up from Launch.
3. Ask for the setup fee in writing. Get the exact figure between $119 and $499.
4. Calendar the renewal date if you choose annual billing.
5. Check where your orders will come from. Direct orders from your own site are the cheapest orders on any platform. The free Menuline AI grader shows how well your site and Google profile are set up to win them.

The bottom line

Per its published pricing as of 2026, ChowNow costs $249, $349, or $449 a month (less on annual billing), plus a $119 to $499 setup fee, 2.95% + $0.29 per transaction, a $99/year Apple fee for the branded app, and optional printer and Flex Delivery costs. Diners pay a 7.5% Support Local Fee on ChowNow App and eat.chownow.com orders. A $10,000-a-month restaurant on Launch pays about $641 a month all-in. ChowNow earns that for restaurants that want discovery channels, SMS, and on-demand couriers. If you mainly need a strong website and commission-free ordering, Menuline does it for $29 to $99 a month, with a 5% fee paid by diners at checkout.