Add-ons & options
Add-ons let a customer customise an dish — extras, choices, preferences. You build a group once with its own options, prices and rules, then attach it to as many dishes as it applies to, so one group is maintained in one place even when it appears on thirty dishes.
Variants or add-ons?
Section titled “Variants or add-ons?”Two mechanisms, and choosing correctly keeps both your menu and your reports clean.
| Variants | Add-ons | |
|---|---|---|
| The customer picks | Exactly one | None, one, or several — by your rules |
| Typical use | Size, portion, base | Extras, choices, preferences |
| Effect on price | Sets the price | Adds to it, or does not change it |
| Example | Small / Medium / Large | Extra cheese +1.00 · No onions |
The rule of thumb: if the dish cannot exist without the choice, it is a variant. If the choice sits on top of it, it is an add-on.
Getting this wrong is the commonest menu modelling mistake, and it shows up in reporting — variants report as the dish sold, add-ons report as extras attached. Model sizes as add-ons and you lose the ability to see which size actually sells.
Building a group
Section titled “Building a group”A group is a named set of related options. For each one you decide:
- The options inside it, each with its own name and price. Zero is a valid price: “no onions” costs nothing and matters enormously to the kitchen.
- Required or optional — must the customer choose, or may they skip it?
- How many selections — a minimum and a maximum.
Then attach it to every dish it applies to. Because the group is shared, correcting a price or adding an option updates every attached dish at once.
Four shapes cover almost everything
Section titled “Four shapes cover almost everything”| Group | Rule | Options |
|---|---|---|
| Choose your sauce | Required, exactly 1 | Garlic · BBQ · Hot honey |
| Extras | Optional, up to 5 | Extra cheese +1.00 · Bacon +1.50 |
| Preference | Required, exactly 1 | Rare · Medium · Well done, all free |
| Make it a meal | Optional, up to 1 | Side and a drink +4.50 |
A forced single choice, a capped multi-select, a free required preference, and an optional upsell. Start with these before inventing anything exotic — complex option rules are hard for customers and harder for kitchens.
What the customer sees
Section titled “What the customer sees”Groups appear in the order you set, with required ones first and clearly marked. The price updates live as they choose, so nobody is surprised at checkout.
Long option lists are where customers give up. If a group has more than about eight options, that is usually two groups, or an dish that should have been two dishes.
Availability
Section titled “Availability”Add-on groups and individual options can be switched off, with a timed re-enable, just like an dish. That is how you stop selling an extra you have run out of without pulling the dishes that carry it — see Availability.
Staff can do it from the partner app, so the person who discovers the shortage is the person who fixes it.
Keeping option data healthy
Section titled “Keeping option data healthy”- Reuse groups; do not clone them. Two “Toppings” groups become two different prices within a month.
- Review prices when dish prices change. Add-on prices are set once and then forgotten, and they quietly stop covering cost.
- Delete what you no longer sell. An option nobody has chosen in six months is noise on a screen a customer is trying to read quickly.
- Watch the kitchen’s view. Every option you add appears on a ticket. A group with twelve options produces tickets nobody can read at speed.
Related: Building your menu · Availability · Order lifecycle · What customers experience
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