📈 rest-revenue

Dynamic / Surge Pricing

Dynamic / Surge Pricing adds an automatic markup — a percentage or flat amount on top of the normal price — during the specific days and hours you define, for your whole menu or one category, so peak-demand periods (Friday/Saturday dinner, festival nights) can carry a higher price without manually repricing every item.

📍 Menu path: Revenue & Pricing → Dynamic / Surge Pricing

👤 Who uses it: All roles with the Menu Management feature enabled; creating and editing rules is a management action

Overview

Unlike Happy Hours (which discounts), every surge rule here always adds to the price — a rule's Surge Value is shown as "+15%" or "+₹50" on the list, never a reduction.

Each rule has a Name, a Start Time and End Time, and specific Days of Week it runs on, so you might set one rule for "Fri–Sat 7–10pm" and a separate, larger surge for a specific festival date range.

Surge Type is either Percentage (e.g. +15%) or Fixed Amount (e.g. +₹50 flat) added to the normal price of every qualifying item.

Applies To scopes the surge to All Items or a Specific Category — you can, for example, surge only your à la carte menu while leaving set menus and combos at their normal price during the same window.

A "Max Surge" KPI tile shows the highest percentage surge currently configured across all your rules, giving a quick sanity check that no rule is set unreasonably high by mistake.

Each rule has its own Active toggle to switch it on/off without deleting its configuration — useful for testing a surge before committing to it every week.

Before You Start

You must have the Menu Management feature enabled on your plan.
Decide in advance whether a surge should hit the whole menu or just one category — Applies To defines the scope at creation and should be reviewed before turning a rule on.

Step-by-Step Guide

1 Set up a weekend peak-time surge

Click "New Rule" and give it a Name (e.g. "Weekend Dinner Surge").
Tick Friday and Saturday under Days of Week, and set Start Time / End Time to your peak window (e.g. 19:00–22:00).
Set Surge Type to Percentage and enter a value (e.g. 15).
Set Applies To → All Items (or Specific Category if you only want to surge certain items), then save with Active turned on.

2 Surge one category only

Create or edit a rule and set Applies To → Specific Category.
Enter the category name exactly as it appears on your menu (e.g. "Seafood").
Set your Surge Type and Value, then save — only items in that category will carry the markup during the rule's active window.

3 Sanity-check your configured surges

Check the "Max Surge" KPI tile at the top of the page.
If it shows a higher percentage than you intended, review each rule's Surge Value to find and correct the one causing it.

Every Field & Button, Explained

Field / Button	What it does
`Surge Type (Percentage/Fixed Amount)`	Percentage adds a % markup on top of normal price; Fixed Amount adds a flat currency amount to every qualifying item.
`Surge Value`	The markup magnitude — always additive (shown as "+X%" or "+₹X" on the list), never a discount.
`Applies To (All Items/Category)`	Scopes the surge to your whole menu or one named category; category name must match your actual menu category text.
`Days of Week / Start-End Time`	Defines exactly when the surge is live — a rule with no matching day/time window never applies.
`Max Surge KPI`	The single highest percentage surge value across all configured rules, shown as a quick sanity-check tile.
`Active toggle`	Switches a fully-configured rule on or off without deleting it.

Tips & Best Practices

Keep surge percentages modest and clearly justified by real peak demand (e.g. Friday/Saturday dinner rush) — an aggressive surge can feel punitive to guests if it isn't tied to an obvious high-demand period.
Use Fixed Amount instead of Percentage when you want predictable, easy-to-explain pricing (e.g. "+₹50 during peak hours") rather than a percentage that varies by item price.
Test a new surge rule for a single evening with Active toggled on, then review sales/feedback before rolling it out as a standing weekly rule.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

A price surge isn't showing up at billing during what should be a peak window.

Confirm the rule's Active toggle is on and that the current day/time genuinely falls inside its configured Days of Week and Start/End Time — outside that exact window, no surge applies.

The surge applied to items I meant to exclude.

Check Applies To — All Items surges your entire menu; switch to Specific Category and enter the exact category name if you only want certain items affected.

The Max Surge tile shows a percentage I don't recognise.

It reflects the highest Surge Value among all your rules, including inactive ones — review every rule's value, not just the ones currently switched on, to find the source.