DishMath vs Platematics

DishMath gives independent restaurants a way to examine the costs and margins of individual menu items, then sends weekly recommendations by SMS. It calculates food cost, labor cost, and contribution margin from POS sales and supplier invoices. Its weekly menu analysis sorts dishes into Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles, or Dogs according to popularity and margin. Listed connections include Toast, Square for Restaurants, Clover, QuickBooks Online, and Xero, as well as labor tools, supplier invoice sources, and services such as DoorDash and OpenTable. TouchBistro, Lightspeed, and Revel connections are labeled beta; CSV import is offered as a fallback. The product runs on web and provides an API, including rate-limited REST access and webhooks for agencies and accountants. Group costs $149 a month, billed month-to-month; Solo costs $199 a month, billed month-to-month. Annual billing is listed as two months free. There is no free plan, but a 14-day trial is available.

Platematics is web-based menu engineering software for restaurants. It classifies menu items as Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles, or Dogs by comparing each item's contribution margin and popularity with the restaurant's own menu average. POS sales data can sync nightly from Square, Toast, and Clover, and supplier invoices can be uploaded for OCR line-item reading and menu mapping. The free Starter plan provides monthly analysis for up to 50 items, manual food cost entry, dashboard and snapshot history, and PDF exports. Pro costs $49 a month and adds weekly analysis, email alerts, unlimited items, invoice scanning, a price simulator, AI ordering suggestions, an AP payables dashboard, and advanced reporting. The simulator previews the margin effect of a price change; AI ordering uses par levels and POS sales velocity to prepare a reorder list for approval. Annual costs $490 a year and includes multi-location dashboards, cross-location reports, an accountant referral portal, and priority support. Pro signup offers a 14-day trial.