Cafe website: what to put on it, examples and what it costs
A café website has one job: answer the questions people have on the way to you, on a phone, in a few seconds. Are you open right now? What do you have, and what does a latte cost? Where exactly are you? Can I order ahead and skip the line? A site that answers those four on its first screen beats a beautiful one that makes people dig.
Below: what a café or coffee shop website should have, layouts worth copying, what Wix, Squarespace, Square, Toast and others cost side by side, and a live sample café you can open on your phone.
1. What should a cafe website have?
In the order people look for them:
- Open or closed, today. "Open now until 3pm" near the top, then the week's hours. Cafés keep short and odd hours (closed Mondays, early close on Sundays), so this is the most checked line on the page.
- The menu as text, with every price. Coffee, tea, bakery, breakfast, lunch, each as its own group. Sizes and milk choices next to the drink they belong to.
- Address, a directions link and parking or transit notes. One tap opens the map app.
- A tap-to-call phone number. For the person asking whether you have gluten-free scones today.
- Order ahead for pickup. The morning rush is when a line costs you sales; an order placed on the walk over doesn't wait in it.
- A few real photos. The counter, the pastry case, your best drink. Three good ones beat twenty stock ones.
- Your Instagram, linked, not embedded. A feed that loads slowly pushes the menu down.
- The extras people ask about: wifi and laptops, outlets, dogs on the patio, catering boxes, gift cards. One line each.
Builders' own guides list the same core: menu, hours, location, contact and photos [1][2]. Ordering is where cafés differ most, and where the costs hide (below).
2. Cafe website examples worth copying
The café sites that work share a few patterns rather than one look:
- Drinks first. The menu opens on coffee, because that's what most visitors came for. Food follows.
- One calm colour and real photos. Light backgrounds, one accent colour from the shop's sign or cups, and photos of the actual counter.
- Hours and "Order" in the top band, visible without scrolling on a phone.
- Short pages. Home, menu, visit, maybe catering. Many of the best fit on one long page.
- Seasonal items on top. A short "This fall" group (pumpkin, chai, apple cake) that changes with the season, so regulars see something new.
Lists of "best café websites" mostly show designers' portfolios [1]. They look good, but many hide the menu in a PDF or behind a slow intro. Copy the patterns above, not the animations.
3. Cafe website layout: one page or five?
For most cafés, one page with clear sections works better than five thin pages: top band (name, open now, Order, Call), menu, visit (map, hours, parking), about (two lines and a photo), catering or events. If you add pages, keep the navigation to five links or fewer [2]. On a phone, every extra tap is a chance to give up and go to the café down the street.
Put the menu as high as you can. A big photo banner that pushes the menu below the first screen looks nice on a laptop and hides the menu on a phone.
4. How do I put my menu on my cafe website?
As text, not a PDF or a photo of the board. A PDF opens slowly and needs zooming on a phone, and Google can't read the dishes in a photo, so your oat-milk cortado never shows up in a search. Text also lets you mark one pastry sold out at 10am instead of disappointing someone at the counter.
Group it the way your board is: coffee, tea, other drinks, bakery, breakfast, lunch. Put add-ons (oat milk +$0.75, extra shot +$1) on the drinks they apply to. More on why this matters for search: how Google reads your menu.
If your menu is a PDF or a photo today, you don't need to retype it: several tools read it for you, including ours (below).
5. Can I take pickup orders without delivery-app fees?
Yes. Delivery apps charge a share of every order, also on pickup: DoorDash lists 6% on pickup orders and 15% to 30% on delivery [7]. Your own ordering link on your own site keeps the full price. What to look for:
- An order that rings your phone or the counter tablet, not an email nobody sees during the rush.
- A ready time you set: 5 minutes at 2pm, 15 at 8am.
- Who pays the card fee. Free plans often make it up per order: Square Online's free plan charges 3.3% + 30¢ on each online card order [5]; Owner.com takes 5% per order on its $249 plan and adds a 5% fee to guests [6].
Some cafés let customers pay at pickup, at the register, the way they pay now. That avoids an online card fee completely, at the cost of the occasional no-show; café orders are usually small, which keeps that risk small.
6. What a cafe website costs: Wix, Squarespace, Square, Toast and others
Prices as each company lists them, read in October 2026. Where a price is reported by others rather than listed, it says so.
| Option | Price | Pickup ordering | Fee per order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | Free plan; Light $17.77, Core $29.77, Business $39.77 a month, billed yearly [3] | On paid plans [3] | Card processing |
| Squarespace | Basic about $16; Core about $23–29 a month, billed yearly; prices changed in 2026, check [4] | Through ChowNow, not on Basic [4] | ChowNow's or card processing |
| Square Online | Free; Plus $49, Premium $149 a month [5] | Yes, card paid up front | 3.3% + 30¢ per online card order on Free [5] |
| Toast | Website and ordering reported at about $75–149 a month [8] | Yes, with Toast's register | Card processing, reported 3.5% + 15¢ [8] |
| Owner.com | $249 a month + 5% per order, or $499 a month [6] | Yes | 5% on the $249 plan, plus a 5% guest fee [6] |
| BentoBox | Quote only; reported $119–349 a month [9] | Yes | Varies |
| Full Room | Free; Pro $149 a year | Yes, customers pay at pickup | 0% |
A designer or agency is a different budget: roughly $200–800 for a site built on a template, and $2,000–10,000 for a custom one, by one agency's own estimate [1]. For a longer comparison across restaurant platforms, see how much a restaurant website costs.
7. Do I need my own .com for my cafe?
Not to start. A free address works from day one, and you can put it on your Google listing and QR code. Your own .com (bluedoorcafe.com rather than a builder's address) looks more established on cups, cards and the window, and it's yours if you ever change tools. A .com costs about $10–20 a year on its own; builders often include one only on paid plans or for the first year, so check what it renews at.
8. Free cafe website template, or a builder?
A free template (WordPress, Webflow, a code template) costs nothing up front but leaves you the hosting, the menu typing, updates and the ordering add-on. That suits an owner who enjoys building or has a designer friend. Most café owners want the site to run itself: a builder or a menu service that hosts it, keeps it fast on a phone and lets you change a price from your phone in a few seconds. The test: could you change today's soup between customers? If not, the tool is too heavy for a café.
9. Does a small cafe even need a website?
Many get by without one: a 2018 visit to about 1,500 London cafés found more than half had no website [10]. The ones that do have one gain the people who search "coffee near me", check hours before they leave the house, or want to order ahead. Instagram is good for today's special; it isn't good at hours, a full menu with prices, or ordering. A simple site is the address Instagram, Google and your QR code all point to.
A sample: Blue Door Café
Blue Door Café is a made-up café we use to show what the builder makes, in the "Counter" look for cafés and bakeries: calm and light, open hours and the Order button at the top, coffee first, then bakery and breakfast, each with its price.
Open Blue Door Café full screen, or see all five live samples.
Where Full Room fits
Full Room builds your café's site from the menu you already have: a link to your old site, a photo of your board, or a PDF. You check the drinks and prices, and go live the same day. Customers order ahead and pay you at the register; the order rings your phone.
- Free: the site, the QR print kit, unlimited orders the first month and up to 50 a month after. No card to start.
- Pro, $149 a year: your own .com (a new one we register, or the one you own pointed at your menu) and unlimited orders.
We don't take card payments before pickup. If you need prepaid orders or delivery, a tool like Square Online fits better.
Questions
How much does a cafe website cost?
From $0 for a free menu page with pickup ordering, to about $16–40 a month for site builders' paid plans, to $249–499 a month for restaurant platforms, as listed above. A custom site from a designer costs more up front.
What's the best website builder for a cafe?
The one that keeps your menu as text, shows today's hours at the top, takes pickup orders without a fee on each one, and lets you change a price from your phone. Compare the fee per order, not only the monthly price: at a few hundred orders a month, a 5% fee costs more than most plans.
Is a coffee shop website different from a cafe website?
Not much. A coffee shop puts drinks, sizes and milk choices first and often skips lunch; a café adds food. The same rules apply: open now, menu as text, order ahead, directions.
Can I change my menu from my phone?
With most builders, yes, though some menus live in a PDF you have to re-upload. In Full Room each dish and price is a field you edit on your phone, live right away.
Sources
- The 15 best cafe websites, FreshySites, read Oct 29, 2026.
- How to create a cafe website, Elementor, read Oct 29, 2026.
- Wix plans, Wix, read Oct 29, 2026.
- Squarespace pricing, Squarespace, and Squarespace's new pricing, Beancount, read Oct 29, 2026.
- Square Online pricing, Capterra, read Oct 29, 2026.
- Owner.com pricing, Owner, read Oct 29, 2026.
- DoorDash commission rates and pricing, DoorDash, read Oct 23, 2026.
- Toast online ordering cost, Restolabs, read Oct 29, 2026 (reported, not Toast's own list).
- BentoBox pricing and fees, Sauce, read Oct 29, 2026 (reported).
- What we learned from visiting 1,500 coffee shop and cafe websites, Coffee BI, May 2018.