How much does a restaurant website cost in Puerto Rico, and what should it include?
With Esensee, a restaurant website starts at $499 one-time plus a monthly plan. Here's what it must include, which plan fits a café, a restaurant with tourists or a food truck, and how to take orders on WhatsApp.
If you run a restaurant, a café or a food truck, the question comes up early: how much will the website cost, and what does it need so it actually helps? Here are both answers, with Esensee's real prices. For the bigger picture (what you pay once, what you pay every year, and what to ask when you compare quotes), see how much a website costs in Puerto Rico.
How much a restaurant website costs
Esensee has three plans. Which one fits depends on how much you have to show and whether you want online orders.
- Starter, from $499 one-time plus a monthly plan: one page with your menu as text, your hours, your address with a map and a WhatsApp button. It includes the domain, 2 business email addresses and your Google Maps profile set up.
- Business, from $1,200 one-time plus a monthly plan: up to 6 pages, in Spanish and English, with 5 email addresses on Google email (you use them in the Gmail app) and Google Maps.
- Custom, quoted separately: online orders with payment, online reservations, or moving an old website.
That setup fee is paid once: half before work starts, and half on the day the site goes live. From that day the monthly plan starts. It covers hosting, the domain renewal, email and updates (small changes to text, prices, hours and photos that you request by text message). Its price is set for each business on the free call, based on the plan and the number of email addresses. There's no long-term contract: you can cancel anytime with 30 days' notice.
What a restaurant website should include
What has to be there from day one, what helps if it applies to you, and what can wait:
| What | Why | When |
|---|---|---|
| Menu as text, with prices | Reads on a phone without zooming, and changes in one line | Must have |
| Hours that match Google | If they don't match, people don't know which to believe | Must have |
| Address with a map and Waze | One tap and they're on their way | Must have |
| WhatsApp and call buttons | That's where questions and orders arrive | Must have |
| Real photos of your food and your place | People choose with their eyes | Must have |
| How people can pay (cash, card, ATH Móvil) | One of the questions people ask most | Must have |
| Spanish and English | If you get tourists or visitors from off the island | Nice to have |
| Catering and events | Big orders, with a way to ask for a quote | Nice to have |
| Online orders with payment | When WhatsApp can't keep up | Can wait |
| Online reservations | If you fill up and people book days ahead | Can wait |
| Online gift cards | For December and special dates | Can wait |
ATH Móvil is Puerto Rico's phone payment app, and Waze is a popular driving app here.
Which plan fits which restaurant
| Your business | Plan | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Café or bakery with a short menu | Starter, from $499 one-time + monthly plan | Everything fits on one page: menu, hours, map and WhatsApp |
| Restaurant with tourists or visitors | Business, from $1,200 one-time + monthly plan | Full menu, catering and events, in Spanish and English |
| Food truck that moves around | Starter, from $499 one-time + monthly plan | One page with where you are this week, your menu and "book the truck" |
| Restaurant that wants online orders without paying an app's commission | Custom, quoted | The order page is yours, and the order comes straight to you |
A café in Caguas with ten items on the menu doesn't need six pages. A restaurant in Old San Juan where tourists ask questions in English almost always does. You can see what a restaurant site includes on our page about websites for restaurants.
The menu: as text, with prices, and up to date
The menu is the first thing people look for on a restaurant website. It has to be written as text, not as a PDF or a photo of the printed menu. On a phone, a PDF has to download and a photo makes people zoom in. Neither one can be searched or copied, and Google reads text better.
Put the price next to each dish. A short line saying what's in it helps, especially tourists. If you have daily or weekly specials, set them apart so they stand out.
With Esensee, changing a price, taking a dish off or adding the special is an update included in the monthly plan: you text us the change and we make it. A full seasonal menu or a new section is a bigger job, and it's quoted separately.
Before you send us your menu Type it into a document or a note on your phone, with each dish's price next to it. It's what saves the most time when we build the site.
Your hours and the days you close
Your hours have to be near the top, and they have to match exactly on your website, your Google profile and your social media. If the website says you open at 11 and Google says 12, people don't know which to believe, and some don't come.
Holidays are the usual problem: Good Friday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the week you close for vacation. Google has an option for those days in your profile, explained in its help on special hours. Set them there and on your website at the same time.
For a food truck, "hours" also means place: where you are this week and at what time. That goes at the very top, because it's the first thing people want to know.
Your Google Maps profile
Many people find you first on Google Maps and then open your website, so both have to say the same thing: name, address, phone, hours and a link to your menu.
Every Esensee plan includes setting up your profile. If you'd rather do it yourself, the steps are in the guide on how to set up your Google Maps profile. A food truck without a fixed address can show up as a service-area business, without showing an address.
Photos of your food and your place
You don't need professional photos. Good phone photos, in natural light and during the day, work. Pick your most ordered dishes, your place and the entrance, so people recognize it when they arrive.
Ten good photos beat fifty so-so ones. You send yours on WhatsApp, and we crop and place them.
Orders: start with WhatsApp
Many restaurants start with a WhatsApp button and a call button, and it works well. The order goes straight to your phone, with no middleman and no commission. The button can open the chat with a message already written, like "Hi, I'd like to order for pickup," so the conversation starts clear.
When WhatsApp orders become too many to handle, or you want customers to pay when they order, it's time for your own order page. That's a Custom plan: we quote it based on what you need (pickup, paying online, kitchen hours). The same goes for online reservations. Delivery apps can stay if they work for you. The difference is that on your own website, the order and the customer are yours.
To find out which plan fits your restaurant and what the monthly plan would be, book a free 30-minute call, in English or Spanish.
Questions
How much does a restaurant website cost in Puerto Rico?
With Esensee, from $499 on the Starter plan: one page with your menu, hours, map and WhatsApp. The Business plan (from $1,200) goes up to 6 pages in Spanish and English. On top of that there's a monthly plan, priced on the free call.
Can I put my menu up as a PDF?
Better not. On a phone, a PDF has to be downloaded and opened, and few people bother. A text menu reads without zooming, can be searched, and changes in one line.
Can I take online orders without paying a commission?
Yes. The most direct way is the WhatsApp button, which comes with every plan. Your own order page, with online payment, is a Custom plan that we quote on the call.