TheWhere do our prices come from?
Most of our prices come from menu-price websites, delivery-app listings and the chains' own sites. Very few chains publish a national price list, so we usually can't copy prices from an official source. Instead, we read the best public source we can find for each chain in each country, and we record exactly what we used.
Every menu page carries a "last verified" date. Behind it, we keep a note of the source, the date that source gives for its prices, and any caveats. That's how we can tell you, for example, that our US KFC prices come from a delivery menu, or that our UK KFC prices come from one London branch.
Which sources do we use?
In rough order of preference:
- The chain's own website or app, when it shows prices for a country. This is the cleanest source, but it's rare.
- A named branch on a delivery app, such as a specific KFC on Just Eat. This is a real menu, but delivery prices are often higher than in store.
- Menu-price websites that track chains country by country, such as fastfoodsmenu.com, fastfoodmenuprices.com, PriceMyMeal and Menuspot. These cover far more chains, but they aren't tied to one branch.
Whichever we use, we sanity-check the items and prices against what we know about the brand. Aggregator sites sometimes attach the wrong menu to a brand or mix up two businesses with similar names. When we've caught that, we've left the data out.
What does "Estimated prices" mean on a page?
Some menu-price websites don't read every country's prices from a real menu. For some markets, they model prices from other countries and label them as estimates. When the source we used says that, the menu page shows an amber "Estimated prices" notice, and the page description says so too.
We don't treat those figures as verified. In our guides, we either leave them out of comparisons or flag them clearly, and we mark them on the price index. We're replacing them with prices read from real menus: as of 15 October 2026, only 3 of our 343 menus still carry the notice, down from 36 a week earlier.
How do we date prices?
Each menu page shows the date we last checked it. If a source gives its own date, we keep that in our notes too, so an old price never looks newer than it is.
We aim to re-check every menu about every three months, starting with the pages people read most. We don't always manage that. As of 10 October 2026, 62 of our menus were last checked more than 90 days ago. Our Thai menus, for example, still date from early 2025. Treat older pages with more caution.
Why do some pages list only a few items?
Because we only publish prices we can source. If we can't find a reliable price for an item, we leave it out. A short page isn't a shortcut. It means we found five prices we trust, not fifty we don't.
Are delivery prices the same as in-store prices?
Often not. Some of our sources take prices from a chain's delivery menu, and those can be higher than walking in. An analysis reported by CNBC in July 2024 found that app prices at 25 popular US chains averaged about 20% more than eating in. Where we know a price comes from a delivery menu, the menu page says so.
How do we convert currencies?
Our guides and comparison pages convert prices using a dated snapshot of central-bank exchange rates, mostly the European Central Bank's reference rates. We don't use a live feed, so the dollar figures are for rough comparison. Our currency converter lists every rate and its date.
What happens when we get something wrong?
We fix it and say so. In October 2026, for example, we corrected our KFC bucket guide, which had overstated how much bucket prices differ in dollars. We also withdrew a finding in our Big Mac vs Whopper guide that rested on estimated prices.
If you see a price that looks wrong, out of date or missing, please tell us. Our methodology page has a shorter summary of how we work.