How much should a restaurant spend on Instagram ads?

“How much should I spend?” is the first question every restaurant owner asks about ads, and the honest answer is that it depends on three numbers you already know: your average cheque, how many extra guests you want, and what you're willing to pay for each one. Here's how we work it out, plus the floor below which we won't run a campaign at all.

What is the minimum budget for restaurant Instagram ads?

We require a minimum of $300/mo in ad budget, paid directly to Meta. Below that, a local campaign can't reach enough nearby people for long enough to tell you anything true.

Why a floor at all? Because Meta's system needs a run of results (bookings, order clicks, direction requests) before it gets good at finding more of them. A budget that produces a handful of results a week keeps the campaign permanently in its learning phase, and you end up paying for guesses. A floor of $300/mo in a Canadian city is enough to run one booking campaign continuously to a tight local radius and actually see what a booking costs you.

Note that this is the media budget, the money that goes to Meta. It's separate from our management fee, which is a flat $150/mo on the Menu. We never hold or mark up your ad spend.

How do you work backwards from guests to a budget?

Decide how many extra guests a month you want, multiply by what you'll pay to win each one, and that's your budget. The “what you'll pay” number comes from your average cheque and your margin, and it's usually more generous than owners expect once repeat visits are counted.

Here's the arithmetic, using illustrative numbers (plug in your own):

1. Average cheque per guest: say $45.
2. Contribution after food and labour on that guest: say 30%, so about $13.50.
3. A first-time guest's likely return visits in a year: be conservative, say one more visit. That guest is now worth roughly $27 in contribution.
4. What you'd happily pay to win that guest: about a third of that, $9 per new guest, leaves room for the campaign to pay for itself even when it's not perfect.
5. Target: 100 extra guests a month, so $900/month in ad budget.

That last number is your starting point. If the campaign delivers guests cheaper than $9, you scale up. If it can't get near $9 after a month of optimization, the problem is usually the creative or the offer, not the budget, and we fix that before spending more.

Illustrative, not a promise

The figures above are a worked example of the method, not results from a Simmer client. Your cheque, margin and cost per guest will differ. We publish real client numbers only with the client's permission, in our client stories.

What should the budget be split across?

Put about 70% into one always-on booking campaign built on your signature dishes, and about 30% into retargeting people who engaged but didn't book. Add a short, separate budget only when there's an occasion to sell.

A common mistake is spreading a small budget across five campaigns “to test.” Five campaigns at $100 each learn nothing. One campaign at $500 learns fast.

If you're just starting, the always-on campaign alone at the minimum budget is a legitimate first month. Retargeting needs an audience to exist first.

Spend what a guest is worth to you.

Why we start with Meta

Meta creates demand: it shows a dish to someone who wasn't thinking about dinner yet, close enough to come in tonight. For a restaurant with good food on camera, that's the move that fills tables, so it's where we put the budget.

Meta fits most restaurants: strong food video and a distinct reason to visit are all it needs, which is why it's our headline product.

What does a reasonable first three months look like?

Here is how we'd structure a first quarter for a single-location restaurant on the minimum budget:

1. Month 1: one always-on booking campaign at $300/mo, three Signature Reels rotating, a tight radius. Goal: a readable cost per booking, not a record.
2. Month 2: kill the weakest Reel, add retargeting to people who watched. Hold the budget. Goal: cost per booking down, bookings up.
3. Month 3: if the cost per booking is under your target from the arithmetic above, raise the budget in steps of about 20 to 30% a week, watching that cost. Add one Occasion campaign if there's something to sell.

By the end of that quarter you know your real cost per guest from ads, which means the “how much should I spend?” question finally has an answer that's yours, not a rule of thumb from a blog post.

The two numbers that matter more than the budget

The budget gets the attention, but two other things decide whether it works:

• The creative. A stock photo with your logo on it will lose to a competitor's steaming Reel at any budget. This is why we shoot the food ourselves rather than run ads on whatever's in the camera roll. See how that works in our content pillars post.
• The measurement. If you can't tell which bookings the ads drove, you'll either overspend on faith or quit early on doubt. We report in guests and reservations for that reason; the method is in how we measure restaurant ads.

Get those two right and the budget question mostly answers itself: spend what a guest is worth to you, then spend more when it's working.