AI chat plans & the free-diner tier

Almost everything in AskFoodie is free: your menu, photos, QR codes, table ordering, service requests, and the whole dashboard. The one paid feature is the AI chat your diners talk to — and you get 1,000 diners free before you're ever asked to pay.

How it works

1. You start with 1,000 free AI diners. A "diner" is one person's whole chat session at your table, however many questions they ask. It's counted when they send their first message and get an AI reply — just opening the menu costs nothing.
2. Your dashboard shows a usage bar on the Billing page — how many of your 1,000 free diners are used and how many remain.
3. When the free diners run out, the AI chat pauses for new diners and you'll see a prompt to subscribe. Everything else keeps working.
4. Subscribe to keep the chat on. Pick a monthly or yearly plan; checkout and card handling are done securely by Stripe. The moment your subscription is active, AI chat is back on with no diner limit.

What diners see when chat is off

Nothing embarrassing. If your free diners are exhausted and you haven't subscribed, diners at the table still see your full menu and can still send service requests — only the chat panel shows a neutral "the menu assistant isn't available right now". Your billing status is never shown to diners.

Good to know

• Free diners never reset — it's a one-time allowance, not a monthly quota. Deleting and recreating a restaurant doesn't refill it; the counter follows you.
• The free pool covers one restaurant at a time. If you run several restaurants, the free diners apply to the first one your diners chat at; additional restaurants need their own subscription.
• Set up from a printed QR sheet? Those restaurants get their own 1,000 free diners, and the allowance stays with the restaurant even after you claim ownership.
• Each restaurant subscribes separately. Plans are per restaurant, not per account.
• The dashboard never locks you out. Whatever your plan status, you can always edit your menu, print QR codes, and see your orders.

If something's wrong

Subscribed but chat still shows as unavailable? Payments can take a moment to confirm — check the Billing page for your subscription status, and if it hasn't updated after a few minutes, contact us.