Sell Food by Weight Online | Price per 100g, Charge the Real Weight

What it is

Some of your food does not come in portions. A whole fish, a cut of meat, a tub of salad — you price it per 100 g and the real weight is only known when someone puts it on the scale. That is why most shops like yours still take these orders by phone, or refuse them online altogether.

This changes that. You price the product per 100 g. The customer picks roughly how much they want and agrees to a maximum. Your kitchen weighs the real portion and enters the number. The price follows the scale, the customer is charged only for what they actually get, and everyone sees the same figure.

What it changes for you

Your by-weight counter goes online

Everything you currently sell only over the counter or on the phone becomes orderable. Same products, same scale, same prices — now with the orders arriving typed, paid and queued instead of shouted across a busy shop.

The money is always right

You never charge for grams you didn't sell, and you never absorb grams you did. The price is calculated from the weight your scale shows, at the price per 100 g you set. Nobody rounds anything by hand.

No arguments at handover

The customer knew the price range before they ordered and agreed to the maximum. When the real amount comes in lower — which it usually does — they get a message telling them so. There is nothing left to dispute at the door.

Your staff stops doing arithmetic

One tap on the kitchen screen records the weight. Everything downstream — the line price, the order total, the receipt, the customer's message, the card charge — updates itself. No calculator, no rewriting the bill.

How an order actually runs

The customer picks an approximate amount

Your menu shows the price per 100 g. The customer chooses a range you have set — say 300–450 g — and sees exactly what that costs at both ends: 30.00 to 45.00.

They agree to the maximum

Before paying, the customer ticks a box confirming the highest possible amount. On card, that amount is reserved — not taken. On cash orders they simply see the range they will pay on delivery.

Your kitchen weighs and taps

The item shows on the kitchen screen with the target range. The person plating it taps the weight — one tap for the common sizes, a keypad for anything else — and sees the price update live as they do.

Only the real amount is charged

The card is charged for the weight that was actually plated. The rest of the reserved amount is released by the customer's bank. The customer gets a message with the final weight and the final price.

How it works in detail

Pricing that follows the scale

You set one number — the price per 100 g — and everything else is derived from it. Change the price tomorrow and orders placed today keep the price they were sold at.

Price per 100 g, per kilo, or per any base you choose
Works for weight and for volume — grams or millilitres
The unit price is shown on the menu, as consumer law requires
A price change never re-prices an order that was already placed

Ranges you control

You decide what a customer may order — the sizes on offer, and the hard limits for anything typed by hand. The top of each range is what the kitchen may not exceed, so a portion can never quietly cost more than the customer agreed to.

Offer set ranges — 300–450 g, 450–600 g — or let customers type a weight
Minimum and maximum bounds, so nobody orders 40 g of anything
The upper end of the range is a hard ceiling for the kitchen
Going above it needs a manager, and is recorded

Payments that reserve, then settle

A card order reserves the maximum and charges the real amount once the portion is weighed. One authorisation, one charge, no second payment request and nothing to refund.

Works with Stripe, Viva, myPOS and Borica
The customer authenticates once, at the time of ordering
The unused part of the reservation is released by their bank automatically
Cash on delivery works too — the courier simply collects the final amount

Everyone sees the same number

The moment the weight is recorded, it reaches every screen that matters — the kitchen, the order list, the customer's tracker, the receipt and the customer's inbox.

The customer gets the final weight and price by email, SMS or push
The message explains that the reserved difference is released by their bank
The bill shows the arithmetic — 400 g × 10.00 / 100 g
An order cannot leave the kitchen until every portion has been weighed

Who this is for

Fish shops and seafood counters

A whole sea bass is never exactly 400 g. Sell it online at a price per 100 g, weigh it when you clean it, and charge what it weighed.

Butchers and grill takeaways

Steaks, ribs, whole chickens. The customer orders roughly the size they want; you cut what you have and the price follows the cut.

Delis and salad bars

Salads, olives, cheeses, prepared dishes sold by the tub. Customers order a rough amount for a family dinner and pay for what goes in the box.

Home-cooked food for takeaway

Stews, casseroles, grilled vegetables — the things you sell by the kilo from a tray. Put the tray online without inventing fake portion sizes.

Bakeries and pastry shops

Baklava, biscuits, cakes sold by weight. The customer orders about a kilo for an occasion; you cut what fits the box.

Anywhere the scale decides

If your staff currently says "it came out a bit heavier, is that alright?" on the phone, this replaces that phone call entirely.

Selling food by weight online, without losing money on either side

Selling by weight online has one hard problem: you have to take the money before you know the price. Most shops solve it the crude way — they invent fixed portions and either overcharge the customer or absorb the difference themselves. Over a year, both of those are expensive. Fixed portions also mean you throw away the offcuts that a by-weight counter sells perfectly well.

Why a range beats a fixed portion

A customer buying a whole fish does not want a fixed 400 g. They want a fish, roughly that size, for two people. Letting them order a range — 300 to 450 g — matches how they actually think, and matches what your counter actually has. You sell the fish you have, not the fish your menu pretends to have.

How the payment works, and why it is safe for both sides

When a customer pays by card, the higher end of the range is reserved on their card, not taken. Their bank shows it as pending. Once your kitchen weighs the portion, only the real amount is charged and the rest is released automatically. The customer authenticates once, at the moment of ordering — there is no second payment request that can fail, and no refund that takes a week.

What your kitchen actually has to do

One tap. The item appears on the kitchen screen with the target range next to it. The person plating it taps the weight — the common sizes are one-tap buttons, anything else goes in on a keypad — and confirms. The price appears next to the weight as they type it, so a mistyped number is obvious before it is saved. Nothing else in the order has to be touched.

Cash orders and delivery

Nothing about this is card-only. On a cash order the customer sees the price range at checkout and the courier collects the final amount at the door. The one rule that always applies is that an order cannot be marked ready or sent out for delivery until every by-weight portion on it has been weighed — so a driver never leaves with the wrong amount to collect.

Sell by the gram online — and charge exactly what the scale says