Australian Fast Food Price Index

An open index of what Australian fast food actually costs over time, built from price changes we recorded ourselves. Free to use and quote with attribution. The full method, the basket and the limitations are all on this page.

The baseline series is still being built

We publish an index level only once it means something: at least 8 tracked items across at least 3 months of recorded movement. Right now we have 11 tracked items across 2months.

Recording started Aug 2026. Every price change on this site is timestamped the moment it happens, so the series builds itself from here — no backfilling, and no estimated figures.

If you are a journalist or researcher who needs this data earlier, email contact@aumenuguide.com and we will share what we have, including the gaps.

What is being tracked so far

Tracked items
11
Items with two or more recorded prices
Recorded changes
18
Individual price movements logged
Chains
1
Brands with verified price data
Since
Aug 2026
First recorded price change

How the index is calculated

  1. Basket. Every menu item on this site with at least two recorded prices. Items removed from a chain's menu leave the basket, because their price stops being maintained.
  2. Prices are step functions. A record is written only when a price changes, so the last recorded price is carried forward until the next change.
  3. Matched-item chain linking. For each pair of consecutive months we compare only the items priced in both months, then multiply those month-on-month ratios together. This is why new items entering the basket cannot move the index on their own — a problem that a simple average of all current prices would have.
  4. Equal weights. One unit of each item. We do not have sales volumes, so we do not pretend to weight by popularity.
  5. Base. 100.0 at the first month with recorded data.

Limitations, stated plainly

  • This is not an official inflation measure and is not comparable to the ABS Consumer Price Index. It measures advertised menu prices only.
  • Equal weighting means a rarely-ordered item counts as much as a best seller.
  • Prices vary by store and franchisee. Where we have enough evidence we use state medians; otherwise the national figure is used, and the brand pages show which is which.
  • Promotional, voucher and delivery-app prices are excluded from the index. They sit on the deals pages instead, because they are temporary by design.
  • Coverage grows over time. Early months rest on fewer items than later ones — the item count for each month is in the CSV so you can judge that yourself.

Get the data

The full series and the mover table are available as CSV, no signup: price-index.csv.

Licensed CC BY 4.0 — use it commercially, republish it, chart it, just credit us.

How to cite

AU Menu Guide, Australian Fast Food Price Index, Aug 2026 – Sept 2026. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://aumenuguide.com/price-index/

Need a cut we do not publish — a single chain, a single state, a longer mover list, or the raw change log? Email contact@aumenuguide.com. We answer journalist and researcher requests, and we will tell you where the data is thin rather than filling the gap with an estimate.

Method: how we check prices. Compiled by AU Menu Guide editorial team. Last updated 7 September 2026.