How much do missed calls cost a restaurant? A 2026 worksheet

To find what missed calls cost your restaurant, take the missed calls that did not reach a person later, multiply by the share of callers who wanted to order, subtract the ones who ordered from you another way, and multiply what is left by what you keep from an average phone order. Your phone log and POS give you every input.

No single industry figure can do this for you, because missed calls depend on your hours, staffing and menu. This page turns your counts into dollars. If you have not counted your calls yet, start with our guide to measuring restaurant call volume: its worksheet gives you the first number you need here.

What does Maple's phone audit say about why people call?

Maple's restaurant phone audit summarizes calls at paying Maple restaurants, with data queried on April 28, 2026. In that group, 19% of calls arrived on a closed day, before opening or after closing. At restaurants that take phone orders, 39.8% of calls showed ordering intent, 13.6% asked for a person and 4.3% asked about hours.

Read those shares with the audit's own limits. The group covers only restaurants that use Maple. The reasons for calling come from keyword matching on AI-written call summaries, with a large uncategorized share. The audit measures call timing and requests, and says it does not measure unanswered calls, voicemail success or lost orders.

Use the audit to decide what to look for. The number of orders your restaurant loses has to come from your own call log and POS.

Why do restaurants miss calls?

Sort missed calls into three groups. Each leaves a different trace in the call log:

• The rush. Missed calls bunch into the same 15-minute blocks as your busiest service. Staff are on the line or at the counter.
• Closed hours. Calls arrive before opening, after closing or on closed days. Callers may want hours, directions or an order for later.
• Staff with guests. Missed calls land in quieter hours when one person covers the host stand, the register and the phone.

Sort your missed calls by time before you work out the cost. The group tells you which fix to try first, and closed-hours calls need separate treatment in the sums below.

How do you work out the cost?

Copy this worksheet and fill in the last column from one week of records. The example column is a made-up counter-service restaurant, there only to show the sums. Line A comes from line 7 of the call-volume worksheet.

Line	How to get it	Example week (made up)	Your week
A. Missed calls that did not reach a person later	Unanswered and voicemail calls, minus numbers that got through later	65	____
B. Of those, calls while you were open	Compare each call time with your hours	50 (the other 15 came while closed)	____
C. Share of callers who wanted to order	Listen to voicemails and call back a sample of numbers	8 of 20 sampled, or 40%	____
D. Ordering calls missed	Line B times line C	50 × 40% = 20	____
E. Callers who ordered from you another way	From your callbacks, or orders from the same number online	4	____
F. Orders lost	Line D minus line E	16	____
G. Average phone ticket	POS sales report for your phone order type	$30.00	____
H. Variable cost per order	Food, packaging and card fees for a typical phone order	$10.50	____
I. What you keep per order	Line G minus line H	$19.50 kept per order	____
J. Cost of missed calls per week	Line F times line I	16 × $19.50 = $312	____
K. Per year	Line J times 52	$16,224	____

In the example, lost sales are 16 × $30 = $480 a week. The restaurant loses the $312 it would have kept after food, packaging and card fees. It did not buy or cook the food for those orders, so line J is the figure to use.

If you cannot sample callers for line C, the audit's 39.8% is a starting point for a restaurant that takes phone orders. Treat it as a placeholder. It is a share of all calls in Maple's group, and callers who get no answer at the peak may want to order more often than that. Replace it with your own sample as soon as you can.

What about calls while you are closed?

Leave closed-hours calls out of line D unless you would have taken that order, for example a call at 10:30 for pickup at 11:15. A caller at midnight who wanted food right away was not a sale you could make.

Closed-hours calls still have value. Compare your share of all calls outside hours with the audit's 19%. If yours is similar or higher, give those callers something useful: a voicemail greeting with your hours and online ordering link, or a missed-call text that sends the link by text.

Which fix matches which cause?

Where your missed calls sit	Try first	Guide
In a few peak blocks	A second phone at the rush, or overflow to another person	Rush-hour phone coverage
Outside business hours	A greeting or text that gives hours and the ordering link	Voicemail greetings
Across quiet hours	A set place and routine for phone orders	Taking phone orders in a rush
Everywhere, or staffing is not possible	An answering service	AI phone answering shortlist

When does an AI answering service pay for itself?

Divide the monthly price by what you keep per order (line I). The answer is the number of extra completed orders a month the service has to bring in before it covers its price.

Maple's prices are on its pricing page. Maple Voice answers 24/7 with hours and FAQ answers and transfers calls to staff, for $150 a month billed monthly or $85 a month billed annually. It does not take orders. Maple Pro adds phone orders into supported POS systems and reservations, for $350 a month billed monthly or $220 a month billed annually. With the example's $19.50 per order, Pro at the monthly price needs 18 completed orders a month ($350 ÷ $19.50 is 17.9), and at the annual price 12 ($220 ÷ $19.50 is 11.3).

Use that number as a threshold to test in a trial. An answering service recovers only the orders it completes, and some callers in line F may not order even when someone answers. Our guide to judging AI phone ordering shows how to count completed orders in a trial, and the phone-ordering cost calculator lets you change each input.

How do you check your estimate?

1. Repeat the worksheet for a second week. If the two weeks differ a lot, average them or count a third.
2. Call back ten numbers from line A and ask what they wanted. Note how many ordered elsewhere.
3. After you make a change, count two more weeks at a similar time of year and compare line F.
4. Keep the worksheet next to your POS phone report, so the next estimate uses the same method.

Published by Maple, which sells AI phone answering for restaurants. This AI-assisted guide combines Maple's published phone audit and its stated limits with an original worksheet. The example week is made up. It does not report a loss at any real restaurant or promise that any service will recover orders.