Open Pantry vs FoodByUs: which is right for your venue?
The short answer
Both are Australian and both read your supplier invoices, but they answer different questions. FoodByUs is a marketplace as well as software: you order from its supplier network on one credit application, it collects the payment, and manufacturer-funded cashbacks come with it. Open Pantry is not a marketplace and sells you nothing — you keep your own supplier accounts and your own negotiated prices, order across all of them in one round for free, and buy the costing once. Decide on whether you want to find new suppliers or get more out of the ones you already have.
Choose Open Pantry if…
- You already have your suppliers and your negotiated prices, and you want them kept rather than intermediated. Open Pantry sells you nothing and takes no margin on what you buy.
- You want one bill from each supplier the way you get it now. FoodByUs charges and invoices each order from each supplier separately, and suppliers you bring yourself invoice you outside the platform entirely.
- You need inventory and stocktakes now — FoodByUs’s own pricing page marks Stocktake & Inventory "Coming Soon".
- You want costing you own rather than rent: $199 once for life with a 30-day money-back guarantee, against menu costing sitting on FoodByUs’s $149-a-month Premium plan.
Choose FoodByUs if…
- You want to find new suppliers. Its marketplace lists hundreds across 16+ categories, reachable on one credit application instead of an account and a price book with each of them.
- Manufacturer-funded cashbacks are worth real money to you — its Shop & Save rebate programme is something no pure software tool can offer.
- You want a free tier that includes ordering, invoice capture, price tracking and trade financing with up-to-14-day terms at $0 a month.
- Comparing prices across several suppliers for the same product, with twelve months of history, is the job you want done.
Open Pantry and FoodByUs at a glance
Every FoodByUs cell below is footnoted to a dated source at the foot of this page. Where a capability is not described on FoodByUs’s own site we mark it partial and say so — that means we could not confirm it, not that it is missing.
| Capability | Open Pantry | FoodByUs |
|---|---|---|
| Ordering from your suppliers | YesOne cart across every supplier you already buy from, split into one order per supplier when you send it, with recurring orders and pantry lists. Free for the venue. | YesDigital ordering from a Pantry List with order notes, amend, reorder and report-an-issue, plus standing orders, across marketplace suppliers and your own Direct Suppliers.[3] |
| Keeping your own supplier accounts and prices | YesYou keep your own supplier accounts and your own negotiated prices, and you can add a supplier yourself. Open Pantry is not a marketplace and sells you nothing. | PartialYes, as "Direct Suppliers" — but it is a request FoodByUs processes in 24 to 48 hours rather than something you do yourself, they say they cannot guarantee it unless a prior relationship already exists, and those suppliers invoice you separately outside the platform.[8] |
| Supplier invoice capture and automatic price updates | YesPhotograph, upload or email invoices to your own address; suppliers, products and prices appear, and every price change flows into your recipe costs. Up to 250 invoices a month on Menu Profit Manager. | YesInvoice Hub gives you a unique email address your suppliers CC, and AI extracts the data line by line and syncs it. Included on the free plan.[4] |
| Price-change alerts | YesPrice-spike alerts that name which dishes the rise hurts and what to charge instead, with every change shown old to new as a percentage. | YesPrice tracking with comparison across multiple suppliers and alternative products, and twelve months of price history. Included on the free plan.[5] |
| Recipe and menu costing | YesRecipes costed from the prices you actually paid, sub-recipes rolling up, and dishes re-costing themselves when a supplier price moves. | PartialRecipe costs, margin alerts and AI recipe creation from your Pantry List — but menu costing is on the Premium plan only, at $149 a month billed monthly or $119 billed yearly.[6] |
| Live profit per dish | YesA cost percentage and trend on every dish, with margins ranked into top earners and the ones that need attention. | PartialMenu costing with margin alerts is described; a per-dish live profit view is not described separately. Premium plan only. Not stated publicly in those terms — confirm with vendor.[6] |
| Inventory and stocktakes | YesBalance, par level and trigger per product by storage area, guided stocktakes in the unit you buy with barcode or manual counting, and the count becomes live stock. Restaurant Pro Suite. | NoIts own pricing page lists "Stocktake & Inventory" on the Premium plan marked "Coming Soon". Nothing else about counts or stock on hand is described publicly.[1] |
| Waste tracking | YesWrite-offs logged with a reason and a reporter, costed and split by reason, menu, item and employee, with stocktake variances in the same report. | PartialNot described on the pages read. Not stated publicly — confirm with vendor.[1] |
| Preparation lists | YesPreparation lists that turn portions to make into the ingredients still to buy and put them in the cart, with projected cost and profit. | PartialA Pantry List drives ordering and AI recipe creation. A preparation list that converts portions to make into the ingredients still to buy is not described publicly — confirm with vendor.[3] |
| Delivery check-off and credit claims | YesCheck the delivery off at the door and the invoice is matched line by line against what arrived; a shortfall becomes a credit request your supplier can see. | PartialOrders are pre-authorised and charged about 48 hours after delivery with adjustments for random weight, substitutions and out-of-stocks, and you have a 24-hour window to report an issue. A delivery check-off done at the door against the order, line by line, is not described publicly.[9] |
| POS sales integration | PartialOne till connects directly — Triniteq PowerEPOS — pulling the day’s takings through automatically, matched to your recipes and never written back. It is set up per venue rather than self-serve. Every other till uses a bulk sales-template import or manual entry, which lands in the same table. Waste is logged in Open Pantry rather than imported from the till. | YesSquare (marked preferred), H&L, Lightspeed, Oolio SwiftPOS, OrderMate and Tevalis, with Bepoz and Idealpos listed as coming soon. Premium plan only.[7] |
| Accounting integration | YesReviewed invoices land in Xero, QuickBooks and MYOB as bills, so nothing is entered twice. | YesXero, MYOB and QuickBooks, on the Essential plan and above.[7] |
| Multi-venue and group control | PartialEach venue keeps its own suppliers, products, recipes and price history, which is deliberate — two sites cannot share a wrong number. There is no group catalogue, no group price list and no group purchase approval; a group is handled as per-venue licences. | PartialMulti-venue access with one login on the Essential plan and above, with multi-venue permission settings. A group catalogue, group price list or group purchase approval is not described publicly.[1] |
| Nutrition and allergen labelling | NoAllergens and dietary tags are fields on the recipe card for your own kitchen. There is no nutrition panel and no compliance labelling. | PartialNot described on the pages read. Not stated publicly — confirm with vendor.[1] |
| Rostering, payroll and restaurant accounting | NoNo rostering, no payroll and no general ledger. Reviewed invoices are pushed into the accounting system you already run; the reporting stops at sales, cost of goods, waste and dish margin. | NoNo rostering, payroll or general ledger. It integrates with Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks rather than replacing them.[7] |
| Published pricing | YesOrdering is free for the venue. Menu Profit Manager is $199 AUD once, for life, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Restaurant Pro Suite is $250 a month. | YesFree at $0; Essential $99 a month billed monthly or $79 yearly; Premium $149 monthly or $119 yearly; Enterprise custom. A 90-day trial of premium features at sign-up, after which you drop to Free. Prices are stated in the terms as Australian dollars, GST where applicable. Suppliers pay a negotiated commission on new accounts FoodByUs brings them; the percentage is not published.[1] |
| Free plan | YesOrdering package at $0 with unlimited orders and unlimited suppliers, opened by a supplier invitation. | YesA genuine free tier at $0 a month including marketplace ordering, price tracking, the AI Invoice Hub, Shop & Save cashbacks, a total-spend report and trade financing with up to 14-day terms.[1] |
| Australian presence | YesAustralia and New Zealand, priced per country, with Australian support. | PartialAustralian, and its terms are governed by New South Wales law. Its own supplier directory lists only New South Wales — Sydney, Central Coast, Newcastle and Wollongong — and Victoria, Melbourne and regional. No other state or city is named on the site, and its city landing pages render as unfilled templates.[10] |
Open Pantry capabilities are from our own published plans and feature pages. FoodByUs capabilities are from its own published pages, read on 3 September 2026.
Everything Open Pantry runs
FoodByUs answers "who should I buy from?" Open Pantry answers "what is this costing me, and did I actually get it?" This is everything Open Pantry does for a venue, with the page behind each line — read it against FoodByUs’s own feature pages and the difference is obvious well before the pricing.
Ordering from the suppliers you already use
- One order round, every supplier
- One cart across all of them, split into one order per supplier when you send it.
- Pantry and preparation lists
- The order the venue owns rather than one person’s memory, and prep lists that turn portions into a shopping list.
- Recurring orders
- The weekly order that places itself, on a 7, 14 or 28 day cycle.
- Purchase history and price movements
- What you bought, what you paid, and every price change old to new with the dishes it hit.
Knowing what a dish costs
- Live recipe and menu costing
- Recipes costed off the prices you actually paid; sub-recipes roll up; dishes re-cost when a supplier moves.
- Profit insights per dish
- A cost percentage and trend on every dish, and margins ranked into earners and problems.
- Menu Profit Manager
- Invoice scanning, recipe import and price-spike alerts — $199 once, lifetime, 30-day money-back guarantee.
Knowing what you are holding
- Inventory
- Balance, par level and trigger per product by storage area, with autofill-to-par building the order.
- Stocktaking
- Guided counts in the unit you buy, barcode or manual, and the count becomes live stock.
- Sales and waste tracking
- Waste logged with a reason and a reporter, costed and split by reason, menu, item and person.
- POS sales integration
- One till connects directly — Triniteq PowerEPOS — and syncs the day’s takings against your recipes; any other till uses a template import or manual entry. Waste is logged here rather than pulled from the till.
Where each one is stronger
Neither product wins on every row, and a comparison that says otherwise is not worth reading.
Open Pantry is stronger at
- You keep your suppliers, your accounts and your negotiated prices, and nobody takes a margin on what you buy. Open Pantry is not a marketplace and does not sell you food.
- Billing you recognise. FoodByUs charges and invoices each order from each supplier separately, and Direct Suppliers invoice outside the platform altogether — there is no single consolidated bill on either path.
- Inventory and stocktakes that exist today: balance, par level and trigger by storage area, guided counts in the unit you buy, and the count becoming live stock. FoodByUs marks its own as "Coming Soon".
- Costing bought once at $199 for life with a refund guarantee, plus prep lists and delivery check-off with credit claims raised to the supplier — none of which FoodByUs describes.
FoodByUs is stronger at
- Supplier discovery. Hundreds of suppliers across 16+ categories on one credit application, instead of opening an account and negotiating a price book with each of them.
- Manufacturer-funded cashbacks through its Shop & Save programme — a real cash benefit that a pure software product cannot offer.
- Trade financing with up to 14-day terms, on the free plan.
- Price comparison across suppliers for the same product, with alternatives suggested and twelve months of history, also on the free plan.
What each one costs
Open Pantry
Ordering is free for the venue — unlimited orders, unlimited suppliers, pantry lists and standing orders. Menu Profit Manager is $199 AUD once, for life, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Restaurant Pro Suite is $250 a month and adds automated inventory and stocktake, automated ordering, POS integration and the sales, cost, waste, stocktake and variance reporting. Open Pantry takes no commission or margin on anything you buy.
FoodByUs
Free at $0 a month — marketplace, price tracking, AI Invoice Hub, Shop & Save cashbacks, total-spend report and trade financing with up to 14-day terms. Essential $99 a month billed monthly or $79 billed yearly, adding multi-venue access, accounting integration and onboarding. Premium $149 monthly or $119 yearly, adding EFT, menu costing, POS integration, custom reports and permissions — with Stocktake & Inventory listed but marked "Coming Soon". Enterprise custom. A 90-day trial of premium features on sign-up, after which you fall back to Free. Suppliers are charged a negotiated commission on new accounts FoodByUs brings them; the percentage is not published.
Source: FoodByUs — Pricing (venue plans, trial, Premium inclusions) · verified 3 September 2026
Switching from FoodByUs to Open Pantry
What the move actually involves. We do not promise a timeline — it depends on the size of your catalogue and how quickly your customers move across.
- Start with the invoices, not the recipes. Photograph or email a month of supplier invoices and the products, suppliers and prices build themselves — that is the data every other number depends on.
- Import the recipe book. Photograph the pages or upload the spreadsheet; recipes come in costed against the prices those invoices just loaded.
- Keep ordering the way you do now. Your supplier accounts and negotiated prices are yours and stay yours — nothing is renegotiated and no order is routed through a marketplace.
- Turn the till on last. POS sales import is a settings step once the recipes are costed and you trust the numbers.
- Run the old way alongside for a fortnight. Compare the dish costs the system produces against the ones you believe. Where they disagree it is almost always the invoice that is right.
Who uses Open Pantry
- Venues ordering through it
- 5,000+
- Suppliers on Open Pantry
- 600+
- Markets served
- AU & NZ
Open Pantry vs FoodByUs — common questions
Is FoodByUs a marketplace or software?
Both, and that is the real difference. You order from its own network of suppliers on one credit application, and it acts as the supplier’s limited payment collection agent — taking the payment from you and remitting to the supplier weekly — while also giving you invoice capture, price tracking and menu costing. Open Pantry is only software: you keep your own supplier accounts and negotiated prices, and we sell you nothing and take no margin on what you buy.
Do I get one consolidated bill from FoodByUs?
No. Its own help pages state that each order incurs a separate charge and a dedicated invoice, debited about 48 hours after delivery, and that suppliers you bring yourself as "Direct Suppliers" invoice you separately outside the platform. If a single monthly bill across every supplier is what you are after, neither product offers it — with Open Pantry you keep the billing relationship you already have with each supplier.
Can I keep my own suppliers on FoodByUs?
Yes, as Direct Suppliers, with two caveats from its own help centre: it is a request FoodByUs processes in 24 to 48 hours rather than something you do yourself, and they say they cannot guarantee it unless you already have a relationship with that supplier. Those suppliers then invoice you separately. On Open Pantry you add a supplier yourself, and if the supplier takes email orders it works.
What does FoodByUs cost?
For venues: Free at $0, Essential at $99 a month billed monthly or $79 billed yearly, and Premium at $149 monthly or $119 yearly, with Enterprise custom. Menu costing, POS integration, custom reports and user permissions are Premium-only. There is a 90-day trial of premium features at sign-up, after which you drop to Free. For suppliers, no figure is published — its supplier FAQ says it negotiates a commission on sales from new accounts it brings you. Verified 3 September 2026.
Which one does inventory and stocktakes?
Open Pantry, today. Balance, par level and trigger per product by storage area, guided counts in the unit you buy with barcode or manual counting, and the count becoming live stock, on the Restaurant Pro Suite plan. FoodByUs lists "Stocktake & Inventory" on its Premium plan marked "Coming Soon" on its own pricing page.
Does either one work outside Sydney and Melbourne?
Open Pantry operates across Australia and New Zealand, priced per country. FoodByUs’s own supplier directory lists only New South Wales — Sydney, Central Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong — and Victoria, Melbourne and regional; no other state or city is named on its site, though its home page says "thousands of top venues across Australia". If you are in Queensland, WA or SA, ask them which suppliers are actually available to you.
How often is this comparison checked, and what if something is wrong?
Every FoodByUs claim here comes from FoodByUs’s own published pages and help centre on the verification date at the top, and the page is re-checked quarterly. Anything marked "not stated publicly" means we could not confirm it from their site — treat it as a question for them, not a verdict. If you think something here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
Sources
Every FoodByUs claim on this page comes from one of these pages, read on 3 September 2026. Vendors change their products and their prices; if something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
- FoodByUs — Pricing (venue plans, trial, Premium inclusions) — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/pricing/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- FoodByUs — Wholesale marketplace — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/wholesale-marketplace/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- FoodByUs — Digital ordering — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/digital-ordering/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- FoodByUs — Invoice Hub — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/invoice-hub/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- FoodByUs — Price tracking — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/price-tracking/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- FoodByUs — Menu costing — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/menu-costing/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- FoodByUs — Integrations (POS and accounting) — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/integrations/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- FoodByUs — Direct suppliers (help centre) — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/help-topic/direct-suppliers/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- FoodByUs — How payment works (help centre) — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/help-topic/how-our-payment-works/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- FoodByUs — Terms and conditions (payment agency, governing law, currency) — https://www.foodbyus.com.au/terms-conditions/ (accessed 3 September 2026)
- Open Pantry — Restaurant pricing and plans — https://www.theopenpantry.com/restaurants/pricing (accessed 3 September 2026)
See it costed on your own invoices
Send us a month of your own supplier invoices and we will show you your dish costs and your price movements on your own numbers — not a demo menu.