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Thursday, October 8, 2026 |
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The Last Page.
The last page, first.
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Who Really Sets the Price of Your Big Mac?
McDonald’s says its franchisees decide and its AI only advises. A federal lawsuit filed Friday calls the same system price-fixing aimed at customers.
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The story
Two company-owned McDonald’s in California, about two miles apart, were charging $5.69 and $6.89 for the same Big Mac. Reuters found the gap last month.
Since at least 2019 McDonald’s has fed millions of daily sales into a system that sends each restaurant a suggested price. Reuters reported the newer version sorts stores by what customers nearby are willing to pay.
McDonald’s says that is advice and nothing more. “AI does not set the price of a Big Mac or any other menu item,” it said on October 1.
A customer from DeKalb, Illinois, sees something else. Michael Thomas sued in federal court in Chicago on Friday, calling it “algorithmic price-fixing aimed at customers.”
This one lands on your tray. Franchisees run about 95 percent of the roughly 14,000 McDonald’s in America. The suit says the tool lets those rival owners price off each other’s private sales data.
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$5.69
A Big Mac at one company-owned McDonald’s in California, per Reuters
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$6.89
The same Big Mac at another one about two miles away
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$1.20
The gap, for the same sandwich, set by the same company
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Willingness to pay
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The most a customer will hand over before he walks out. A system that can estimate it neighborhood by neighborhood can set the menu right at that edge.
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Best case
OCTOBER 2027. The suit was trimmed in the spring and thrown out by summer. The judge accepted what McDonald’s had said from day one. Owners under one brand are partners, and a suggestion is still a suggestion.
The tool kept running, and it cut prices about as often as it raised them. McDonald’s is paid a share of every sale, so it wanted busy dining rooms more than fat margins.
The $3-and-under menu that only 60 percent of restaurants carried in August 2026 became the norm. The data kept showing the traffic it brought in.
Your Quarter Pounder still costs more at the highway exit than in town. It always did, the same way gas does.
The lawyers moved on to the next chain.
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Worst case
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OCTOBER 2027. The January rule stuck. Owners who had called the tool optional in 2026 were told to start “constructively engaging” with it, and the ones who didn’t heard about it at review time.
Then the case reached the data, and it started to look like RealPage. In that one, the Justice Department made a rental software company stop feeding its algorithm rivals’ private numbers.
By then the same logic was running at other counters across the country, each one priced to the neighborhood around it.
Your $6.89 Big Mac stopped being the outlier. It became the price the system had worked out you would pay.
And when you complained at the counter, the worker at the register had never seen the number before you did. It came from far outside the building.
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The pricing tool knows what your neighborhood spends on lunch. The institutions that hold your savings know a good deal more about you.
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How it ends
You get a Big Mac priced to your zip code, unless McDonald’s turns its pricing tool into a rule in January.
We ran it both ways, and the lawsuit is the slower story. Legal experts quoted so far rate the risk to McDonald’s as low.
The faster story is already on the menu. A system that estimates what your neighborhood will pay works without a court’s blessing. It only needs owners to follow it.
That is why January matters. Reuters reported that McDonald’s told franchisees to start “constructively engaging” with its approved pricing tools then, and that it tracks owners who stray from the suggested prices.
A suggestion with a deadline and a performance review attached is hard to defend as only a suggestion.
McDonald’s has a fair point on its own motive. It collects royalties on sales, $3.1 billion of them in the first half of 2026. So a full dining room pays it better than a pricey one.
The states are moving ahead of the judge. California bans pricing software built on rivals’ data, and Maryland, Connecticut and New Jersey restrict what they call surveillance pricing.
For you, the price on the board is now partly a guess about you. The cheaper Big Mac may be two miles down the road. And the lawyers on both sides bill by the hour either way.
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McDonald’s January deadline for franchisees to start “constructively engaging” with its approved pricing tools. If the company keeps it while the lawsuit runs, the worst case is on schedule. If it softens the wording, the tool goes back to being advice.
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One more thread
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One story each weekday, carried through to its ending. If you would rather keep yours open, the door is below.
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The Last Page.
The last page, first. Reply and name the story you want finished.
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