AI for restaurant marketing: what to hand off and what to keep

Hand AI the first draft: social captions, email copy, menu descriptions, replies to reviews and cleanup of your own photos. Keep the facts, the final read and anything to do with reviews in your own hands. Since October 2024, a Federal Trade Commission rule has banned fake reviews, including ones written by AI, and lets courts fine businesses that break it knowingly.

Our ChatGPT guide gives example prompts for menu descriptions and review replies, and the AI tools shortlist compares marketing vendors next to phone and kitchen tools. This page draws the line between the two halves of each marketing job, prices the tools that do the AI half, and sets out what the FTC rule and Google's review policy each allow.

Which marketing jobs can you hand to AI?

Job	Hand to AI	Keep with a person	Start here if
Social posts	Captions, hashtags, resizing one photo for each network, scheduling	Which dishes and specials to push, and a last read of every post	You post only when you remember
Email and text campaigns	Subject lines, body copy, sorting guests into lists	The offer, its end date and who agreed to hear from you	You have guest emails or phone numbers sitting unused
Review replies	A first draft of each reply	Approval of every reply, and any refund or free meal	Reviews sit unanswered for weeks
Menu descriptions	Short descriptions written from the ingredients you supply	Every ingredient, allergen and price	Your online menu has names with no descriptions
Photos	Brighter light, a cleaner background, cropping	What is on the plate: the photo should show the dish guests get	Your photos are dark phone shots
Reviews themselves	Nothing	All of it: asking guests, and any reward for doing so	Every restaurant

The last row carries legal risk, covered below. For the other rows, the main risk is a wrong fact, which a person catches by reading the draft.

What do the tools cost?

These are the printed prices on each vendor's own site. Each tool covers one or two rows of the table above.

Tool	What it does, per its own page	Printed price
Claude	A general assistant for drafting captions, emails, menu descriptions and replies	Claude: Free $0; Pro $20 a month billed monthly, or $17 a month billed yearly ($200 up front)
Adobe Express	Design, photo editing and post scheduling; the free plan schedules to one account per social network	Adobe Express: Free US$0.00 with limited generative AI credits; Premium US$9.99 a month, billed monthly, with 250 generative credits a month
Mailchimp	Email campaigns; generative AI features come with Standard and Premium at no extra cost, and are not included in Essentials	Mailchimp: free under 250 contacts; Essentials from $13 a month; Standard from $20 a month
Birdeye Review Response Agent	Drafts replies to reviews across platforms, follows your approval settings and escalates critical feedback	No price printed; its pricing page asks for your location count and phone number
Owner.com	Website, online ordering and AI-powered email and text campaigns	Owner.com: Flexible $249 a month plus a 5% restaurant fee per order; Flat Rate $499 a month; month to month
Toast IQ Grow	A Marketing Agent, in beta when announced in May 2026, that plans email, SMS and social campaigns, with a human marketing manager	Toast IQ Grow: bundled at $499 a month, per Toast's May 2026 release

Sources: Claude pricing, Adobe Express pricing, Mailchimp pricing, Birdeye review management and its pricing page, Owner.com pricing and Toast's May 2026 release. Mailchimp's price rises with your contact count. Our Owner.com alternatives guide compares ordering-plus-marketing vendors in more detail.

A single restaurant can cover the first five rows for $0 on the free plans of Claude, Adobe Express and Mailchimp, if its email list is under 250 contacts. Moving to Claude Pro, Adobe Express Premium and Mailchimp Standard on monthly billing costs $20 + $9.99 + $20, or $49.99 a month before Mailchimp's price rises with list size. The two done-for-you options start at $249 a month plus order fees (Owner.com Flexible) and $499 a month (Toast IQ Grow).

What does the FTC's fake review rule ban?

The FTC announced its final rule on fake reviews and testimonials on August 14, 2024. Its business guidance says the rule went into effect on October 21, 2024 and "authorizes courts to impose civil penalties for knowing violations." The rule itself is 16 CFR Part 465, the Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials. The FTC's release lists what it prohibits, in summary:

• Fake or false reviews and testimonials: ones by someone who does not exist, "such as AI-generated fake reviews," or who had no real experience with the business.
• Buying positive or negative reviews: paying or rewarding guests on the condition that a review says something good or bad, whether stated or implied.
• Insider reviews: reviews by officers or managers, and some by staff or their relatives, that do not clearly disclose the connection.
• Company-controlled review sites presented as independent.
• Review suppression: groundless legal threats, intimidation or false accusations to remove a negative review.
• Fake social media indicators: buying bot followers or views that the buyer knew or should have known were fake.

The FTC's guidance gives a restaurant example of an implied condition. Saying "Tell us how much you loved your visit to John's Steakhouse and get a $5 coupon" implies the review has to be positive.

How do the FTC rule and Google's review policy differ?

Google's own rules for Maps reviews are stricter in places. Follow the stricter of the two.

Practice	FTC rule, per its guidance	Google Maps policy	What to do
An AI-written review posted as if from a guest	Prohibited	Removed as fake engagement	Do not post one
A reward for any review, good or bad	Allowed if not tied to sentiment; failing to disclose it could still break the FTC Act	Not allowed: no payment, discount or free item in exchange for any review	Offer nothing for Google reviews
Asking only guests you think were happy	No specific ban in the rule; the guidance says it could break the FTC Act	Not allowed: no selective asking for positive reviews	Ask every guest the same way
Family members reviewing your restaurant	Allowed if they clearly disclose the relationship	Removed as a conflict of interest, which includes family ties	Keep family reviews off Google
Setting staff a number of reviews to collect	Not addressed in the guidance	Not allowed	Ask staff to invite reviews, with no quota

Sources: the FTC's guidance above and Google's Maps user contributed content policy on fake engagement and rating manipulation.

Replies to reviews carry your business name, so read each AI draft as if you wrote it. Keep promises of refunds or free meals out of the draft until a manager agrees to them, as the prompts in our ChatGPT guide do.

What should stay with a person?

1. Read every post, email and reply before it goes out. Check each price, hour, allergen and ingredient against the menu.
2. Set every offer yourself: what it is, when it ends and who can use it.
3. Use photos of dishes as you serve them. Edit the light and leave the food as served.
4. Ask for reviews the same way from every guest, and offer nothing for them on Google.
5. Tell staff and family not to review the restaurant on Google, and to state the connection anywhere else they do.
6. Keep a list of which posts and campaigns an AI drafted and who approved each one.

How do you start this week?

1. Pick the one job that takes you the most time: posts, email or review replies.
2. Write down how long it takes now and how many you do in a week.
3. Use a free plan for two weeks. Keep every draft and note what you changed.
4. Count the time again. Pay for a plan only if the free one runs out or the time saved is worth the price to you.

If a promotion brings phone calls, that is where Maple fits. Maple Voice answers calls with your hours and FAQ answers and transfers the rest to staff, at $150 a month billed monthly or $85 billed yearly; Pro adds phone orders into supported POS systems at $350 or $220.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines vendors' own pricing and product pages, the FTC's rule, release and business guidance, and Google's review policy with an original hand-off table and comparison. It is not legal advice, does not report a test of any marketing tool, and makes no claim about sales or other results.