To limit your pizzeria’s online orders without shutting the door on your customers, set a limit of pizzas per 15-minute slot, count every order against it (website, counter, phone) and let the website close a 15-minute slot when it is full. The customer then chooses another slot, instead of being given a pickup time that the kitchen will not keep.
An online order does not get tired and does not look at the oven. If your website offers every 15-minute slot without a limit, your customers all end up on 20:00, as they would on the phone, except that here nobody warns you before the wave arrives.
This guide deals with a single problem: how to open online ordering while keeping a kitchen that keeps its promises. It is not about discouraging your customers. It is about announcing to them only the times the oven can keep.
In short
- The website must know a limit of pizzas per 15-minute slot, set by you according to your oven.
- This limit is shared: it counts the orders from the website, the counter and the phone.
- A full 15-minute slot closes on the website; the customer chooses another one, they are not turned away.
- Keep a margin below your oven’s maximum pace, for the unexpected.
- Review your limits after a few services, never by guesswork in the middle of the rush.
Why can online ordering overload the oven?
Three mechanisms add up, and none of them is your customers’ fault.
Customers choose the same times. Many customers want to eat at the same times. Without a limit, the slots at those times fill up well beyond what the oven turns out.
The website only sees itself. If the website counts its orders on its own, it knows nothing of the pizzas already promised at the counter and on the phone. The 15-minute slot looks free online while the kitchen is already full.
A time promised is a time committed. An order accepted at 20:15 for 20:30 is a promise made to someone who is going to travel. Delaying it means recreating the wait at the counter described in the guide to waiting at the counter.
How do you set the limit on online orders?
The limit starts from your oven, not from your sales ambitions. If you do not yet know what baking pace your oven holds, start by measuring how many pizzas it turns out per hour, then set a limit per 15-minute slot while keeping a margin. The full method is in the guide to oven pacing.
Let us take an example calculation. You have measured that your kitchen holds 12 pizzas per 15-minute slot in a busy service. Keeping a margin of 20% (the 80% rule we recommend), you set a limit of a little under 10 pizzas, that is 9 per 15-minute slot. This figure is an example: yours depends on your oven, your team and your menu.
Two useful points:
- The limit is counted in pizzas, not in orders. An order for six pizzas weighs more than three orders for one pizza.
- It applies to every source. A limit kept for the website, next to another for the counter, leaves the kitchen facing a total that nobody has looked at.
A shared limit or a share kept for the website: which to choose?
There are two common ways of dividing up capacity.
| How it is done | What it gives | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| A limit shared by every source | The first to arrive takes the place, whatever their channel | The counter and the phone can see the website take the last places in a 15-minute slot |
| The website closed at peak times | The rush remains manageable | You give up online orders at the moment when many customers prefer them |
To start with, take the shared limit, with a margin. It is the easiest to explain to the team and to read at a glance. You will refine it after a few services, if you find that your counter is left without places.
What does the customer see when a 15-minute slot is full?
This is the moment that decides whether the limit costs you a sale or not. A full 15-minute slot must not look like a closed door.
The customer must immediately see the slots that remain open, and choose one. Saying ‘20:30 is full, the next place is at 20:45’ is an honest answer: they know where they stand and they can decide. Conversely, accepting the order and quietly pushing it back creates the wait you wanted to avoid.
The same words apply at the counter and on the phone. A kitchen that answers in the same way across every channel is a kitchen whose announced time is believed, as the guide to the phone during service shows.
How do you adjust your limits service after service?
A limit set at the start is not final. Look at three things at the end of each busy service:
- The 15-minute slots that are always full. If they fill up early, the demand is there; do not raise the limit without checking whether the kitchen kept up.
- The delays observed. An order that went out after the announced time is a sign that the limit is too high for that 15-minute slot.
- The half-empty 15-minute slots. A limit that is too cautious leaves places unused in those slots; it can go up without risk.
On a big match night or a holiday evening, lower the limit before opening, not during service. That way you keep the rhythm described in the guide to the Friday-night rush.
How Pizza Planner Pro limits online orders
In Pizza Planner Pro, you declare your kitchen’s capacity, in pizzas per 15-minute slot. When a 15-minute slot reaches the limit you have set, it is no longer offered to website customers. The orders from the counter and the phone are in the same schedule: you see what is full, and you are the one who offers another time.
Your customers order online from your pizzeria, choose a 15-minute slot among those that remain open, and pay at the counter when they come to pick up their order. The limit remains yours: the software applies what you have declared, it does not measure your oven.
The Basic subscription is a flat amount per month, with no share taken from your sales: the details are on the no commission page.
Frequently asked questions
Does limiting online orders lose customers?
A closed 15-minute slot is not a sale lost in advance: the customer sees the remaining slots and chooses another one. What you avoid is accepting an order that the kitchen will not be able to turn out on time. We have no figure to give you on the effect in your own pizzeria; the safest thing is to compare your delays before and after setting your limits.
How many pizzas per 15-minute slot should be allowed online?
There is no number that holds for every pizzeria. Start from the baking pace your oven really holds in a busy service, keep a margin of about 20%, then adjust after a few services. The example in this guide (12 pizzas held, limit at 9) shows the calculation, not your figure.
Can the phone stay open when the website is full?
Yes, as long as the shared limit is respected. If the 15-minute slot is full, the person who answers offers the next one, in the same spirit as the website. The phone is not a back door: it goes through the same schedule, otherwise the limit no longer protects anything.
Should online ordering be closed during the rush?
Not necessarily. Closing the website at the peak loses orders the kitchen could have handled. A cautious limit is better, even if it means lowering it slightly before opening on busy evenings, than giving up the channel.
Try Pizza Planner Pro free of charge for 15 days: your bank card is saved with our payment provider and is not charged during the trial. The monthly subscription then starts automatically; you can cancel it at any time, at no cost.