Restaurant · Guide · Updated July 2026

5 Psychological Tricks McDonald's Uses to Get More Customers (And How to Steal Them)

McDonald’s doesn’t leave money on the table by accident. Every number on their menu, every question their cashier asks, and every coupon they send is backed by consumer psychology. The good news: none of these tactics require a corporate marketing budget. Here are the five psychological tricks McDonald’s uses constantly, and exactly how to apply each one to your shop.

What Is Miller’s Law and Why Does It Dictate Your Menu Size?

When you walk into a McDonald’s, the menu board shows roughly 7 to 10 items. That is not a coincidence. It is Miller’s Law in action.

Human short-term memory holds seven to nine items comfortably. Show a customer more than that and you trigger analysis paralysis. They stall. They second-guess. And a portion of them don’t order at all, or they leave frustrated. Show too few items and you leave profit on the table because you have no room to capitalize on what they actually want.

The golden rule is seven to nine menu items.

This is something I have preached across every restaurant I have worked with. A tighter menu drives faster decisions and higher conversion. Your first move this week: count every item on your menu. If you are over nine, identify which ones are pure profit makers and hero items, then cut the rest. If you are under seven, add deliberate variations to reach that range.

One bonus note for operators who love their own food (and most of you do): start with seven to nine items, get customers buying, study what they order, and then expand with new variations once you have data. Do not launch with 30 items because you are proud of every recipe.

How Does the Novelty Effect Bring In Customers Who Would Never Visit Otherwise?

There are two types of customers. The first type orders the same thing every visit. That is me at McDonald’s. I always get the Big Mac meal. The second type scans for whatever is new. My wife is that person. She is only ordering the special, the limited thing, the collaboration.

The novelty effect is built entirely for that second customer. And if your menu never changes, you are invisible to them.

McDonald’s executes this by running premium limited-time burgers and high-profile collaborations. The Travis Scott meal sold out. The BTS collaboration drove enormous traffic. Neither of those required McDonald’s to reinvent their kitchen. They just attached a familiar name to an existing product.

You do not need a celebrity to do this. A local ice cream shop called Mr. collaborated with a bakery called Boku to create a crossover croissant ice cream sandwich. That one collaboration became a popular campaign that brought in people who had never visited either business before.

Your version of novelty could be a partnership with another local food business, a collab with a local influencer, or a seasonal item with a story behind it. The bar is not “revolutionary.” The bar is “something I haven’t seen here before.”

Why Is Upselling the Simplest High-Return Tactic in the Restaurant Business?

This is my favorite of the five, because the math is undeniable and the execution is one sentence.

McDonald’s generated an additional $28 million by training cashiers to ask one question: “Would you like fries with that?” That is it. One question. One sentence. $28 million.

This works because of a simple behavioral truth: people are far more likely to buy a complementary item that supports their initial purchase. You already decided to eat. Adding fries to your burger just makes the burger better. The mental resistance is almost zero.

Starbucks does the same thing. Order a coffee and they ask if you want a muffin or a cookie. The first purchase is already made. The second is frictionless.

For your shop, the question to ask yourself is this: what would make the item I am already selling more enjoyable? Then train your staff to spot those moments and say the words.

A practical example: it is a hot summer day and a customer orders a big burger. Your staff offers a large cold drink to go with it. That is a natural, low-pressure upsell that genuinely improves the customer’s experience and adds revenue to your ticket. Do not wait for customers to ask. Train your team to offer.

Does Pricing With a .99 Actually Change Buying Behavior?

Yes, and the data is clear.

This is called the charm effect, or the left-digit effect. When a customer sees $2.99, their brain does not process three dollars. It processes two dollars. The left digit is what the brain anchors on, and it happens before any conscious thought kicks in.

In 2003, the University of Chicago ran an experiment where three items were priced at $34, $39, and $44. The item priced at $39 sold the most, even though the $34 option was cheaper. The .99 or the nine-ending price carried more psychological weight than the raw dollar amount.

McDonald’s uses nine-endings across their entire menu, on burgers, combos, and every promotional price point.

Your action here is simple. Audit every price on your menu right now. Anywhere you have a round number or a .95 or a .88, shift it to a .99 or a .9-ending. This change costs you nothing and it can increase conversion immediately.

One note for premium operators: this works at any price point. $14.99 reads as fourteen dollars to the brain, not fifteen. The psychology does not care about your category.

What Is the Bargain Mentality and How Do Coupons Trigger It?

Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist and professor at Golden Gate University, made an important observation about why people love deals. Most bargain hunters do not even have a specific product in mind when they go looking. What they are actually chasing is the feeling of winning. The thrill of being a smart, successful shopper.

McDonald’s exploits this constantly. They send coupons everywhere. Not because their food needs a discount to sell, but because the coupon makes the customer feel like they scored. That emotional reward creates a reason to visit that has nothing to do with hunger.

For your restaurant, this means building enough margin into your products that you can afford to run a promotion periodically. Then use that promotion, a coupon, a limited-time bundle, a loyalty punch card, not just to drive traffic but to give your customers that feeling of winning. When a customer feels smart for choosing you, they come back.

Work the margins first. Then build the promo. In that order.

The Bottom Line

These five tactics are used by one of the most studied consumer businesses on the planet, and every single one of them scales down to a single-location shop. Tighten your menu to 7 to 9 items. Introduce novelty to capture the customers who crave new experiences. Train your staff to upsell with one natural question. Reprice your menu with nine-endings. And give your customers the occasional deal that makes them feel like winners. The operator who understands their customer’s psychology will always outperform the one who just makes great food.

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