This ‘McCheapest app’ might help save you big money on your Big Mac

With fast food prices sky-rocketing, a British analyst has created a map to help customers find the cheapest Big Macs across America.

Customers will love the new tool, called the ‘McCheapest app,’ founded by Sacha Fournier. It ‘tracks the price of Big Mac at every McDonald’s location across the US’, according to its website.

The map is cleverly color-coded, with dots scattered over the nation. The green dots signify the regions with the lowest-costing Big Macs, the orange indicates those in the median range, and the red signifies those with the highest cost. 

McCheapest

For example, in In Stigler, OK, the map claims the franchise sells Big Macs for only $3.49.

In New York, we can see that the prices vary by location. The cheapest Big Macs are $5.39 at some locations in the Bronx and Queens. The highest priced Big Mac is $6,69 at Westchester Ave. location in the Bronx.

According to a survey by TheStreet, some of the most popular items sold by McDonald’s have surged by 141%, compared to prices demonstrated in 2019. 

This includes the beloved Big Mac, which the survey claims rose from 87.7% to $7.49 from $3.99.

The President of McDonald’s responded to the study, saying: “I can tell you that it frustrates and worries me, and many of our franchisees, when I hear about an $18 Big Mac meal being sold – even if it was at one location in the U.S. out of more than 13,700.

“More worrying, though, is when people believe that this is the rule and not the exception, or when folks start to suggest that the prices of a Big Mac have risen 100% since 2019.

“The average price of a Big Mac in the U.S. was $4.39 in 2019,” Erlinger declared. “Despite a global pandemic and historic rises in supply chain costs, wages and other inflationary pressures in the years that followed, the average cost is now $5.29. That’s an increase of 21% (not 100%).”

A franchisee at McDonald’s also disputed the claims made by the survey, writing on Twitter/X: “This bogus chart is getting passed around. This data set doesn’t even list the same store or even the same source with pre versus post. 

“The entire data set is rogue & has a severe data quality problem. You have data that is incomplete, inaccurate, inconsistent, outdated & simply of poor quality, making it completely unreliable for any type of analysis.”

Conductors of the survey responded acknowledging that “[It is] difficult to accurately source historical data to compare to the present… McDonald’s franchisees are given a high level of autonomy in setting menu prices for individual locations.”

In addition to the cheapest Big Mac app, customers can also check out the McBroken app, which allows you to check whether or not the McFlurry machine is working in your area.