The first month on a delivery app usually feels great. Orders are up. The kitchen is busy. The revenue line looks better than it has all year.
Then the payout hits the bank and it is not what the sales report said.
Where the money goes
You know about the commission. The commission is not the whole story.
There is the base commission. There is the higher tier you got moved to for better placement. There is the marketing fee if you ran a promotion. There is the processing fee. There is the promo you funded when the app offered your customers free delivery, which came out of your side.
Then on your end there is packaging that dine-in does not have, and food cost on an order that is often skewed toward your lower-margin items because that is what travels well.
Stack all of it and the question stops being "how much commission do they take" and becomes "what is left when the order is done."
Run the numbers on your delivery orders
Take one month of third-party orders and put the real commission in, not the one you remember agreeing to. Marketing fees, promo fees and processing all belong in the same bucket.
Start from your industry
Editable starting examples for your industry. They change the starting numbers, not the math, and they are not industry statistics.
Your numbers
What that means
Use the platform to meet people. Then get them onto your list, your booking link and your text messages, and let the platform keep bringing you new ones.
Check the platform's terms before you solicit customers off it. The goal is not to break their rules. It is to own the relationship you built.
What this assumed
- Repeat customers are counted as revenue you could have kept, which assumes you have a way to reach them directly.
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
This is an estimate
This tool returns an estimate based on the numbers you entered. Your real result depends on your own costs, rates and conditions. Check it against your own records before you make a decision with it.
How to run it, step by step
- 1Use your payout report, not your sales report. Your point of sale shows the order total. The payout report shows what actually hit the bank. The difference between those two is what this exercise is about.
- 2Enter your true commission. Base commission plus any marketing or promoted-placement fees you opted into, plus processing. If your payout is seventy cents on the dollar, your real rate is thirty percent no matter what the contract calls it.
- 3Put in your food cost on those items. Use the food cost for the items that actually sell on delivery, which usually skews differently than dine-in. Wings and combos are not the same margin as a steak.
- 4Add packaging. Containers, bags, lids, sauce cups, labels. Delivery has a packaging cost that dine-in does not, and it is per order, so it hits small orders hardest.
How to read what it gives you
- If the margin on a delivery order comes out near zero or negative, the app is not a sales channel for that item, it is a paid advertisement you are also cooking.
- Look at the per-order profit, not the monthly revenue. Restaurants get talked into these platforms with revenue numbers and quietly lose money on margin.
- Run it twice, once at your current commission and once with a delivery-specific menu price. That gap tells you whether menu pricing alone fixes it.
The tool is free, it does not expire, and you can put it on your own website if you want it there. Nothing on this page is locked.
Not ready to talk? Browse the rest of the free tools
What the number usually says
Three outcomes, and you will land on one of them.
It works. Your margin on delivery orders is thin but real, the volume is incremental, and the app is bringing you people who would not have found you. Keep it, watch it, and stop worrying.
It works only on some items. This is the most common answer. High-margin items are fine and a handful of things on the menu are being cooked at a loss. The fix is not leaving the platform. The fix is a delivery menu that is not a copy of your dine-in menu.
It does not work. The margin is at or below zero once packaging and comped remakes are counted. At that point every order is costing you money to fulfill, and volume makes it worse instead of better.
The moves that actually change the number
Build a delivery-specific menu. Fewer items, priced for the channel, chosen for what survives fifteen minutes in a bag. This is the single biggest lever and it does not require leaving anything.
Price the channel separately. If it costs you thirty percent to sell through a platform, the menu on that platform reflects it. Check your agreement first.
Put an insert in every bag. A card with a QR code that goes to your own ordering page, with a reason to use it. Free drink, dollar off, whatever fits. Every single delivery order is a free chance to convert somebody to a direct customer, and most restaurants throw that chance away.
Own the customer list. The platform will never give you your customers. The bag insert and the counter sign will. An email list you own is the only version of this you keep, which is a whole separate conversation worth having.
The honest framing
Delivery platforms are not villains and they are not free money. They are a paid distribution channel with a very high take rate. Treat them the way you would treat any ad spend: measure what you get back, keep the parts that pay, and never let the channel own the relationship.
Questions people actually ask
Should I raise my prices on the delivery apps?
Most restaurants do, and the platforms generally allow it. Check your current agreement, because some pricing-parity terms have existed and terms change. Price so the delivery order is worth cooking, and be aware customers who see both menus will notice.
Is it worth building my own online ordering?
It depends on whether you have a way to reach customers directly. Direct ordering with no audience is a page nobody visits. Direct ordering plus a customer list, a Google Business Profile and a sign on the counter is how restaurants actually shift volume off the apps.
Should I just leave the apps entirely?
Usually no, not at first. They bring real demand you cannot reach on your own. The move most operators make is to keep them for discovery, fix the margin on what you list there, and work on converting repeat customers to direct.
How do I get delivery customers to order direct next time?
Put something in the bag. A card with a QR code to your own ordering page and a reason to use it. That insert is the only marketing channel the platform cannot take away from you, because you physically control it.