If you sell through the big delivery marketplaces, you already know the feeling: a £20 order comes in, and by the time the commission, delivery fee and card charges are taken out, there's barely enough left to cover the ingredients. You did the work, you made the food — and someone else took the margin.
Let's put real numbers on it, because the scale of the problem only becomes obvious when you do.
What marketplace commissions actually cost
Most third-party ordering apps charge somewhere between 20% and 35% per order, depending on whether they also handle delivery. Take a restaurant doing a modest £4,000 a month through one of these platforms at a 28% commission:
- Monthly revenue through the app: £4,000
- Commission at 28%: £1,120 — gone
- That's £13,440 a year handed to the marketplace
For many independent restaurants, that figure is larger than their entire annual profit. You're not running a restaurant at that point; you're running a lead-generation business for an app.
The hidden costs beyond the headline rate
The commission is only the part you can see. The marketplace model quietly takes more:
- Your customers aren't yours. The app owns the relationship, the email address and the ordering history. You can't market to them directly.
- You compete on price inside the app. Right next to you is every other restaurant, sorted by whoever discounts hardest.
- Payouts are delayed. Your money sits with the platform until they decide to release it.
The marketplace isn't a sales channel. It's a tax on every order you take.
How commission-free ordering changes the maths
Direct ordering flips the model. Instead of renting space on someone else's app, you run your own branded ordering site. Customers order from you, pay you, and the money lands in your bank.
With DinePlatform there are two ways to do it:
- Free plan: a flat 10% commission per order — and you can pass that straight on to the customer at checkout, so it costs you nothing.
- Pro plan: a fixed monthly fee with 0% commission. Every order is yours.
Compare that £150/month Pro plan to the £1,120/month our example restaurant was paying in commission. Even after Stripe's payment processing fees, the difference is close to £1,000 a month back in your pocket.
"But the marketplace brings me customers"
It's the most common objection, and there's truth in it — marketplaces do have reach. The smart move isn't to delete your marketplace listing overnight. It's to use it as a discovery channel while steadily pushing repeat customers to your own direct ordering link, where you keep the full margin.
Put your direct ordering link on your receipts, your packaging, your social media and your window. Every customer you move from the marketplace to direct ordering is a customer you stop paying commission on — forever.
The bottom line
You don't need to accept 28% as the cost of doing business online. Commission-free ordering exists, it's quick to set up, and the savings go straight to your bottom line. The only question is how much longer you want to keep paying the marketplace tax.