How to Reduce Restaurant Delivery Commission Fees
The short answer
Move some of your delivery orders off the marketplaces and onto your own ordering channel. Uber Eats and Deliveroo take 25–35% of every order. A direct ordering platform charges a flat monthly fee, and that fee doesn't go up when you get busier.
How much do delivery commissions cost?
Rough commission rates in the UK and Ireland:
- Uber Eats: 25–35%, depending on your plan and contract
- Deliveroo: 25–35%, depending on tier
- Just Eat: 14–25%, depending on whether you're on pay-per-order or subscription
Take a £25 average order and a 30% commission. That's £7.50 per order to the platform. At 200 delivery orders a week it's £1,500 a week, or £78,000 a year, and you haven't paid anyone's wages or bought a single onion yet.
Marketplaces bring in orders. They also eat most of the margin on them.
Five ways to cut what you pay
1. Build a direct ordering channel
This one makes the biggest difference. Get your own ordering website, and a branded app if you can, so regulars can order from you without going through a marketplace.
Flipdish gives UK and Irish restaurants a branded website, app and kiosk for ordering. There's no commission on orders. You pay a flat monthly fee for the platform.
If you do 200 delivery orders a week and move 40% of them to direct, you save about £31,000 a year in commission at a 30% rate.
2. Negotiate your rate
The rate card isn't the final word, especially if you're doing decent volume. Your hand is stronger if you have:
- 200+ orders a week on one platform
- more than one location on that platform
- ratings that stay good
- a willingness to join their marketing campaigns
Don't just accept the default rate. Ask for a review and bring your order data.
3. Pull back on promotions
Marketplace deals, discounts and featured listings are often paid for partly through a higher commission rate or a move up a tier. Plenty of restaurants sign up without realising their effective commission has gone up.
Go through your marketplace dashboard one promotion at a time. Some will be making you money. Others just add orders at a worse margin.
4. Look at subscription models
Just Eat's Branded offering and some Deliveroo tiers give you a lower commission rate in exchange for a subscription fee or a volume commitment. If your delivery volume is steady, this can bring the effective rate down.
Work out the breakeven with your real order numbers before you sign anything.
5. Move small orders to direct first
Orders under £15 usually come out worst after commission. Give the customers who regularly place small orders a reason to use your own channel instead, where you keep the whole margin.
Direct ordering vs marketplace commission
| Scenario | Marketplace (30% commission) | Direct ordering (flat fee) |
|---|---|---|
| 100 orders/week at £25 AOV | £750/week to platform | ~£100–£150/week flat fee |
| 200 orders/week at £25 AOV | £1,500/week to platform | ~£100–£150/week flat fee |
| 400 orders/week at £25 AOV | £3,000/week to platform | ~£200–£300/week flat fee |
Exact figures depend on the provider and the contract. Even at 100 orders a week, commission costs you at least five times what the flat fee does.
Won't I lose orders?
It's the first thing most operators ask.
Marketplaces are good at finding you new customers. Someone who's never heard of you might come across you on Uber Eats or Deliveroo, and that's worth paying for.
Repeat customers are different. They already know you. Every time one of them orders through a marketplace, you pay 30% on an order you'd probably have got anyway.
So:
- Use the marketplaces to get first-time customers.
- Push them to your direct channel after that first order, with packaging inserts, an incentive to download your app and a line in the order confirmation.
- Keep them ordering direct with loyalty rewards, push notifications and email.
Flipdish's AI marketing tools automate a lot of this. They pick out lapsed customers, send them targeted offers and track how your orders split between channels over time.
Tools that help
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Flipdish online ordering | Your own ordering website, app and kiosk, with no commission |
| Flipdish AI Marketing | Automated campaigns that bring repeat customers back to order direct |
| Flipdish AI Phone Agent | Takes phone orders that might otherwise end up on a marketplace |
| Aggregator management tools | Manage your menu across all the platforms in one place. Won't cut commission, but saves admin |
What a takeaway saves
Say a UK takeaway does £25,000 a month in marketplace delivery sales at 30% commission. That's £7,500 a month to the platforms.
Move half of that volume to direct ordering through Flipdish and the commission saving is around £3,500–£4,000 a month. The Flipdish platform costs a few hundred pounds.
For restaurants with real delivery volume, the platform usually pays for itself in two to four months.
Where to start
If commission is eating your profit, build your own ordering channel first.
Flipdish covers branded ordering on web, app, kiosk and phone, with no per-order commission. Check Flipdish online ordering pricing and compare it with what you paid the marketplaces last month.