Platform commission is the only cost in hospitality that grows in proportion to sales and cannot be optimised — not by bulk buying, not by a better-run kitchen. The better you do, the more you pay.
This piece is not an argument for closing your Uber Eats account. Platforms bring orders you would not otherwise have. It is an argument for knowing what those orders cost. Without that number no decision about them is possible.
What the rates actually are
Rates are negotiated case by case. They depend on the country, the city, the delivery model and the size of the venue. Publicly quoted ranges look like this:
| Platform | Commission range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Uber Eats | ~25–35% | higher when the platform's courier delivers |
| Deliveroo | ~25–35% | similar model; lower with your own driver |
| Glovo | ~25–35% | varies significantly by market |
| Just Eat Takeaway (Lieferando, Thuisbezorgd) | ~13–30% | the low end applies to self-delivery |
Treat these as a starting point for reading your own contract, not as a price list. The spread between the low and high end of any one platform is usually the difference between delivering yourself and using their courier.
On top come the items that are not called commission but reduce what remains:
- payment processing — 1–3% of order value;
- the share of promotions — a "−20% on your first order" discount is usually funded by the restaurant, not the platform;
- paid placement — a higher position in the listing, nominally optional;
- onboarding and hardware fees for the tablet, one-off or monthly.
A €100 order — what is left
A simplified calculation for a typical order with platform delivery, 28% commission and 10% VAT. VAT on restaurant sales varies across the EU — 10% in Spain and France, 7% on takeaway in Germany, 9% in the Netherlands — so substitute your own rate before drawing conclusions.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gross order | €100.00 |
| VAT 10% | −€9.09 |
| Net basis | €90.91 |
| Platform commission 28% of gross | −€28.00 |
| Payment processing ~2% | −€2.00 |
| Left to cover costs | ≈ €60.91 |
| Food cost 30% (of net) | −€27.27 |
| Packaging | −€4.00 |
| Gross margin on this order | ≈ €29.64 |
The same sale in the dining room, with no commission and no packaging, leaves around €63. So an order from a platform is worth roughly half of an order placed in the venue — for the same load on the kitchen.
If that same order also carries a 20% discount funded by the restaurant, the gross margin drops to around €10. At that point the kitchen is working to cover its costs.
When the platform is still worth it
Honestly: there are situations where 28% is a good price.
- Acquiring a new guest. The platform is an acquisition channel. If three out of the first ten orders come back directly, the commission on those ten was a marketing cost, and a cheap one.
- Filling dead hours. Tuesday 15:00, the kitchen is idle. An order with €30 of margin beats no order.
- No logistics of your own. Hiring a driver makes sense above a certain number of orders a day. Below that threshold the platform's courier is cheaper.
- A new venue. Before people know you, the platform buys visibility you could not get for that money anywhere else.
The problem starts when the platform stops being an acquisition channel and becomes the main sales channel. Then you are paying 28% on guests who would have come to you anyway.
The test worth running quarterly
Pull the order list for the last 3 months from the platform panel and count how many customers ordered more than once. The threshold worth acting on: 20% repeat orders.
- If repeats are frequent, you are paying commission on regulars. That is the group worth moving to your own channel.
- If almost everything is one-off, the platform genuinely works as acquisition and the conversion to a regular does not. The problem is then in what goes into the bag: no insert, no reason to come back directly.
Four things to check in your contract
Before calculating anything, check the four items that are easy to miss:
- Whether commission is charged on the gross or net amount. At 10% VAT that difference is roughly 3 percentage points of real commission.
- Whether commission covers the delivery fee paid by the customer. Sometimes it does.
- Who funds promotional discounts. This is the most common source of divergence between the forecast and the payout.
- Whether there is a price-parity clause — a ban on offering a lower price in your own channel. If there is, planning your own sales looks different.
Reducing dependence without leaving
The sensible strategy is not to deregister but to move the regulars to your own channel and leave the platform doing acquisition. Three things work fastest:
- A QR code for your own ordering in every takeaway bag. A guest who already knows you orders directly next time.
- A price or an extra available only in your own channel — where the contract permits it. Free delivery above a threshold works better than a percentage discount.
- Your own online menu with ordering, linked from the site, the Google Business Profile and social media. Without it a guest has nowhere to order directly, even when they want to.
We set this out as a 90-day plan: moving orders off delivery platforms.
What your own channel costs
For comparison with 28% commission: online ordering in WMenu runs with no commission on order value — you pay a flat subscription regardless of how much you sell. On €7,000 of monthly delivery sales, platform commission is around €1,960; the subscription is two orders of magnitude below that.
That does not make the platform redundant. It means every order you move across is worth twice as much. Details on the online ordering page and in pricing.
Frequently asked questions
What commission do delivery platforms charge restaurants?
Publicly quoted ranges run from about 13% to 35% of order value. The rate depends on the platform, the market, the package and whether you or the platform delivers. Self-delivery is consistently at the lower end.
Can commission be negotiated?
Yes, particularly at higher volume and with your own courier. The strongest argument in a negotiation is having a working sales channel of your own.
Is it worth leaving the platforms?
Rarely worth leaving entirely — a platform acquires guests you will not get otherwise. What is worth doing is moving across the customers who order regularly, because on them you pay commission for no benefit.
How do I calculate what commissions actually cost me?
Take last month's platform sales, multiply by the commission rate and add the cost of discounts you funded. Compare that figure with the annual cost of your own ordering system — the difference is usually visible after one month.
Does VAT change the calculation much?
It changes the base, not the conclusion. At 19% rather than 10% VAT the net basis shrinks and every percentage point of commission costs more in real terms, which makes moving regulars across more valuable, not less.
