Guide
The real math of delivery app commissions — and when direct ordering pays for itself
Marketplace apps take 20–30% of every order. Here's what that actually costs a typical restaurant per year, and the break-even point where your own ordering channel wins.
July 8, 2026 · 6 min read
- Commission cost per $10k of monthly orders
- The break-even formula
- A hybrid strategy that keeps both channels
A restaurant doing $10,000 a month through delivery apps at a 25% commission hands over $30,000 a year — before payment processing, promotions the platform pressures you into, and the tablet fees. For most independents, that's more than rent on the marketing line.
The apps aren't villains: they bring discovery and delivery logistics you'd struggle to replicate. The mistake is letting them own your repeat customers. A regular who orders from you every week through a marketplace costs you 25% forever. The same regular ordering through your own site costs you a flat platform fee and card processing — usually under 5% all-in.
The break-even formula
Take your monthly marketplace volume and multiply by the commission spread — roughly 20 points between marketplace and direct. On $10,000 a month, that's $2,000 in margin recovered for every month you shift orders to your own channel. Against a direct ordering platform costing a few hundred dollars a month, the channel pays for itself once you move even 15–20% of volume.
The shift doesn't happen by itself. It takes a fast ordering page linked from your Google profile, a box-stuffer or QR card that tells app customers 'order direct next time and skip the markup', and a small direct-only incentive — a free side, a loyalty punch — that costs you far less than the commission you're avoiding.
Keep the apps, own the regulars
The winning posture is hybrid: stay listed on Uber Eats and DoorDash for discovery, and systematically convert second orders to direct. New customers find you on the marketplace; regulars order from your site. Every converted regular is a permanent 20-point margin improvement on everything they ever order again.
Elevaro's Growth package includes the direct ordering platform, the website it lives on, and management of your Uber Eats and DoorDash listings — so the discovery channel and the profit channel work together instead of against each other.