Delivery app fees vs direct ordering: What UK restaurants actually pay

If a customer spends £25 through a delivery app, how much of that actually reaches you? The honest answer depends heavily on which platform, which delivery model, and which agreement – but it’s an answerable question, and most restaurants have never actually worked it out.

Delivery apps aren’t bad value. They give you customer acquisition, visibility and delivery infrastructure your own website doesn’t automatically have. The real question is simpler: Does every repeat customer need to keep ordering through a marketplace, or is some of that traffic worth bringing direct?

How much do food delivery apps charge restaurants in the UK?

Unlike Uber Eats, Deliveroo doesn’t publicly list a standard UK restaurant commission rate. Partner pricing can depend on the individual agreement, so check your current contract rather than relying on a generic percentage quoted online.

Rates, agreements and additional charges (admin fees, promotional costs, payment processing) can all vary by location, volume and exclusivity terms. 

What does a £25 delivery order actually cost?

Take a £25 customer order on a platform-delivered model at roughly 30% commission plus VAT:

Scale that up:

Why do restaurants still use delivery apps?

It’s not just inertia. Marketplaces provide:

• Access to a large existing customer base you don’t have to build yourself
• Customer discovery – being found by people who’ve never heard of you
• Marketing reach beyond what most independents could achieve alone
• Built-in delivery infrastructure, with no fleet or drivers to manage
• Potential incremental orders that wouldn’t otherwise exist

That cost may make commercial sense when the platform is acquiring a customer you wouldn’t otherwise have reached. The calculation changes when you’re paying the same percentage on repeat orders from existing customers.

What happens when customers keep ordering through delivery apps?

If a customer discovers you through an aggregator for the first time, the platform has clearly delivered real acquisition value – that’s the fee doing its job. But if that same customer goes on to place another 10 orders through the marketplace, you continue paying the applicable marketplace fee each time they order through that platform.

Using the illustrative £25 order at 30% plus VAT:

How does direct online ordering work?

The basic journey is simple: A customer visits your own website, browses the menu, pays, and the order comes straight to you.

Direct ordering doesn’t make orders free. It changes the cost structure and can reduce your reliance on marketplace commission specifically. Depending on the provider, you may instead pay subscription, transaction, payment processing or delivery fees.

Delivery apps vs direct ordering: How do the costs compare?

Take 100 monthly orders at £25 average order value, worth £2,500 in total customer spend:

The direct column isn’t “free” – it just moves the cost from one scaling percentage to a different, generally more fixed and more visible structure. The real comparison is your total cost of accepting, processing and fulfilling the order under each model, not “0% versus 30%.”

What about delivery when customers order directly?

One of the obvious questions around direct ordering is delivery: What if you don’t employ your own drivers?

Taking an order and delivering it don’t have to be handled by the same provider. You can accept an order through your own website, take payment directly, send it straight into your EPOS, and fulfil it either with your own drivers or through an integrated third-party delivery service. 

Uber itself now markets Uber Direct on exactly this premise, where customers order through the restaurant’s own website or app while Uber’s network handles fulfilment. “Direct” is about who owns the customer relationship and the ordering channel, not necessarily about who’s driving the food over.

Do restaurants need to choose between delivery apps and direct ordering?

Restaurants absolutely don’t need to choose between the two.

Marketplaces are valuable for reach and acquiring new customers. Direct ordering is valuable for repeat customers and reducing unnecessary reliance on marketplace commission. Most restaurants don’t need to pick a side – they need a deliberate channel mix, rather than defaulting entirely to whichever channel they set up first.

How can restaurants manage direct and delivery app orders together?

Running multiple channels at once commonly means multiple tablets, orders arriving through different systems, manual re-keying, separate menus to keep in sync, and more chances for mistakes. 

All of this adds admin for your staff exactly when they’re busiest.

YUMA brings those different ordering routes into your wider EPOS workflow — delivery integrations sit alongside direct ordering rather than as a separate, disconnected system to manage on top of everything else.

When does direct ordering make financial sense?

Three factors decide how much difference this makes for your restaurant:

Average order value. The higher the value of an order, the greater the pound-cost of a percentage-based commission. A £40 order at 30% costs meaningfully more in absolute terms than a £15 one.

Number of direct orders. The more repeat orders you can shift to a direct channel, the more significant the cost difference becomes over a month or a year.

Customer acquisition cost. Direct customers don’t appear for free. You may need to invest in SEO, your Google Business Profile, social media, email, SMS, loyalty schemes, in-store promotion, QR codes, or paid advertising to build awareness of your direct channel. Direct ordering becomes particularly compelling once you already have an established customer base you can actively encourage to order directly, rather than starting from nothing.

How can you calculate what delivery apps are costing your restaurant?

Monthly aggregator order value multiplied by the commission rate gives you estimated commission:

Compare that figure against the complete cost of generating, processing and fulfilling the equivalent orders directly (online ordering costs, payment processing, delivery, and whatever it costs to make customers aware the direct option exists) rather than assuming the direct total is automatically lower.

Delivery apps or direct ordering: Which approach works for your restaurant?

Delivery apps give you reach, discovery and delivery infrastructure that’s hard to replicate on your own, especially if you’re new or growing. Direct ordering gives you more control over your ordering channel and reduces your reliance on percentage-based marketplace commission, particularly for customers who already know you.

A combined approach lets restaurants use marketplaces where they add value while building a direct channel for customers who already know where they want to order from.

Take more orders directly without adding more admin

YUMA brings EPOS, online ordering and delivery integrations together, so direct website orders and supported third-party delivery orders can feed into the same wider operation. Build your own direct ordering channel without adding another disconnected system for your team to manage.

Explore YUMA online ordering or book a demo.

Frequently asked questions

How much commission does Uber Eats charge restaurants in the UK?

Uber Eats’ published UK merchant pricing is 30% plus VAT when Uber handles delivery, and 13% plus VAT for restaurant self-delivery or pickup orders. Additional charges, such as an activation fee, may also apply depending on your plan.

How much commission does Just Eat charge restaurants in the UK?

Just Eat’s partner terms set commission at 14% plus VAT when the restaurant delivers, rising to 30% plus VAT when Just Eat’s own delivery network handles the order. Rates can vary by agreement.

Does Deliveroo charge restaurants commission?

Yes, but Deliveroo doesn’t publish a standard UK commission rate the way Uber Eats does. Pricing depends on your individual partner agreement, so check your Deliveroo Partner Hub contract for your specific rate.

Is direct ordering cheaper than using delivery apps?

Not automatically. Direct ordering removes marketplace commission, but replaces it with other costs – subscription, transaction, payment processing or delivery fees, depending on the provider. Whether it’s cheaper depends on your order volume, average order value and how many customers you can move to a direct channel.