Your own takeaway website vs delivery apps: the real cost

Delivery apps and your own website do different jobs. The apps are good at finding new customers and, if you use their riders, delivering. Your own site is good at keeping the money from customers you already have. The question is which orders are going where.

How commission adds up

Take an example. Say you take £2,500 a week in online orders and an app charges 30% commission on them. That's £750 a week, or £39,000 a year. Commission rates vary by app, contract and whether you use their drivers, so use your own figures from your statements.

Now ask how many of those orders came from people who already knew you: regulars, people who walked past, people who searched your name. For most established takeaways it's a large share. That's the commission you can win back.

Try your own numbers in the savings calculator on our home page.

What the apps are genuinely good for

• Discovery. People browsing for "Chinese near me" in the app find you.
• Drivers. If you don't have your own, app riders can deliver for you.
• Trust for first orders. Some customers only order from apps they know.

So for most takeaways the answer isn't "leave the apps". It's "stop paying them for customers you already have".

What your own website costs

A website you pay for monthly with no commission costs the same however busy you get. Direct Dine is £29 or £42.99 a month plus VAT. Card payments go through your own payment account (Stripe, SumUp, Dojo or PayPal) at their normal processing rate, roughly 1.5–2% for UK cards.

Put those side by side with the commission on the orders you move, and the break-even point is usually a handful of orders a week.

What you get that the apps keep

• Your customers' details, with their marketing consent, so you can bring them back.
• Your own prices and delivery fees, with no marketplace in between.
• Your brand: your website and your name on the confirmation text, not the app's.

A sensible way to run both

1. 1Keep the apps switched on for new customers.
2. 2Put a QR code to your own site in every app order (see how to get customers to order direct).
3. 3Make ordering direct the better deal: same price as the shop, or a first-order discount.
4. 4Check the split each month. As more regulars order direct, your commission bill falls.