Cutting delivery commission without losing the orders

You are not going to leave the delivery apps, and you should not try. They bring you customers who have never heard of your restaurant. What you can do is stop paying 25% on the customers who already know you — and those are usually most of your delivery volume.

The arithmetic first

An order of Rs 2,000 at 25% commission costs you Rs 500. If your food cost is 32%, that order carries Rs 1,360 of gross margin — and the aggregator has taken 37% of it, before packaging, before the rider if you deliver yourself, before rent.

Move a third of your delivery orders to direct and you have found more money than most menu engineering will ever produce.

What actually works, roughly in order

1 · A card in every bag

The cheapest marketing a restaurant has. A small printed card in every aggregator order: your own ordering address, a QR code, and a specific reason — "10% off when you order direct, code DIRECT10".

These customers have already eaten your food and liked it enough to order it. They are the easiest people in the world to convert, and the aggregator is delivering your marketing for you.

2 · Make the second order trivial

The first direct order is a favour they are doing you. The second is a habit — and it only forms if ordering is genuinely easier than opening the app. That means their address remembered, their last order one tap away, and no account to create before they can see the menu.

3 · WhatsApp

In Pakistan and the Gulf, WhatsApp is where customers already are. A number on the card, on the receipt, on your Instagram bio. Some restaurants take more direct orders through WhatsApp than through their website, and there is nothing wrong with that.

4 · Price it honestly

Many restaurants raise prices on the aggregators to cover commission. That is fair. What follows is that your own site is genuinely cheaper — say so plainly: "the same food, 15% less than the app".

5 · Give direct customers something the app cannot

Loyalty points, an item that is only on your own menu, delivery to an area the aggregator does not cover. The point is a reason that is not just price, because price alone is a race you will lose.

What does not work

• Refusing aggregator orders. You lose the discovery and the reviews, and your ranking never recovers.
• A website that is a PDF menu and a phone number. Nobody is calling.
• Asking customers to install another app. They will not. A web page that works in the browser they already have is the whole point.
• A one-off discount with no follow-up. You bought one order, not a customer.

A realistic target

Restaurants that do this properly usually get 20–40% of delivery orders coming direct within six months. Not 100% — the aggregators keep bringing new people, which is what they are for. But the regulars, the twice-a-week orders, the office lunch: those are winnable, and they are the profitable ones.

What you need to make it possible

Your own ordering site, with your real menu, your delivery areas and charges, and customer accounts that remember an address. It should take orders straight into the same system your counter uses — because a direct order that arrives by email and gets typed into the till by hand will be abandoned within a month.