Online ordering: the channels and what each costs

Online ordering is how many guests now meet a restaurant for the first time: through an app on their phone, a link on a social profile, or the venue's own website, ordering food to collect or to have delivered. For some venues it is a small extra; for others it is a large share of revenue, and for a few it is the whole business. In every case, it raises the same question: which channels should a venue sell through, and what does each one really cost?

The answer is rarely obvious, because the costs are spread across different places. Delivery apps take a commission on each order. Ordering on your own website avoids the commission but brings its own costs: payment fees, delivery, marketing and the work of running it. The phone is free to answer but expensive in staff time. And each channel decides who keeps the relationship with the guest afterwards.

This guide compares the main online ordering channels on three things: the margin left on each order, the control the venue keeps, and the guest relationship that remains when the meal is eaten. It covers delivery aggregators, direct online ordering, the phone and messaging, collection against delivery, menu and kitchen decisions, and how to build and measure a channel mix. The figures are illustrative; the method is the point.

Online ordering covers any order placed remotely for food to be collected or delivered. The guest chooses dishes, pays or arranges payment, and either picks the order up or waits for it to arrive. It sits alongside the dining room rather than inside it, though it usually shares the same kitchen.

The general idea of online food ordering has existed for decades, but it grew quickly in the years after 2020, when many venues turned to delivery and collection to survive closures. Much of that trade stayed. Guests who learned to order dinner from an app kept doing it, and venues that built a delivery business kept it as part of their income.

It is not the same as ordering from the table, where a guest in the dining room scans a QR code and orders from their phone. That is a dine-in service with its own guide: see QR ordering. This guide is about orders placed from outside the venue.

Most venues sell online through some combination of these channels:

Each channel has its own costs, its own effect on the kitchen and its own relationship with the guest. The mix that suits one venue may be wrong for another.

Delivery aggregators offer something few venues can build on their own: a large audience of hungry guests, already in the habit of ordering, with their addresses and payment details saved. A listing on a popular app can bring orders from people who have never heard of the venue. Many aggregators also provide the riders, so the venue does not need its own delivery team.

The price is the aggregator commission, usually a percentage of the order value, which pays for the platform's marketing, technology, payment processing and, where included, delivery. Rates vary widely between platforms, markets and agreements, and they are often higher when the platform supplies the riders. There may also be fees for promotions, better placement in search results or offers funded by the venue.

There are other costs too. The venue's menu sits beside its competitors', and guests can switch with a tap. Aggregators may not pass on guests' contact details, so the venue cannot easily invite them back directly. And the venue depends on the platform's rules, which can change. Our guide to aggregator commission works through what an order costs line by line.

Ordering on your website means guests order directly from the venue, through an ordering page on its own site. There is no aggregator commission. The venue sets the menu, the prices, the delivery area and the experience, and it keeps the guest's details, with their permission, for next time.

Direct online ordering brings its own costs. Card payments carry processing fees. Someone has to run the ordering system, keep the menu current and handle problems. If the venue delivers, it needs riders, or a delivery service paid per drop. And it needs guests to find the ordering page, which usually means marketing: social posts, email, signs in the venue and flyers in the bag.

For many venues, direct ordering works best with guests who already know them: regulars, neighbours and guests who have eaten in. These guests do not need an aggregator to discover the venue; they only need an easy way to order directly. Our guide to direct online ordering covers how to make it the easy choice.

The phone is the oldest channel and still important. It costs nothing per order, it suits guests who prefer to speak to someone, and it handles questions that an ordering page cannot. But it ties up a member of staff for every order, often at the busiest time of the evening, and orders taken by phone are easy to mishear or write down wrongly.

In some markets, messaging apps play the same role. Guests send their order as a message, the venue confirms it, and payment happens on collection or delivery. It is personal and familiar, but it is also manual: every order has to be read, confirmed, entered and tracked by hand.

Both channels work well at low volumes. As volume grows, the staff time and the risk of errors grow with it, and many venues move their regular phone and messaging guests towards a direct ordering page.

Collection and delivery have very different economics. A collection order has no delivery cost: the guest comes to the venue, picks up the food and leaves. A delivery order carries the cost of getting the food to the guest, whether that is an aggregator's rider, a delivery service or the venue's own staff.

Collection orders also tend to arrive in better condition, because they travel less far and less time passes before they are eaten. They bring guests to the door, where they may notice the dining room and come back to eat in. For venues with plenty of passing trade or a loyal local following, encouraging collection can raise the margin on online ordering considerably.

Delivery reaches guests who will never come to the door, which is its great advantage. The question for each venue is how much each delivery order really contributes once every cost is counted, and whether the reach is worth it.

To compare channels fairly, cost an order through each one. Here is an illustrative order worth 40.00 before tax, with a food and packaging cost of 13.00. The rates are examples only; your own agreements and costs will differ.

The order is the same in every case. What the venue keeps ranges from 15.00 to about 27.00, depending only on the channel. Run the same sums with your own rates, and the shape of your own channel mix becomes clear.

The cheapest channel is not always the best. An aggregator order that leaves 15.00 may still be worth taking if it comes from a guest the venue would never have reached, and if that guest later orders directly. A direct order that leaves 20.00 may cost more in marketing than it seems, if the venue had to pay to bring the guest to its site.

Two other measures matter. The first is control: who sets the menu, the prices, the delivery area and the rules, and who decides what happens when something goes wrong. The second is the relationship: whether the venue knows who ordered, can contact them again with their permission and can recognise them next time.

Aggregators score well on reach and poorly on control and relationship. Direct ordering scores well on control and relationship but needs the venue to bring its own guests. A good channel mix uses each for what it does best.

The menu that works in the dining room may not travel. Some dishes go soggy, separate or cool quickly in a box; others travel well. Build an online menu from the dishes that arrive in good condition, and leave out or adapt the rest. A shorter online menu is easier to cook alongside the dining room and easier for guests to choose from.

Prices may differ by channel. Some venues charge more on aggregators to cover the commission, while keeping direct prices lower to encourage direct ordering. Before doing so, check your agreements, because some platforms restrict price differences between channels. Whatever you choose, keep each channel's prices consistent and up to date, with every change made in the same place.

Delivery menus also need clear allergen information, because guests cannot ask a server. Every dish's allergens must be correct on every channel. Our guide to building an allergen matrix that stays correct covers how to keep the record right.

Online orders usually share a kitchen with the dining room, and that is where many problems start. A wave of delivery orders at eight o'clock lands on the same stations as the dining room's mains, and both slow down. Dine-in guests wait longer for their food, and delivery orders wait longer for their riders.

Plan for it. Know how many covers the kitchen can cook in each quarter of an hour, and count online orders against that ceiling, not separately. Some venues pause aggregator orders at peak times, limit the online menu at the busiest moments or set realistic preparation times so riders are not left waiting. Our guide to pacing covers covers how to find the kitchen's ceiling.

Keep orders from every channel in view in one place. A kitchen juggling tablets from three aggregators, a printer for the website and a notepad for the phone will miss orders. Wherever possible, bring every order into the same queue, in the order it needs to be cooked.

For an online order, the packaging is part of the dish. It decides whether the food arrives hot, intact and appealing, and it is the first thing the guest sees when the bag is opened. Good packaging costs money, and it should be counted in the cost of every order.

Choose packaging for the dish: vented boxes for fried food, sealed containers for sauces, separate compartments for components that should not mix. Test each dish by ordering it yourself and eating it at the time and distance a guest would.

Use the bag to build the relationship. A card with the venue's own ordering link, a note about booking a table, or a thank-you message can turn an aggregator guest into a direct one next time.

When a guest orders through an aggregator, the aggregator usually owns the relationship. It holds the guest's account, address, payment details and order history, and it may use them to suggest other restaurants next time. The venue may receive only a first name and an order number.

When a guest orders directly, the venue holds the relationship, as long as it handles the guest's data properly and asks for permission before sending marketing. It can thank the guest, invite them back, tell them about a new dish and recognise them next time.

That relationship has value beyond any single order: a regular who orders every fortnight for two years is worth many times one order. It is one of the strongest reasons to build direct ordering alongside the aggregators.

A practical channel mix uses each channel for what it does best. Aggregators bring discovery: new guests who would not otherwise find the venue, especially in its first months or in new areas. Direct ordering serves guests who already know the venue, with better margins and a relationship that lasts. The phone and messaging serve guests who prefer them, and handle questions.

Move guests from the expensive channels to the cheaper ones over time, gently. Include the direct ordering link in every bag, on the website and in every email. Offer something on direct orders that the aggregator does not, such as a dish only available directly or a slightly better price where agreements allow.

Review the mix regularly. A venue that started with most orders through aggregators may, a year later, take a large share directly, and the economics of the whole operation change as it does.

Measure each channel on the money it leaves after every cost, not on revenue. For each channel, add up orders, revenue, commissions and fees, delivery costs, packaging, marketing and an estimate of staff time. Divide by the number of orders to find what each order really contributes.

Track repeat orders too. A channel whose guests order again and again is worth more than one whose guests order once. Where you can, see how many aggregator guests later order directly, which shows whether the aggregator is doing its job as a source of discovery.

Read the figures monthly, and compare like with like: busy months with busy months, and quiet with quiet.

Here is an illustrative month for a venue taking 1,200 online orders worth an average of 40.00, using the per-order figures above. The figures show the method, not typical results.

If 200 of the delivering aggregator's orders came from regulars who could be moved to direct delivery, the venue would keep about 5.00 more on each, or 1,000 a month. Moving them to direct collection would add about 11.00 each. The sums tell the venue where to focus.

servearound is built for the dining room rather than for delivery. Guests order from the table by scanning its QR code menu, and the order arrives as a ticket at the station that cooks it; servearound does not take delivery or takeaway orders.

What it brings to the wider operation is one menu and the numbers behind it. Dishes live in one library, with their allergens and prices, so the information you copy to other channels starts from one correct source. With the Analytics module, the menu report shows each dish's units, revenue and margin once its cost is set, which is the starting point for costing any channel. Campaigns includes email templates for announcing a takeaway or delivery launch to the guests in your records who have agreed to hear from you. See the menus module and pricing.

No. It suits some formats and kitchens better than others. Cost it honestly, including the effect on the dining room, before deciding.

Often, for discovery, especially for new venues. Less so for orders from regulars who would have ordered directly. Measure where your aggregator orders come from.

Make direct ordering easy, tell guests about it in every bag and on every channel you control, and give them a reason to use it.

Some venues do this to cover the commission. Check your agreements first, and keep every channel's prices accurate.

Not necessarily. Collection, a delivery service paid per drop or an aggregator's riders may all be cheaper at low volumes.

Count online orders against the kitchen's capacity, limit or pause orders at peak times, and keep every order in one queue.

Online ordering reaches guests beyond the dining room, through delivery aggregators, ordering on your website, the phone and messaging. Each channel leaves a different margin on the same order, gives the venue a different amount of control, and keeps a different relationship with the guest. Cost an order through each, including commissions, card fees, delivery and packaging.

Use aggregators for discovery and direct online ordering for the guests who already know you, keep the online menu short and travel-proof, protect the kitchen at peak times and measure each channel on what it leaves, not what it takes. Over time, move regulars towards the channels that keep more of the margin and the relationship.