The true cost of 30% aggregator commissions

Ask a restaurant owner what an aggregator costs and they will quote the commission: 18–30% of order value depending on the platform, the city and how hard they negotiated. That number is painful, but it is also the smallest part of the bill. The true cost of a marketplace order has four layers, and only the first one shows up on the invoice.

Layer 1: The commission itself

Take a typical ₹500 food order at a 25% effective commission. That is ₹125 gone before ingredients, staff, rent or gas. For a restaurant running a healthy 15–20% net margin on dine-in, a marketplace order at full price is often margin-neutral at best. During platform-funded discounts — which the restaurant usually co-pays — it flips negative.

• ₹500 order · 25% commission → ₹125 to the platform
• Add 18% GST on the commission → another ₹22.50
• Add payment gateway share and platform fees baked into settlement

On 1,000 marketplace orders a month, that is roughly ₹1.4–1.5 lakh leaving the business every month — the fully loaded cost of two good kitchen hires.

Layer 2: The advertising treadmill

Commission buys you placement in a list, not visibility. Visibility is sold separately. Most operators we speak to spend an additional 5–10% of marketplace revenue on in-app ads just to hold their ranking, because the restaurant one row above them is doing the same. It is a classic auction treadmill: everyone pays more, nobody moves.

“We stopped thinking of it as 25% commission. With ads and co-funded discounts it was 34% on a good month. We were working Friday nights for the platform.” — cloud kitchen operator, Bengaluru

Layer 3: The customer you never meet

This is the layer that compounds. On a marketplace, the customer relationship belongs to the marketplace: their app, their notification channel, their reorder nudges. You don’t get a phone number. You don’t know that the family at #88, Koramangala 5th Block orders every Friday. And when a competitor pays for placement, the platform will happily route your regular to them.

A repeat customer acquired once and owned forever is the single most valuable asset in food delivery. Renting that relationship back, order after order, is the real 30%.

Layer 4: The experience you can’t control

Late delivery? Cold food? Rude rider? The customer blames the brand on the bag, not the logo on the app. On a marketplace you carry the reputational cost of a delivery operation you have zero control over.

What the math looks like when you own the delivery

Running your own last mile is not free — riders, fuel, incentives and software are real costs. But they are flat and controllable, not a percentage of your success. A typical FleetView restaurant doing 1,000 direct orders a month with 4 riders spends:

• Rider payouts: ₹55–70 per delivery (city-dependent)
• FleetView Growth plan: ₹2,999/month per outlet — ₹3 per order at this volume
• WhatsApp notifications: under ₹1 per order

Against ₹140+ per order of commission-plus-ads, direct delivery at ₹60–75 all-in recovers roughly half the aggregator tax — and every one of those orders builds a customer file you own, export and re-market to for free on WhatsApp.

You don’t have to quit the marketplaces

The winning playbook we see is not rage-quitting aggregators. It is using them as paid discovery while systematically converting regulars to direct: a QR code in every bag, a 10% direct-order discount that still nets you 15% more than the marketplace order, and a delivery experience — live branded tracking, WhatsApp updates, on-time arrival — good enough that customers never miss the app. Most FleetView restaurants cross 50% direct share within six months. That is the point where the aggregator becomes your marketing channel instead of your landlord.