Direct Ordering vs Deliveroo: Which Is Better for Restaurants?
The core difference
Deliveroo takes 25-35% commission on every order. A direct ordering platform charges a small fee - a few pence per order, or a flat monthly subscription. Most of the other differences, like who gets the customer data and whose brand the customer sees, come back to that gap.
What Deliveroo offers
Deliveroo is a marketplace. Customers browse it, see your menu next to everyone else's, order and pay through Deliveroo, and Deliveroo takes its cut.
If you're a new restaurant with no website and no regulars, that's useful. People can find you on day one. If you've been trading for years, you're paying 30% on orders from people who would have ordered from you anyway.
Deliveroo also decides a lot of things for you:
- Customer contact details (you don't get them)
- How your menu is laid out and ranked
- How promotions and discounts work
- The delivery price the customer sees
- Where you show up in search results
What direct ordering means
The customer orders through something you own - your website, your branded app or a kiosk in the shop. You set the menu and the prices, you get the customer's details, and you keep the margin.
| Factor | Deliveroo | Direct ordering |
|---|---|---|
| Commission per order | 25-35% | 0-3% platform fee |
| Customer data | Deliveroo has it | You have it |
| Brand | Listed next to competitors | Your name, your look |
| Loyalty | Customers get loyal to Deliveroo | Customers get loyal to you |
| Finding new customers | Strong | Up to your own marketing |
| Menu control | Platform rules apply | Full control |
| Marketing to customers | None | Email, push, SMS, loyalty |
The maths on commission
Take a restaurant doing 60 online orders a day with an average order of £28. That's £1,680 a day in sales. At 30% commission, Deliveroo takes £504 of it. Over a year, that's about £184,000.
A direct ordering platform usually costs under £300 a month, with no cap on orders and no revenue share. Move one day's worth of those orders to direct and the month's fee is covered.
When Deliveroo earns its place
Deliveroo is good at finding people who've never heard of you. That matters most for new restaurants with no online following, for new locations where nobody knows your name yet, and for reaching customers outside your usual delivery area.
Use it to find customers, not to keep them. The trouble starts when you're still paying 30% on someone's twentieth order.
When direct ordering wins
Every repeat order. Once a customer has ordered from you - in the shop, on Deliveroo, anywhere - there's no reason to pay commission on the next one.
On your own channel you can also do things Deliveroo won't let you do:
- Run a loyalty programme that rewards people for ordering direct
- Send push notifications and emails to customers who haven't ordered in a while
- Use your own order data to decide what to promote and when
- Set your own promotions without marketplace rules
How to move customers from Deliveroo to direct
You don't have to come off Deliveroo to do this. Keep the listing and work on moving your regulars across:
- Put a card in every Deliveroo bag with a discount code for their first direct order
- Print your website and app store links on all your packaging
- Push your own ordering channel on social media
- Offer loyalty rewards that only work on direct orders
- Collect email addresses in-store and send direct-ordering deals to that list
Regulars order direct. Deliveroo keeps bringing in new people.
How Flipdish supports direct ordering
Flipdish gives restaurants their own branded online ordering system, mobile app and website. Orders from the website, app, kiosk and counter all land in one kitchen view through the Flipdish POS system.
Flipdish AI Marketing sends personalised campaigns to customers based on what and when they've ordered before, so nobody on your team has to write every message by hand.
If you want to move your regulars off Deliveroo and onto your own channel, that's what Flipdish is for.