If your restaurant does £10,000/month through Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat, Glovo or Wolt, you're paying around £3,000 in commission. Every month. That's £36,000 a year, enough to hire a full time member of staff or pay for a complete kitchen renovation. The deeper problem is that the platform owns the relationship with your guest. Here's why a flat fee QR menu is a better foundation for the long term.
How the commission model works
Delivery apps charge 25 to 35% on every order. They justify it with reach and marketing, saying "we bring you customers you wouldn't otherwise get." That's partly true, for the first order. Once a customer finds your restaurant on a delivery app, they know your name and they like your food. They're your customer. But the platform keeps that guest relationship for itself. You don't get their contact details, and every repeat order still pays the same commission.
The delivery app has no interest in changing that. Every order routed through them earns them 30%. Anything that helps you reach those guests directly earns them nothing.
The flat fee alternative
A flat fee tool like Octopus Menu charges a fixed monthly price however busy you are. Octopus Menu Growth is £49/month (€55 in the eurozone, see every plan). Whether you serve 200 covers a month or 2,000, the price doesn't move. There's no cut of each order and no commission, so as your venue grows, more of that growth stays with you instead of a platform.
Octopus Menu is a QR menu platform. Guests scan, browse your menu, see photos and allergens, and order with your own staff at the table or counter. It isn't a delivery marketplace, and it doesn't take payments or a slice of the bill. That's the point. The sale, the payment and the guest relationship all stay yours.
The cost comparison
To see the gap, compare what a delivery platform takes in commission with a flat monthly fee for the same level of trade.
| Monthly food sales | Delivery app commission (30%) | Octopus Menu (£49 flat) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| £2,000 | £600 | £49 | £551/mo |
| £5,000 | £1,500 | £49 | £1,451/mo |
| £10,000 | £3,000 | £49 | £2,951/mo |
The two don't do the same job. The delivery app delivers food, and Octopus Menu runs the menu in your venue. But the comparison shows how commission grows with your turnover while a flat fee stays put. Every guest you serve directly, rather than through a 30% platform, keeps their full spend with you.
"But the delivery apps bring me customers"
True, for the first order. After that, the customer knows you. They've eaten your food. The opportunity is to turn those first platform orders into regulars who visit in person. They come back, scan your QR menu, and order with your team. Even moving part of that repeat business in house saves hundreds of pounds a month in commission you'd otherwise hand over.
You don't have to leave the delivery apps overnight. They are a useful shop window. The goal is to make sure that once a guest discovers you, you have your own way to keep them, rather than paying a platform 30% on every future visit.
The bottom line
Delivery apps help customers find you, but they are not a sustainable long term revenue model. For the first order, they're valuable. For the 10th order from the same customer, you're paying £3 out of every £10 (or €3 of every €10) they spend with you, and the platform, not you, still owns that relationship.
A flat fee QR menu lets you build a direct relationship with your guests and keep more of every sale you make in your own venue. The maths is simple.
