Takeout and delivery are no longer just options—they are fundamental to any fast-food business. The question is no longer whether to offer them, but through which channel.
And this sector has undergone a transformation. The French market has become more concentrated: Just Eat ceased operations in France in December 2024, and Deliveroo came under the control of the American company DoorDash in October 2025, though the Deliveroo brand name was retained. Two players now share the bulk of the market.
Many independent restaurant owners, franchisees, and food entrepreneurs wonder, when launching their omnichannel offerings, whether using Uber Eats or Deliveroo is a good idea, risky, or—on the contrary—inevitable. Here’s some information to help you make that decision based on facts rather than impressions.
Uber Eats, Deliveroo… These platforms quickly connect restaurants with a large customer base. They handle logistics, payments, and marketing, and take a commission on each order.
One thing that’s often overlooked: they no longer sell exclusively through the marketplace. Uber Eats also offers delivery through your own website, without listing it in the app. The distinction between “platform” and “direct channel” is therefore less clear-cut than it seems.
There is no single rate. Uber Eats structures its pricing into three tiers that balance visibility against profit margin, plus a weekly subscription fee of €1.99.
Be careful with the 15% tier. Its terms are clear: customers must search for your business by its exact name to find you; you cannot create sponsored ads or promotional offers; and you must provide your own tablet. This means you’re paying a commission on customers who already knew about you. This tier only makes sense as a phased exit strategy while you build your own sales channel.
The 33% Premium plan is worth a closer look. Three additional points in exchange for public advertising co-financing capped at €150 per month: the break-even point is around €5,000 in monthly revenue. Below that, you come out ahead. Above that, those three points cost you more than they bring in.
Three details that the price lists fail to mention. These rates are listed before taxes: a 20% VAT is added to the invoice, but it is recoverable. They do not include ancillary fees. And they are negotiable once a certain volume is reached, though this is never offered up without being asked.
At Deliveroo, things work differently: no public French rate schedule is published. The applicable rate is specified in your sales proposal and contract, and can be verified on the invoices in the Partner Portal. Deliveroo also offers a plan that allows you to handle deliveries yourself, with your own delivery zones and fees.
Which How does this affect your profit margin, your reputation, and customer loyalty?Customer relations are delegated. You have no control over customer data or the post-purchase experience. This limits customer loyalty and can damage your brand image.
On the margin, here's something to keep in mind: your actual rate is not your contractual rate.
Let’s consider a scenario. A business generates €6,000 in revenue on a platform, with a contractual commission rate of 28%, or €1,680. However, its invoice also includes €120 in promotional costs and €80 in adjustments, minus a €40 credit. Actual cost: €1,840, representing an effective rate of 30.7%. That’s a difference of nearly three percentage points.
The items that widen this gap are always the same: co-funded promotions accepted without review, uncontested customer refunds, sponsored advertising that is rarely tracked, and cancellations. Review three months of invoices and calculate your total cost divided by your platform revenue. It’s often this calculation that triggers the decision.
In the image, a new development to note: Deliveroo has rolled out a feature in France that compares the prices listed on the platform with those charged at restaurants. This practice of inflating prices to offset the commission is now visible to customers.
In the event of a drop in visibility or a change in algorithm, your business can be impacted without warning. This dependence on a third party can jeopardize your business model.
This risk is no longer just theoretical. Restaurant owners who relied primarily on Just Eat saw that sales channel disappear within a few weeks when the company withdrew from the French market. Those whose business depended on Deliveroo are now at the mercy of a U.S. company that wasn’t even present in France two years ago.
Heavy reliance on a channel you don't control is an operational risk just like having a single supplier.
With a direct solution, you don't eliminate all costs—you change the nature of those costs. You go from a variable fee on every euro collected to a fixed, predictable cost—a monthly license fee, payment processing fees of about 1.5%, and an acquisition budget.
The difference can be summed up in one sentence: on a platform, the more you sell, the more you pay. When selling directly, the more you sell, the more you recoup your costs.
In practical terms, for an average cart total of €25, an order processed directly saves approximately €6.90: €7.50 in avoided commission versus €0.63 in payment fees.
From the order page to delivery or pick-up, you're in complete control of the entire process. This ensures perfect consistency with your brand image.
You can set up loyalty programs, collect reviews, and follow up with your customers via email or text message... all of which are impossible to do through a third-party platform.
Solutions like Innovorder let you deploy an online ordering module for fast-food restaurants that can be integrated into your website and is designed to maximize your conversions.
The most common operational hurdle isn’t technical—it’s organizational: adding more channels means more tablets and more duplicate data entry. Integrations with delivery platforms allow Uber Eats and Deliveroo orders to be routed directly to the register and the kitchen, alongside direct orders. You can keep both channels without doubling the workload during service.
Let's not beat around the bush: unless you have a substantial customer base and an engaged community, it's hard to quickly build awareness for your online store. It takes time for things to take off.
Platforms play a real role here: they make you visible to people who don't know you and handle logistics and marketing operations. For a launch or grand opening, they provide a boost that's hard to replicate on your own.
However—and this is a particularly important “however”—relying solely on marketplaces is a mistake you should avoid. You risk becoming completely dependent, failing to build any connection with your new customers, and paying high commissions on every order once consumers get into the habit of ordering from you through a third party.
Here’s something few restaurant owners know: you can use a platform’s logistics network without listing your business on its marketplace. Uber Eats offers this service starting at €5.90 (excluding tax) per delivery. It’s a flat fee, not a commission.
For your offer to work, several dimensions need to come together:
It remains to be seen what concrete benefits this diversification brings. Let’s consider an average shopping cart value of €25, a 30% commission, an online ordering license costing around €140 per month, and a scenario in which 30% of orders are processed directly.
A retail location with €5,000 in monthly delivery revenue spends approximately €1,509 on commissions if it processes all orders through platforms. By shifting one-third of its orders to direct processing, that figure drops to €1,236— a savings of nearly €3,270 over the course of a year.
At €15,000 per month, the difference drops from €4,509 to €3,411, or €13,200 per year.
At €30,000 per month, ranging from €9,009 to €6,674: €28,000 per year, the equivalent of a full-time position.
Three strategies, from the most profitable to the least profitable:
A diversification of your presence is therefore a safe approach, since being present on marketplaces allows you to benefit from a visibility that can cost more to build yourself.
The idea is to maximize your offer on these platforms to make your brand known and to recover more easily a part of this traffic directly, via your own online order (without intermediary costs and in order to build loyalty in a direct way).
Whatever your initial choice, think about building a real communication strategy to control your image and make yourself known to your target markets, reduce your dependence on third-party sites and attract a local clientele that is increasingly demanding direct contacts.
Let’s be honest—because this rarely gets mentioned—the direct channel doesn’t fill itself. A platform sells visibility; an online ordering solution sells a tool. The cost difference is real, but it comes at the price of customer acquisition efforts—local search engine optimization, an up-to-date business listing, and a customer database that’s regularly updated and leveraged.
However, this approach has one advantage that commissions do not: it builds equity. A customer acquired directly remains a customer. A commission is paid with every order, indefinitely.
That is why the retailers that have reduced their dependence the most are not the ones that shut their doors overnight. They are the ones that have gradually shifted their repeat customer base, while reserving online platforms for what they do best: introducing the brand to those who are not yet familiar with it.
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