Stop paying 30% to delivery apps.
DoorDash, Grubhub and UberEats are great for customer acquisition. They are catastrophic for retention. FoodyOS gives you a direct channel for the regulars they bring you — so the second visit and every visit after stops paying the marketplace tax.
This is not a POS comparison
FoodyOS is your operating system; DoorDash, Grubhub and UberEats are sales channels. Comparing them is really comparing two different roles in your business: the platform you run on vs the marketplace you sell through. The right answer for most restaurants is to use both — but flip the ratio of orders that come through each.
The math on a $50 order
- Marketplace order: $50 ticket, ~$15 commission, you keep $35 minus food cost and labor.
- Direct order on FoodyOS: $50 ticket, $0 marketplace commission, processing fees apply if you take card. You keep ~$48–$50 minus food cost and labor.
- Net: a 30% direct mix on a 200-order weekend shifts $900 from marketplace fees into your bank account. Multiply by 50 weekends a year.
- What FoodyOS costs to run that direct channel: $149/mo flat per restaurant — POS, KDS, online ordering site, delivery dispatch, hostess and loyalty all included. The only per-order cost is Stripe (2.9% + 30¢ online), charged to your own Stripe account, not resold by us.
| Criterion | FoodyOS direct | DoorDash / Grubhub / UberEats |
|---|---|---|
| Per-order commission | 0% on direct orders | 15–30% on every order |
| Customer relationship | You own the customer (phone, email, order history) | Marketplace owns the customer; you receive aggregated info |
| Re-order signal | You can WhatsApp / email a regular directly | Marketplace pushes the customer to other restaurants |
| Branding | Your URL, your logo, your photos | Marketplace UI; your brand competes with thousands of others |
| Loyalty program | Yours — phone-indexed, points, tiers, win-back | Marketplace loyalty (DashPass, Grubhub+) belongs to the marketplace |
| Customer support routing | Goes through your team | Goes through marketplace support; you may never see the complaint |
| Menu changes | Live in seconds | Synced to marketplaces with delays; weight items / 86s lag |
| Photos and copy ownership | Yours | Marketplace can re-shoot, re-crop, or hide photos at its discretion |
How to actually shift the mix
The teams who go from 80% marketplace / 20% direct to 30% / 70% in six months do four things:
- Direct ordering link in every receipt. Pizza box insert, takeout bag sticker, QR on the table — “next time, order direct: 10% off your first order, no app required.”
- Loyalty tied to direct orders. Every $1 spent direct = 1 point. Marketplace orders earn nothing.
- Phone-line redirect. A polite voicemail that says “text us at 555-0140 — our AI takes orders 24/7” converts at much higher rates than “leave a message.”
- Marketplace surcharge. Where legal (most US states), price marketplace orders 10–15% higher than direct. Customers compare. They learn.
Marketplace as acquisition, FoodyOS as retention
Marketplaces are good at one thing: putting you in front of a customer who never heard of you. Use them for that. Once a customer has eaten your food and liked it, every subsequent order should be direct. FoodyOS is the channel that lets you capture and serve those customers.
Marketplace commission ranges reflect publicly disclosed restaurant agreements; your specific rate depends on the plan you signed.