How to Get Direct Orders Without Deliveroo or Just Eat Commission

A takeaway direct ordering website is how you take a collection or delivery order without handing the platform a large cut of the menu price. Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats still have a job: they put you in front of people who opened their app, not yours. The mistake is treating that convenience as free. This is a practical look at the published UK fees, what a site of your own does not magically remove, and how to ask for direct orders without pretending the apps will vanish.

The published fees, with the sources named

Start with the pages the companies control.

Uber Eats’ UK merchant pricing lists marketplace fees that do not include VAT, and says the plans on that page are for the United Kingdom. Uber Delivery is 30%, and 33% for Uber One member orders. Self-delivery is 13%. Pickup is 13%. The activation fee on that page is £650 excluding VAT, and the list of what it includes (tablet, printer, menu creation, photography, a sticker, a welcome pack, a training call) is theirs, not ours. If your contract is older, the invoice wins. A pricing page is the standard offer, not a promise that your rate matches it.

Just Eat does not get the same treatment here, because we are not going to invent a screenshot of their signup form. Eclyde’s commission guide, checked by them on 10 September 2026, quotes Just Eat’s UK partner page: 14% plus VAT when you deliver with your own drivers, and 30% plus VAT when Just Eat delivers. Their worked example on a £20 order is £3.36 including VAT for own drivers (£2.80 plus 56p) and £7.20 including VAT when Just Eat delivers (£6 plus £1.20). They also say Just Eat’s page, at that check, did not state a separate collection rate. If you are already on Just Eat, your weekly statement is the number that matters. Use Eclyde as a map to the primary page, then read your contract.

Deliveroo’s partner terms say the delivery service fee is a percentage of GMV, inclusive of VAT, per order, plus VAT. The percentage itself sits in your agreement. There is no honest way to print “Deliveroo is X%” for every UK kitchen. Anyone who gives you one number without showing the clause is guessing. Reported ranges you see on blogs are second-hand. We are not repeating them as fact.

What a £20 chicken burger is worth after the fee

Use one order so the percentages stay concrete. These are arithmetic on the published rates, not a survey of your town.

If Uber’s couriers deliver and the 30% fee applies to £20, the fee before VAT is £6. VAT at 20% on that fee is £1.20, so £7.20 leaves the order before you pay for the box and the food. Uber One’s 33% on the same £20 is £6.60 before VAT. Self-delivery or pickup at 13% is £2.60 before VAT.

Just Eat’s own-driver example, via Eclyde, is already stated as £3.36 including VAT on £20. Their platform-delivery example is £7.20 including VAT.

None of that includes a refund, a promoted placement inside the app, or a discount the platform funded and then clawed back. Read the payout report for a real Friday before you model a year.

A direct order is not a 0% order. The card processor takes a fee. You still buy the box. If your own driver takes it, you pay their time and the fuel. We are not quoting a card rate here, because processor price lists move and your MCC code changes them. Open your provider’s pricing page and put that fee next to 13% or 30%. For most menus the card fee is the smaller number. Do the sum anyway.

What the website has to do

A takeaway website earns its place only if ordering is obvious.

• The menu prices match the counter. If they do not, staff will stop trusting the site.
• Collection time and delivery area are on the page, not buried in an FAQ.
• The phone number and WhatsApp are tapable on a phone.
• The kitchen can see the order without someone screenshotting Instagram.
• The domain and the site belong to the shop.

You do not need a 40-page brand site to take a direct order. You need one fast menu, a way to pay or to confirm cash on collection, and a habit of sending people there. Marketivity’s website tiers, including the Bangladesh taka schedule of ৳18,000, ৳40,000 and from ৳80,000, are for builds of different sizes. A UK shop checking the pricing page will also see the dollar and pound cards. A one-town menu is closer to a small marketing site than to a custom platform. If you want logins, loyalty points and three delivery zones with live driver tracking, say so. That is the from-price conversation.

How to move a regular off the app without a fight

Do not tell a Deliveroo customer they are wrong. Give them a reason on the next order.

Put a short line on the bag and the receipt: order direct next time, here is the link, here is what they save or what you add (a side, a drink, a faster collection). Only promise a saving you will actually give. A “10% off direct” offer that the kitchen forgets will create a row at the pass.

Answer the Google listing with the same link. If someone searches the shop name, the listing should not send them only to an app. The website, the phone and the hours need to match. The Rajshahi local SEO note is about a different city, but the listing habit is the same: one name, one phone, one address.

Use Meta to send nearby people to that page or to WhatsApp, not only to a boosted photo of a milkshake. The comparison of boosted posts and Ads Manager is the ad half of this decision. A boost can announce a Friday offer. Ads Manager is how you count messages or link taps from a radius around the shop.

Keep one app if it fills Tuesday lunch and your margin still works after the fee. Direct orders are a second till, not a moral position. Owners who switch off every app on a Monday and hope the website replaces the volume by Wednesday usually spend that week very quiet. Move regulars first. Use the apps for strangers until the direct link is a habit.

A one-page sum you can do this Sunday

1. Export last week’s app payout and the commission line. 2. Count how many of those orders were people who have ordered before. 3. Price one direct order with the card fee and the box, and no platform percentage. 4. Decide the bribe, if any, for the second direct order. 5. Put the link on the receipt before you spend on ads.

If the repeat orders are most of the app volume, the site pays for itself by keeping them. If almost every order is a stranger who found you inside the app, you still want the site, but you should not budget as if Tuesday will move across on its own. Strangers need a reason to leave the app, which is usually a clearer price or a faster collection, plus an ad or a listing that names it.

Marketivity can build the page and, separately, run the Meta campaigns. We will not promise that your commission bill drops by a percentage we have not seen on your statement.

What staff need on the pass

The site fails in the kitchen, not in the font. Whoever packs the bag needs a ticket they can read at arm’s length: item, modifier, time, collection or address, paid or cash. If that ticket is a WhatsApp screenshot on a personal phone, you do not have a system yet. You have a favour. Favours stop on the busiest Friday.

Decide the cutoff. A website that accepts a delivery at 21:50 when the fryer goes off at 22:00 will create a refund and a review. Put the cutoff on the page. Turn the ordering button off when you mean it. Apps do this because their couriers have a limit. Your site should be at least as honest.

Train one sentence for the counter: “If you order direct next time, it comes off the app and we can do X.” X has to be true. A free drink you do not have in the fridge is worse than no offer.

A note on VAT

Hot takeaway food and the platform’s service fee are not the same VAT question. Eclyde walks through an example where commission is calculated on the full menu price, which already includes VAT on the food. We are not your accountant. Ask them whether your direct-order card takings and your app remittances are recorded the way your VAT return expects. Getting that wrong costs more than a landing page.