A $40 order on a marketplace vs. your own site: the math

Most owners know marketplace commission is expensive. Fewer have put one order through the published rate cards to see what is left. This post does that for a $40 order, before tax and tip.

What the marketplace charges

Uber Eats is a useful example because its rates are public and recent. It raised them in March 2026, and Restaurant Dive reported the new schedule: 20% on Lite, 25% on Plus and 30% on Premium for delivery, with orders from Uber One members charged 30%. Pickup is 7% when the restaurant’s in-store prices are validated and 10% when they are not.

The $40 order on a marketplace

Commission comes out of the restaurant’s side of the order. On $40 of food:

• Lite at 20%: $8.00 in commission, $32.00 left
• Plus at 25%: $10.00 in commission, $30.00 left
• Premium at 30%: $12.00 in commission, $28.00 left

A lower tier does not mean the lower rate on every order. Orders from Uber One members are charged 30%, so a restaurant on Lite or Plus pays the top rate whenever a subscriber orders.

The same order on your own ordering page

On Kitchn, the platform fee is 5% of the order and it is added to the guest’s total at checkout. It does not come out of the restaurant’s $40. The guest pays $42.00, and $2.00 of that is Kitchn’s.

The restaurant’s cost is card processing. Payments run through the restaurant’s own Stripe account at Stripe’s standard rate, which Stripe publishes as 2.9% plus 30 cents for domestic cards. On a $42.00 charge that is $1.52. The restaurant keeps $38.48.

Tax and tip raise the charged total, so the real processing figure on a taxed order is a few cents higher. The comparison does not change.

What that is over a month

Take 300 orders a month at $40. At 25% commission the marketplace keeps $3,000. On a direct ordering page, card processing on the same orders is about $456. On the free Basic plan that is the whole cost. On Essential, add the $100 monthly subscription.

The gap is roughly $2,500 a month on the same food, cooked by the same kitchen.

What this comparison leaves out

Three things, and they cut in both directions. First, delivery itself. A marketplace commission includes the courier. On your own page the guest pays a delivery fee, or you use your own drivers, and a delivery fee on the order raises the processing cost slightly. Second, the guest’s side. Your direct guests pay a 5% service fee, and marketplace guests pay the marketplace’s own service and delivery fees. Third, discovery. A marketplace can put you in front of people who have never heard of you, and your own ordering page cannot do that by itself.

That last point is why the sensible position is to keep the marketplace for new guests and move repeat orders to your own page. The commission is a fair price for a first introduction. It is a poor price for the tenth order from the same regular.