- The only commission rate that matters is the one on your own merchant statement — published rates are a starting point, not your number.
- Work out your pickup rate separately from delivery. Blending them hides the expensive part.
- Commission is only part of the cost — inflated menu prices and lost customer data don't show up on any invoice.
- The fix usually isn't leaving the apps. It's moving pickup orders off them.
Almost every restaurant owner we speak to can name their delivery-app commission to within a few points. Far fewer can say what it costs them in dollars per month, and fewer still have separated what they pay on delivery orders from what they pay on pickup orders. That second number is usually where the uncomfortable surprise lives.
Why we won't just quote you a percentage
You'll find plenty of articles confidently stating a single commission figure for each app. Treat them carefully. Delivery-app pricing in Canada varies by:
- Plan tier. Most apps sell several marketplace tiers, with higher commission buying more visibility.
- Order type. Pickup and delivery are charged differently, usually with pickup considerably lower.
- Your agreement. Negotiated terms, promotional periods and legacy rates all vary between merchants.
- Local regulation. Some jurisdictions have capped delivery commissions at various points; rules differ by market and change over time.
Publicly published pickup commission commonly sits somewhere in the 7-15% range, with delivery running higher. But quoting you a number and building a business case on it would be guesswork. Your statement has the real one.
How to work out what you're actually paying
This takes about ten minutes with a recent payout report.
- Pull one full month from each app's merchant portal.
- Split pickup from delivery. Most portals let you filter by fulfilment type. If yours doesn't, ask support — this is the whole exercise.
- For pickup orders only, take total commission and service fees charged, and divide by gross pickup order value. That percentage is your real pickup rate.
- Multiply out. Take your monthly pickup volume through the app and multiply by your average pickup ticket, then by that rate. That's your monthly pickup commission.
- Annualise it. Multiply by twelve. This is the number worth making a decision about.
Worked example, using round numbers for clarity: 120 pickup orders a month at a $38 average ticket is $4,560 in gross pickup sales. At a 10% pickup commission, that's $456 a month, or $5,472 a year — on orders where the customer drove to you and carried the food out themselves.
Substitute your own volume, ticket and rate. The arithmetic is simple; it's separating pickup from delivery that most operators have never done.
The costs that never appear on the invoice
Commission is the visible line. Three others are usually larger in combination:
Inflated menu pricing
Many restaurants raise app prices to absorb commission. It protects margin on app orders, but it also sets what customers believe your food costs. When a regular customer compares your app price to a competitor's, they're comparing an inflated number to an inflated number — and you've lost the ability to compete on honest direct pricing.
The customer relationship
Orders placed through an app come with the app's customer, not yours. You can't text them a slow-Tuesday offer, you can't see that they've stopped ordering, and you can't build a list you own. The order data is an asset, and on app orders it isn't yours.
Percentage pricing on your biggest tickets
A percentage charges you more for a large order than a small one, even though the work involved is identical. A $150 family pickup costs fifteen times more to process than a $10 one. Those big orders are exactly the ones you want more of.
What to do with the number
Once you know your annual pickup commission, the decision gets simpler. For most independents the answer isn't to leave the apps — they genuinely earn their fee on delivery logistics and on putting you in front of people who've never heard of you. The answer is narrower: stop routing pickup orders from customers who already know you through a channel priced for discovery and delivery.
Practically, that means giving those customers a direct route that's at least as easy as opening an app: an ordering page linked from your Google Business Profile and your website, a QR code on the table and the takeout bag, and a phone that actually gets answered during the rush. If nobody picks up at 7:15 on a Friday, the customer opens an app — and you pay commission on an order that was already yours.
You can run your own figures on the pickup savings calculator, or read the full direct pickup vs delivery apps comparison.