Glass Floor Studio Get the numbers
For independent restaurants

You built the kitchen.
They take a third of it.

Delivery apps charge 25–30% commission on every order — and 6–14% on pickup orders, where they never touch the food. Your own ordering system charges you none of it.

Work out your number
15–30%
Uber Eats
Lite 15% / Plus 25% / Premium 30%
15–30%
DoorDash
Basic / Plus / Premier, plus processing
25%
SkipTheDishes
~20% negotiated at high volume
6–14%
On pickup orders
Commission for zero delivery
The arithmetic

Use your numbers, not mine

I don't know your rate — you do. Move the sliders. Everything below recalculates against what you actually pay.

Gross order value before commission, across all apps.
Check a payout statement. Most independents sit at 25–30%.
Be honest here. Some customers only ever browse the apps — you will not get all of them, and any calculator that assumes you will is selling you something.
You still pay Stripe. This is subtracted, not ignored.
Commission you pay per year
$24,000
Realistically recovered, year one
$8,467
After processing fees, on the share of customers who move across.
Time for the build to pay for itself
10 months
Against $6,900 flat, plus $240/month care.
What this does not claim. It does not assume every customer switches, it does not ignore card fees, and it does not pretend the apps stop existing — most restaurants keep them running for discovery and simply stop routing their regulars through them. The number above is the honest slice, not the headline one.
The part nobody defends

They charge you to hand someone a bag

On a pickup order, the customer drives to you. Your staff cook it, bag it, hand it over. The platform does none of that — and still takes 6–14%.

That's the easiest money you will ever take back, because there's no delivery problem to solve. The order was already yours. It just came through a toll booth.

On a $30 pickup order

  • Through an app at 10%: you keep $27.00
  • Direct at 2.9% processing: you keep $29.13
  • Difference on 40 pickups a week: $4,430 a year
The Order Kitchen — $6,900 flat

Your own ordering, on your domain

Ordering that works

Full menu with sizes, toppings, half-and-half, combos and deals. Pickup and delivery, scheduled orders, tips, promo codes. Card payments straight into your account.

Tickets print themselves

An order lands and the receipt printer in your kitchen prints it. The printer talks to us over the internet, so there is no installer, no network setup, and no visit. Plug it into power and your router.

The customer list is yours

Every email and phone number belongs to you, not a platform. That's what makes a second order cost nothing — and it's the thing the apps will never hand over.

$6,900
flat, one time
+ $240
per month care — hosting, updates, support

Live in 14 days. Price agreed in writing before anything starts. Your domain and your data stay in your name — if you ever leave, you take all of it.

The receipt printer is bought separately and directly by you, at cost, from any supplier — roughly $400–600 for the model this runs on. No markup from me on hardware.

Straight answers

When this is not worth it

  • You do under about $3,000/month on the apps. The commission you'd save doesn't clear the build cost in a sensible time. Wait until volume justifies it.
  • You need the apps for discovery. If most orders are from people who've never heard of you, keep them. This is for winning back the regulars.
  • You want someone on site. I work remotely — email and text, no meetings. If you want a person in your restaurant, hire local.
  • You have regulars who reorder. That's the whole case. They already know you; they should not cost you 25% every time.
  • Pickup is a real share of your orders. That commission is pure loss and the easiest to recover.
  • You want to own the customer list. Email a Tuesday offer to 600 past customers for free, instead of renting them back.
Start here

Send me your numbers

Tell me what you're doing on the apps and what you're paying. I'll reply with a straight answer on whether this pays for itself for you — including if it doesn't.

Got it. You'll get a real reply from me — not a bot — within one business day.