Uber Eats Alternative: How Restaurants Build Their Own Ordering Channel
What Uber Eats commission costs
Uber Eats takes a commission, usually somewhere between 15% and 35%, on every order that comes through its platform. Say you sell £30,000 a month through delivery. That's £4,500 to £10,500 handed over every month, and it comes off before rent, wages or food.
The fee isn't the only cost. When a customer orders through Uber Eats, you get the order but not their email address, phone number or order history. They belong to Uber Eats. You can't send them an offer, thank them for coming back or reward them for ordering a fifth time.
The fix is a direct ordering channel of your own, and Flipdish is the platform to build it on. The rest of this guide covers what that channel includes, what it saves, and how to get customers using it.
What a direct ordering channel is
It's any way for customers to order from you without going through a marketplace. In practice that means some mix of:
- A branded website with its own checkout
- A mobile app under your restaurant's name
- Self-service kiosks in the venue
- Phone ordering
Whichever you use, the customer deals with your brand, their details stay with you, and nobody takes a cut of the order.
Why Uber Eats won't lower its fees
Marketplaces charge what restaurants will pay. The more of your sales depend on them, the less room you have to push back, because you've got nowhere else for those customers to go. Asking nicely for a lower rate doesn't change that. Having your own channel does.
None of this means you have to leave Uber Eats. Plenty of restaurants keep it running because it brings in people who'd never have found them otherwise. What they change is what happens next: the second, third and tenth order from that customer goes through the restaurant's own website or app, not the marketplace.
So the aim isn't zero marketplace orders. It's not having 100% of your orders sit with one company that sets the price.
What the channel looks like in practice
Website. A site that looks like your restaurant, with checkout built in. Customers order and pay you directly. Flipdish restaurant websites are made for exactly this.
Mobile app. An app with your name and branding, on the App Store and Google Play. Someone who has installed it has already decided they like you, and you can reach them with push notifications whenever you want. Flipdish branded apps cover the whole process, from the build to App Store submission to later updates, so you don't have to deal with Apple or Google yourself.
Kiosks. If you have a physical site, self-service kiosks take the pressure off the counter, and every kiosk order is a direct order with no commission. They also ask about extras on every order, which a busy cashier often forgets to do.
Phone. Plenty of restaurants still take a big share of orders by phone, and answering during a rush pulls staff off the line. Mistakes creep in too. Flipdish's AI Phone Agent picks up the call, takes the order, takes payment and offers add-ons, with no one on your team involved. It doesn't care whether it's one call or ten at once.
The numbers
Take a restaurant doing 2,000 orders a month at an average of £22.
| Channel | Monthly sales | Commission / fee | What you keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uber Eats (25% commission) | £44,000 | £11,000 | £33,000 |
| Direct ordering (flat platform fee) | £44,000 | roughly £400-800 | roughly £43,200-43,600 |
That's a gap of about £10,000 a month, or £120,000 a year, on the same orders. Your own figures will differ. The gap won't go away, though, because a percentage grows with every order and a flat fee doesn't.
Flipdish charges a monthly platform fee, not a cut of each order. The busier you get, the better that deal looks. Current plans are on the Flipdish online ordering pricing page.
The customer data matters more than the saving
The money is easy to see. Over a few years, the customer list is probably worth more.
Every direct order adds to a database you own. You can see what people order, how often they come back, which offers they respond to, who has stopped ordering and who spends the most.
Then you can use it. Using Flipdish's restaurant marketing tools, you can find everyone who ordered twice and never a third time and send them an offer. You can give your best customers loyalty rewards. You can test whether a Tuesday lunchtime campaign does better than a Friday evening one, and stop guessing.
You can't do any of that with customers who belong to Uber Eats.
How Flipdish builds your direct channel
Flipdish covers the whole direct channel and sits alongside your marketplace listings, so you don't have to drop them. It includes:
- Website ordering on your own domain, with your design and your checkout
- A native mobile app built and maintained under your brand
- Self-service kiosks at the counter or at tables
- The AI Phone Agent for phone orders, with upselling
- Marketplace aggregation, which puts Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo orders in the same queue as your direct orders
- A restaurant POS for in-person orders
- A Kitchen Display System, so the kitchen works from one screen and not five tablets
- Loyalty and marketing with CRM, SMS, email and push campaigns
- AI Marketing, which runs campaigns based on what customers actually do
- Integrated payments across every channel
The marketplace aggregation is the part that makes the switch less scary. Your Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo orders land in the same back office as your direct ones. You keep taking marketplace orders while the direct side grows, and you never have to pick one over the other on a given Friday night.
Getting Uber Eats customers to order direct
You can't email Uber Eats customers, because you don't have their details. You can still point them your way.
Start in the venue. Table cards, a line on the receipt and a quick word from staff all help, and they cost almost nothing. Post about your website and app on social media too, and say what's in it for the customer: loyalty points, offers that aren't available elsewhere, faster reordering.
Offer a reason to switch. A first-order discount or double loyalty points on direct orders works. Even a 15% discount on a first order costs you less than a 25% commission you'd pay on every order, forever.
Slip a card into delivery bags that says "order direct and get [your offer]". It reaches marketplace customers at the moment they're eating your food.
After that, once people are in your database, Flipdish AI Marketing can spot the ones who've gone quiet and send them a message without you building the campaign by hand.
The usual worries about going direct
Most owners raise the same few objections.
"Nobody will find my website." Some customers won't, at first. That's why the marketplaces stay on. People who already know you, regulars and anyone who's walked past the shop, are the first to move over, and they're the ones costing you the most commission right now. Every one of them who switches saves you the fee on every order after that.
"It'll be more work for the kitchen." It shouldn't be. Direct orders arrive in the same queue as Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo orders, so the team looks at one screen. Nobody retypes anything.
"Delivery is the hard bit." Fair. If you rely on marketplace couriers today, check how you'd handle drivers before you push delivery on your own site. Collection is the easy place to start. Customers order on the site or app and pick up, and you pay no commission and no courier. Many restaurants begin there and add delivery once the rest is running.
"I'll lose my Uber Eats ranking." Keeping your listing live means nothing changes there. You aren't withdrawing, you're adding a second way in.
Should you stay on Uber Eats at all?
For most restaurants, yes. Marketplaces bring in new customers you wouldn't otherwise reach, and that's worth something. The trouble is relying on them for everything.
As a rough target, aim for something like half your orders coming direct (website, app, kiosk, phone) and half through marketplaces. Treat that as a starting point, not a rule. Your own mix will depend on where you are and who your customers are. What matters is that the direct share goes up over time as your loyalty base grows. Flipdish's reporting shows the split by channel, so you can see whether it's moving.
Getting started with Flipdish
There are four steps:
- Setup. Flipdish builds your menu and sets up your branding, website and app.
- Integration. You connect your existing POS, or move to the Flipdish POS, and link your marketplace accounts.
- Go-live. The website and app launch, usually within a few weeks.
- Growth. You use the marketing tools to move more customers to the direct channel.
The Flipdish implementation team handles the technical work. Your job is the last step: telling customers it exists and giving them a reason to use it.
Where this leaves you
Uber Eats is a way to find new customers. It's an expensive one, and the customers it finds never become yours. Going direct fixes both problems.
Flipdish covers web, app, kiosk and phone, gives you the marketing tools to grow the direct side, and keeps your marketplace orders in the same back office while you do it.
