What Uber Eats really costs you: the calculation and the break-even point

A restaurant taking £8,000 of orders a month through Uber Eats, with the platform delivering, hands over around £2,400 in commission. Over a year, £28,800. That is a salary.

This article does not tell you to leave the marketplaces. That would be bad advice, and we explain why below. It gives you the calculation to run on your own numbers, and the threshold beyond which routing everything through the platform costs you more than it brings.

1. The headline rate is not what you pay

The reference rates in the UK, 2026:

Uber Eats also charges a one-off activation fee of £650 excluding VAT, which is easy to forget when comparing headline percentages.

The final bill almost always exceeds the stated rate, and not through trickery: through lines nobody counts at the outset.

• Co-funded promotions. Discounts and free delivery come partly out of your margin, and commission is often calculated before them.
• Customer refunds. A disputed order is refunded to the customer. Miss the dispute window and it is deducted from you.
• Paid visibility. Featured placement and in-app ads are billed on top of commission.
• Peak surcharges and service fee splits, which push the real take rate several points above the contract.

The only number that matters is therefore not the one in the contract: it is the amount actually paid into your account, divided by the total order value for the month. Pull three statements and do that division. It is usually the most instructive quarter of an hour of the year.

2. The calculation, on your numbers

A direct ordering system costs a flat subscription plus payment fees (around 1.5 % plus £0.25 per transaction on a European card). Take our own price as the benchmark: €130 including VAT a month, so roughly €108 net.

The break-even point is the turnover above which the subscription costs less than the commission:

Even at the lowest rate, the threshold sits under €1,000 a month. Almost every restaurant that delivers at all crossed it long ago.

3. But do not leave Uber Eats

This is where most articles on the subject get it wrong, including those written by our competitors.

A marketplace is not only a cost, it is a discovery channel. People who have never heard of you find you because they searched "pizza" at eight in the evening. That visibility is worth something real, and the commission pays for it.

That is not the problem. The problem is that once the customer is won, you keep paying 25 to 30 percent on every subsequent order they place, when they already know you, search for you by name, and the platform contributes nothing to that particular order.

You are not paying for acquisition. You are paying a toll for life.

4. The strategy that works

It fits in one sentence: keep the marketplace to be discovered, and bring the regulars onto your own channel.

In practice:

1. Stay on the platform, at least where it brings you new customers.
2. Open your own ordering channel, on your website and, if you can, in an app under your own name.
3. Put the link everywhere the customer passes: on the delivery bag, on the receipt, in the pizza box, on your Instagram, on your Google listing.
4. Give a reason to switch. A free dish after five direct orders costs infinitely less than 30 percent on five orders.
5. Watch the ratio of direct to platform orders every month. It is the only metric that counts.

A restaurant that shifts a third of its volume to direct recovers, on €8,000 a month, around €760 a month, without giving up the platform's visibility.

5. What to check before choosing a provider

Not all direct ordering systems are equal. Three questions are enough:

• Genuinely 0 % commission, or 0 % "commission" with per-order fees? Get it in writing.
• Who owns the customer list? If it cannot be exported, you have merely changed landlord.
• What happens if you leave? A provider that will not return your menu and your customers locks you in as firmly as a marketplace does.

Frequently asked questions

What does Uber Eats really charge UK restaurants? 30 % when Uber delivers, 13 % when you deliver, 13 % for collection, plus a one-off £650 activation fee excluding VAT. The effective bill usually runs higher once co-funded promotions and refunds are counted.

And Deliveroo? Broadly 15 to 35 % depending on the plan, with most independents paying 25 to 30 %.

And Just Eat? Historically the lowest headline rate, roughly 14 to 25 %, thanks to self-delivery tiers.

At what turnover does a subscription pay off? Around €400 net of orders a month against a 30 % commission, around €900 against 13 to 14 %. Above that the gap widens linearly.

Should I leave the platforms altogether? No. They get you discovered. What you should stop doing is paying an acquisition commission on customers you have already acquired.

How long does it take to shift some volume to direct? Allow several months. Your first direct customers are your regulars, the ones who order every week and who will look you up by name once you give them the address.

To finish

The arithmetic is simple, and it does not serve us to complicate it: above a few hundred euros of monthly orders, a flat fee costs less than a percentage. The hard part is not the maths, it is bringing the regulars onto your channel. That takes months and some method.

We are one of the flat-fee, commission-free options, with an app under your own brand. See what that looks like, or talk to us.

Commission rates gathered in August 2026 from public price lists and industry comparisons. Check your own against your statements: that is the only figure that counts.