The commission on the order is the cost everyone knows about. On top of that come an amount for a better spot in the app, the discount on every promotion you run and, depending on the platform, a one-off fee to get started. Those sit on screens you never have open at the same time and rarely get added together.

So what does the channel cost you over a full month, with everything in? We worked out what a single Uber Eats order costs you in a separate article. Over a full month you also pay for costs that do not sit on any one order, like advertising, a better spot in the app and that start-up fee.

The commission depends on how the order reaches the guest

Uber Eats publishes its own restaurant rates, and on its page for the Netherlands every percentage depends on how the food reaches the guest. When an Uber courier delivers, you pay 30%. When you deliver yourself or the guest picks up, it is 14%. For an order you deliver yourself to an Uber One member, the rate drops to 12%. The exact figures depend on your market and your contract, but the split between delivered and collected orders is where to look first.

Your mix of orders decides what you pay, not your revenue. At those Dutch rates, a thousand euros of pickup orders costs you €140. The same thousand euros with a platform courier costs €300. That is more than double, and you will not see it in your revenue figure, because both kinds of order are already lumped together there. In one venue, people collect their own bag at the counter around lunchtime. In another, a courier is coming and going all evening. Work out your month by delivery type before you look at one total.

The costs that are not in the percentage

In the Netherlands, Uber Eats charges new restaurant partners a one-off activation fee of €400, which covers building your menu, professional photos, a window sticker, a welcome pack and a training call. You never transfer that amount yourself, because it is withheld from your revenue over your first eight weeks, at a maximum of €50 a week. Your first two months look worse than the months after. Draw a conclusion in those weeks and you are looking at the most expensive stretch of the year.

Visibility is sold separately from the commission. Uber Eats runs in-app advertising, which you set up in Uber Eats Manager. You choose a weekly budget from a set of options calculated on your expected monthly revenue, or you set your own amount. Other platforms sell a higher spot in the restaurant list in the same way: you pay for it on top of the commission, and it matters most on a Friday night when half the city is ordering at once.

Unlike the commission, this amount does not move with what you sell. It keeps running for as long as you leave it switched on. It is easy to book it under marketing, but it belongs with the cost of the channel: switch it off and the number of orders you pay commission on drops.

On a discount promotion, you pay twice

Running a promotion on Uber Eats costs you no extra fee to the platform. The discount itself is yours to carry, and the commission is calculated on the amount before the discount. Offer a €20 dish for €15, and your revenue is €15 while the commission runs over €20. On platform delivery that is €6 commission on €15 of revenue. You have paid the discount, and then paid commission on five euros the guest never spent.

The orders do come in on the kitchen screen. What you do not see there is that your effective rate for that week has gone up, and no statement shows you that figure. To find out what a promotion actually cost you, add the discount you gave away to the commission calculated on the full price.

What is in your contract, and what the guest pays on top

Take the Uber Eats contract form in the Netherlands. It lists the percentages as blank fields, filled in per restaurant. They cover the marketplace service fee, the aggregator service fee and the non-delivery service fee, each with its own rate for Uber One orders. The published 30% and 14% are the default rates, not automatically yours. We cannot look up what was filled in for your business. It is in the copy you signed.

The same form also sets a limit on how much higher your price on Uber Eats can be than the same dishes in your own venue or through your other sales channels. That limit decides how much of the commission you can pass on to the guest, and how much you carry yourself. Whichever platform you sell on, those are the two things to look for in your own contract: the rate that was filled in for you, and any limit on what you charge elsewhere.

Uber Eats charges the guest a delivery fee per order, and states on its own restaurant page that the guest sees this cost before ordering, and that it can influence which restaurant they choose. That money never reaches you. It does sit in the number a guest sees on their banking app when they put your dish next to the one from the restaurant two streets over. Any service fee or packaging charge the platform adds lands in that same total, and to the guest, that total is what your food costs.

Add up your own month

Four items, and your statement rarely puts them side by side:

1. The commission, split by delivery type. Pickup and self-delivery run on a different percentage than an order the platform delivers.

2. What you have spent on advertising and placement. With Uber Eats that sits in your marketing settings, not on your revenue overview.

3. The discount you paid yourself, plus the commission calculated on the price before that discount.

4. Any start-up fee still being withheld, if you have only just been connected.

Divide that total by the number of orders that month. That figure is what a platform order costs you, and it is a different number from the percentage in your contract. You need your statement, your marketing settings and your revenue per order to get there. If you run more than one location, work it out per location. Advertising spend, promotions and the split between pickup and delivery differ by location, so one average across all your venues hides exactly the location where it is going wrong.

What your own ordering page costs per month

On your own channel, the bill runs the other way. You pay a fixed amount per month plus a cost per order, and that fixed amount does not change as you sell more.

A percentage grows with every order and with every euro a guest spends more. A fixed monthly amount costs less per order the more come in. Where that crossover sits depends on your volume and your average order value.

A platform shows your venue to guests who did not know it yet. That is worth a commission. The question is which orders no longer need that: the guest who orders the same thing every Thursday, and the one who was driving over to pick up anyway.

Put SOUS Commerce alongside it and leave the platform in place for new guests. You do not need to rebuild your menu for that, because you can move it over from the platform it is already on.

SOUS Commerce Launch is priced on an annual contract, billed monthly. On a flexible contract it costs €199 per month.

Frequently asked questions

Can I see what a platform costs me per month, all in? Not on a single line. The commission is on your statement, what you spend on advertising and placement sits in your marketing settings, and the discount from a promotion shows up in your revenue per order. You add them up yourself.

Do I pay commission on the discount I give away myself? On Uber Eats, the commission is calculated on the amount before the discount. So a promotion costs you the discount itself, plus commission on an amount the guest never paid.

Am I allowed to raise my prices on the platform to cover the commission? In the Netherlands, the Uber Eats contract sets a limit on that: your price on the platform cannot sit more than an agreed percentage above your own price. Look for the same clause in your own contract, because the percentage is there and not on the public rates page.

Do I have to leave the platform to fix this? No. The platform stays in place for new guests, with your own ordering page running alongside it for the rest. SOUS Commerce takes over that second part, with no platform commission on what comes in directly.