Swiggy & Zomato Commission: How Restaurants Can Protect Their Delivery Margins

Why delivery margins are under pressure

In July and August 2026, restaurant associations in Bengaluru threatened to stop taking orders from Swiggy and Zomato. Their complaints were specific: discounts and promotional campaigns run without the restaurant's consent, unclear deductions, money cut after customer complaints, and losses on orders cancelled after the food was cooked. Restaurant owners quoted in the press described commissions of roughly 20–30% per order and said that, after discounts and other charges, they could be left with ₹40–60 of every ₹100.

After talks, both platforms were reported to have agreed to seek a restaurant's consent before running restaurant-funded promotions. That is a useful step, but it does not fix the economics of an individual outlet. Every restaurant still needs to read its own statements, choose its own campaigns and price its own delivery menu.

Work out what one delivery order really earns

Start with one typical order and follow the money from the menu price to what is left after food and packaging. The example below uses round, illustrative figures. Replace them with the rates in your own agreement and statement.

In this example, the restaurant keeps about ₹108, or 22% of the menu price, to pay for rent, salaries, utilities and profit. The same food served in the dining room would leave ₹340 after food cost. Delivery can still be worth doing, because it uses spare kitchen capacity and reaches guests who would not visit. But it should be priced and managed with these numbers in view.

Read the settlement statement line by line

Most leakage hides in the weekly payout statement. Download it for every outlet and every platform, and check it against your agreement and your POS data. Look for:

• Commission: is the rate the one you signed, and is it applied to the right base (food value, not GST or packaging, unless your agreement says so)?
• Discounts: which offers ran, who funded them, and did you approve each one, including any renewal or extension?
• Ads and visibility: spend by campaign, and the orders each campaign actually produced.
• Fees: payment collection, long-distance, cancellation, membership-programme and other charges, with the basis for each.
• Deductions: refunds and penalties after complaints, with the order IDs they relate to.
• GST and TDS: tax on platform fees, and tax deducted at source that your accountant should reconcile.

Raise disputes quickly, in writing, with order IDs, kitchen tickets and dispatch photos as evidence. A monthly summary of disputed amounts, raised and recovered, shows whether the effort is paying off.

Decide which discounts are actually worth running

A discount is worth running only if it brings enough extra orders to make up for the margin it gives away. Use the example above: at full price, the order leaves ₹108. With a 20% restaurant-funded discount, the same order leaves about ₹74, even after the commission falls a little on the lower value. To earn the same total, you would need roughly 46% more orders.

After each campaign, compare orders, average order value, new versus repeat guests and contribution with the weeks before it. Keep the campaigns that pay for themselves and stop the rest.

Build a delivery menu, not a copy of the dine-in menu

The delivery menu should be designed for its own economics. That usually means:

• Fewer items: keep the dishes that sell, travel well and earn a healthy contribution after platform costs.
• Channel pricing: price delivery items to cover commission and packaging. Some platform programmes require prices to match your dine-in menu, so check your agreement before changing prices.
• Combos and meals: well-built combos raise average order value and spread packaging and fees across more food.
• Packaging in the recipe cost: containers, bags, seals, cutlery and dips belong in the plate cost of every delivery item.
• Dishes that travel: items that go soggy, split or cool quickly cause complaints and refunds, however good they are at the table.

Run menu engineering separately for delivery. Our guide to menu engineering explains how to classify items by contribution and popularity, and the food cost guide covers recipe costing.

Cut the leakage from cancellations and complaints

Refunds, remakes and penalties are a direct loss, and poor ratings also push the outlet down the app. Most of them come from a few repeat causes: missing items, wrong orders, spills, late dispatch and food that arrives cold.

• Set realistic preparation times, especially at peak hours, so orders are not marked late.
• Use an order-check step before sealing: items, add-ons, cutlery and dips against the ticket.
• Seal every bag and take a dated photo of the packed order at handover. It helps settle disputes.
• Track complaint reasons weekly and fix the top two causes first.
• Switch the outlet or specific items off when the kitchen cannot keep up, rather than accepting orders it will deliver late.

Build channels you control

Aggregators are good at bringing new guests. Repeat guests can increasingly be served through channels with lower costs and more control. Each has its own cost and effort.

A practical approach is to use the large apps to be discovered and to give repeat guests a reason to order directly next time, for example with a card in the bag or a direct-order offer that costs less than the platform commission.

Run a monthly delivery profitability review

1. Collect: download settlement statements for every platform and outlet.
2. Reconcile: match orders and payouts with your POS and bank receipts.
3. Calculate: work out net payout and delivery contribution per order, by platform.
4. Review campaigns: keep only the discounts and ads that paid for themselves.
5. Fix leakage: list refunds, penalties and cancellations by reason and act on the top causes.
6. Adjust the menu: reprice, rework, bundle or remove delivery items that do not earn their place.
7. Dispute: raise any deduction that does not match your agreement, with evidence.

The goal is not to chase the lowest commission in the market. It is to know what every delivery order earns and to make each month more controlled than the last.