Restaurant online ordering system, no commission
An online ordering system for a restaurant lets you take pickup orders directly on your own website, with no per-order commission. You keep the whole ticket, you keep the customer relationship, and there’s no extra tablet to babysit during the rush.
Three kinds of “online ordering”
In the US the term covers three very different products, and they’re priced in three different ways.
| How you pay | Whose customer it is | Brings new customers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketplace apps (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub) | A percentage of every order | Mostly the app’s | Yes, that’s what you pay for |
| POS add-ons and direct-ordering platforms (Toast Online Ordering, ChowNow, Slice for pizzerias) | A monthly subscription, a per-order fee, or both, plus processing | Yours | Little or none |
| Your own website with ordering built in | A flat monthly fee, plus processing | Yours | Only through your own Google listing |
The first row is the one people misread. A marketplace isn’t only an ordering system: much of its commission is a customer-acquisition cost. Going direct doesn’t replace that. It stops you paying it again on every order from a customer you already have.
How it works during service
- The customer orders on your site and picks a pickup time.
- The order reaches you, with no dedicated tablet to watch.
- You confirm it, or push the time back if the kitchen is in the weeds.
- They pay online or at pickup, depending on what you turned on.
You can pause online ordering in one tap when the line is out the door. In practice that’s the most useful control there is, and on your own site nobody else decides how it affects you.
What about sales tax?
Prepared food is taxable in most states, and the rate depends on where you are, down to the city or county. On your own site, the prices you publish are yours, and so is the sales tax on those orders, the same as at the register. In most states the delivery apps collect and remit the tax on orders placed through them, though not everywhere (California, for one, carves them out), which is one more reason the two channels look different on your books. Ask your accountant or your state’s department of revenue what applies to you. Our own Premium plan is $19 a month, with sales tax added on top where it applies.