Uber Eats alternative for a pizzeria: sell direct
Uber Eats charges UK restaurants 30% when its couriers deliver, 13% when you deliver, and 13% on pick-up, plus a one-off £650 activation fee. The alternative is not walking away tomorrow — it is taking the orders from customers who already know your name on your own site, where the same order costs you pence.
What an order actually costs
Uber Eats publishes its UK rate card, which is more than most of its competitors do. For a pizzeria doing 150 orders a month at a £28 average basket:
| Uber delivers (30%) | You deliver (13%) | Your own site | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commission per order | £8.40 | £3.64 | £0 |
| Card processing | included | included | ~£0.62 |
| Monthly cost | £1,260 | £546 | ~£93 |
| Annual cost | £15,120 | £6,552 | ~£1,116 |
Uber Eats UK published rates, September 2026, plus a £650 (excl. VAT) one-off activation fee. Card processing around 1.5% + 20p. Your contract may differ — check it.
Run it with your own numbers — the annual figure surprises people, because commission is felt per order and never totted up per year.
When Uber Eats is still the right choice
Honestly: for a lot of pizzerias the platform is profitable and leaving would be a mistake.
- You are new. The app puts you in front of people who do not know you exist. No website does that in year one.
- You have no driver. Hiring, insuring and managing one costs more than 30% at low volume.
- You are in a dense, competitive area. The app is where the choice gets made, and not being in it is not being considered.
- Most of your orders are from new customers. Then the commission is customer acquisition, not leakage.
What "going direct" actually means
Not deleting your listing. Keeping the shop window and moving the regulars:
- Your web address on every box, bag and receipt.
- A card in the bag on platform deliveries — the one moment you can talk to a customer the platform owns.
- An offer that exists only on your own site. It need not be big to shift a habit.
- The link on your Google Business listing, where a lot of people start.
A pizzeria that moves a third of its platform volume direct saves around £5,000 a year on the numbers above, and keeps everything the platform was actually good for.
Things worth reading in your contract
- The activation fee. £650 excluding VAT, with opt-outs for parts of the package you do not want.
- Who pays for a refund. Platform-initiated refunds often come off your payout.
- Promotional funding. Discounts shown to customers are usually funded by you, not the platform.
- Whether your rate is negotiable. At volume it frequently is — the published card is a starting point.