A delivery order looks like revenue. The app shows “€28” and instinct says: income. But an order isn’t income — it’s income minus a stack of costs that all switch on the moment the delivery leaves. The real question isn’t “how much did I take in on delivery,” it’s “how much did I keep, order by order.” And it’s a question very few operators can answer with a number.
In what delivery platforms really cost you we put the commission and its hidden costs in focus. Here we take the next, more concrete step: we break down the margin on a single order, compare it with the same dish served in the dining room, and find the commission’s break-even point. At the end there’s a calculator to rerun the math with your own numbers.
The real margin formula, per order
Nothing exotic. The margin on a delivery order is:
Order value − commission − food cost − packaging = contribution margin
Let’s plug in realistic numbers — the same ones preset in the calculator below: an average order of €28, commission 30%, food cost 32%, packaging €1.20.
- Commission: 28 × 30% = €8.40
- Food cost: 28 × 32% = €8.96
- Packaging: €1.20
- Margin: 28 − 8.40 − 8.96 − 1.20 = €9.44, or 33.7% of the order
Mind one word: contribution. That €9.44 isn’t profit. It’s what’s left to cover labor, rent, utilities and — only then — profit. Once you account for the staff working the kitchen and the hand-off (say another 25-30% of the order), the real “profit” on that order thins out fast. It’s the same logic as food cost: the number that matters isn’t revenue, it’s what survives all the costs.
Dine-in vs delivery: same dish, two margins
Here’s the comparison that opens eyes. Take the exact same dish and serve it in the dining room.
Dine-in pays no commission and no packaging. At 32% food cost, the contribution margin is 68% of the order — on €28, that’s €19.04.
On delivery, the same dish returns €9.44 (33.7%).
Half. Same dish, same kitchen, same ingredient cost — but on delivery the contribution margin is about half what it is in the dining room. Not because you cook worse, but because a commission that doesn’t exist in-house has slipped between you and the customer. That doesn’t make delivery worthless: it can fill dead hours, cover fixed costs you’d pay anyway, and widen your reach. But it has to be priced knowing it starts halfway down — not as if it were one extra cover.
The commission break-even point
Blunt question: at what commission rate does the margin hit zero?
With our numbers (32% food cost, €1.20 packaging on €28), contribution margin reaches zero at around 63.7% commission. Translation: as long as the platform keeps less than 63.7%, every order contributes something; beyond that, you lose on ingredients and packaging alone.
It sounds far off — no platform charges 63%. But it’s a generous threshold, because it counts only food cost and packaging. Add the kitchen and handling labor (another 25-30%) and real break-even collapses — often below 40%. And that’s where the 30-35% commission you actually pay starts to look frightening. The break-even point tells you how much safety margin you have left before an order starts working at a loss. For many venues it’s thinner than they imagine.
What to do with the number
Knowing your margin per order isn’t an accounting exercise — it’s the basis for three concrete moves.
1. Price delivery for what it costs. If that dish carries double the margin in the dining room, it’s legitimate (and often necessary) for it to cost more on the app. How to do it without losing customers — and what price transparency requires — is covered in designing a menu and prices for delivery.
2. Shift volume to your direct channel. Every order that comes through your own site or WhatsApp instead of the app is an order with no commission: the margin comes back in full. That’s the subject of direct delivery: how to cut or eliminate commissions.
3. Work the lines you control. Packaging can be optimized (right sizes, bulk buying); the food cost of “travel-friendly” dishes can be designed. You can’t touch the commission, but you can trim everything else — and keep an eye on the number in your KPI dashboard, next to average ticket and card fees.
Calculator: your margin, order by order
Theory holds until you put your own numbers in. Move the sliders on the calculator below: average order value, the commission you actually pay, food cost, packaging and orders per week. In real time you’ll see the margin per order (in euros and percent), the annual margin delivery brings you, the dine-in vs delivery comparison, and the commission break-even point.
The defaults reflect an average order (€28, 30% commission, 32% food cost). Swap in yours: for many, the surprise is discovering how thin the margin they’re working on really is.
In short
A delivery order isn’t income: it’s income minus commission, food cost and packaging. With typical numbers you’re left with a contribution margin around 33%, about half the same dish in the dining room (68%). The “contribution” break-even is high (over 60%), but the real one — with labor in — often drops below 40%, close to the commissions you actually pay. The conclusion isn’t “quit delivery,” it’s “delivery with your eyes open”: priced, measured, and balanced against your direct channel. It all starts with knowing your number — use the calculator below and find it.
Coperti is the reservation and floor-management system born from the experience of people who ran a restaurant for years. We don’t run delivery and we don’t process payments: we give you control over the numbers that decide your margins — covers, average ticket, revenue per service — so you always know where you actually make money. Tell us about your restaurant: the trial is free and lasts 30 days.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you calculate the real margin on a delivery order?
- Start from the order value and subtract, in order: the platform commission (order × commission %), the food cost (order × food cost %) and the packaging cost. What's left is the contribution margin — what covers labor, rent, utilities and profit. On a €28 order at 30% commission, 32% food cost and €1.20 packaging, you're left with €9.44 (33.7% of the order), before you've paid the kitchen or the rent.
- Is delivery less profitable than dine-in?
- On the same dish, almost always yes in percentage terms. Dine-in pays no commission and no packaging: at 32% food cost the contribution margin is 68%. On delivery, with 30% commission plus packaging, the same dish drops to around 34% — roughly half. Delivery can still pay off on volume and by covering fixed costs, but it has to be priced knowing it starts at half the margin.
- What is the commission break-even point?
- It's the commission rate at which the order's contribution margin hits zero. With 32% food cost and €1.20 packaging on a €28 order, contribution break-even is around 63.7%: beyond that you lose money on ingredients and packaging alone. But that's a generous threshold — once you add kitchen and handling labor, real break-even drops a lot, often below 40%.
- How many orders does delivery need to be worth it?
- It depends on your margin per order and the fixed costs you want to cover. At roughly €9 contribution per order and 120 orders a week, delivery generates almost €59,000 a year in gross contribution. That's real money, but weigh it against the time, dedicated staff, and the share of customers you'd have served in the dining room anyway. The calculator in this article estimates it for your case.