What Delivery App Commission Really Costs a UAE Café
12 August 2026 · MidaOne
Delivery platforms are the easiest sales channel a UAE café will ever switch on and the hardest one to read honestly. The orders arrive, the screen is busy, the monthly statement is a large number — and very few owners can say what a delivery order actually leaves them compared with the same order over the counter. The arithmetic is not complicated. It is just that almost nobody does it on a single order, which is the only level at which it makes sense.
Start by finding your real rate
Commission is a percentage of the order value, and the figure varies by platform, by city, by cuisine, by how long you have been on, and by whether you take delivery from the platform's riders or do it yourself. Rates get quoted in the press and repeated in blog posts, but the only rate that governs your business is the one in your own signed agreement — and it is common for owners to be unsure what theirs is. Before you read any further, go and find it. Look for the commission percentage, whether it applies to the order before or after VAT, whether delivery fees sit inside or outside it, and what you agreed to for promotions and placements.
Then check it against a real settlement statement. The gap between the headline percentage in a contract and the amount that actually lands in your bank account for a given week is where the surprises live, and it is a far more useful number than anything you will read online.
Do the maths on one order
Take a single, ordinary order and follow the money. The table below runs a AED 30 order at three different commission rates. These are illustrative rates to show the shape of the problem — substitute your own. Ingredient cost is set at 30% of the order, which is a common café food cost though yours may differ, and VAT is left out to keep the arithmetic readable:
| If your commission is | Platform takes | Left after ingredients (AED 9) |
|---|---|---|
| 15% | AED 4.50 | AED 16.50 |
| 25% | AED 7.50 | AED 13.50 |
| 35% | AED 10.50 | AED 10.50 |
The same order over your own counter leaves AED 21 before overheads. That is the comparison worth sitting with: at the higher end of the range, a delivery order can leave you half of what the identical order makes in the shop. It is not automatically a bad trade — but it means delivery volume and counter volume are not interchangeable, and a café that celebrates a record delivery month can still have made less money than the month before.
Two things follow from the arithmetic. First, low-ticket orders are the ones that hurt: a percentage of AED 18 barely covers the effort of making it, which is why minimum order values and delivery-only bundle pricing exist. Second, high-margin items carry delivery far better than low-margin ones — a drinks-heavy order survives a commission that a discounted lunch deal does not. If your delivery menu is a straight copy of your counter menu, you are probably subsidising your worst items to be delivered.
The costs that aren't the commission
The percentage is the visible cost. These are the ones that quietly change the answer:
- Promotions and discounts. A platform-wide offer usually comes out of your margin, not theirs. A 25% discount on top of a commission can take an order past the point of making anything at all.
- Paid placement. Appearing higher in the listings is an advertising cost, and it belongs in the same calculation as the commission rather than in a separate mental bucket.
- Packaging. Delivery packaging costs more than a cup and a lid, and it is per order rather than per month, so it scales exactly with the channel.
- Kitchen time during the rush. A delivery order and a counter order compete for the same hands. If delivery tickets slow your counter queue at peak, the real cost includes the walk-in customer who left.
- Refunds and complaints. A cold or missing item is usually resolved in the customer's favour, and the food has already been made and paid for.
How VAT applies to the order and to the platform's own commission invoice is a genuine question and not always intuitive — put it to your accountant rather than assuming, because getting it wrong the same way for a year is expensive to unwind.
So should you be on the platforms at all?
Usually yes, and honestly so. Delivery apps are a marketing channel that happens to be paid for per order rather than per month. They put you in front of people who would never have found you, they cover a delivery operation you would struggle to run yourself, and for a new café in a low-footfall unit they can be the difference between filling quiet hours and staring at an empty room. Treating the commission as pure loss misses what you are buying.
The mistake is not being on them. The mistake is having no other channel, so that your busiest sales route is one where somebody else owns the customer, sets the terms and can change them. The goal is not to leave — it is to stop being dependent.
Building a direct channel alongside
A direct channel does not have to mean building an app. It means having some way for the people who already like you to order without a platform in the middle:
- Your own ordering page, shared by link and QR code, for regulars and nearby offices who order the same thing every week.
- Collection orders, where there is no delivery cost to absorb at all and the margin is your counter margin.
- A reason to come back directly — a stamp card is worth more on a channel you own than on one you rent. Our guide to café loyalty programmes covers what actually brings regulars back.
- Corporate and standing orders, which are almost never worth routing through a platform and are where a lot of quiet café revenue lives.
- Menu pricing that reflects the channel. Setting delivery prices from your delivery costs rather than copying your counter board is basic and rarely done — our guide to pricing a café menu has the method.
Where MidaOne fits
MidaOne is where the direct side lives. Every café gets its own public QR menu page that customers can browse from the table or from a link you send, car ordering for the customer who would rather not leave the car park, and stamp-card loyalty that ties a regular to you rather than to a platform. Because the till, stock and accounting are the same system, a direct order and a counter order land in the same sales record and the same VAT return — so when you finally sit down to compare what each channel earns you, you are comparing like with like instead of a platform statement against a spreadsheet.
Own the channel your regulars order through. Free for 14 days, no card.
Start your free trialFrequently asked questions
How much commission do delivery apps charge restaurants in the UAE?
It varies by platform, location, cuisine and the terms you negotiated, and reported figures cover a wide band. Rather than relying on a published number, find the percentage in your own agreement and check it against an actual settlement statement — the effective rate after promotions and placements is often different from the headline.
Is delivery profitable for a small café?
It can be, but not at the same margin as the counter. Run one ordinary order through the arithmetic — order value, minus commission, minus ingredients, minus packaging — and compare it to the same order in the shop. Higher-margin items and larger tickets carry the commission far better than cheap single items.
Should I charge more on delivery apps than in the café?
Many operators do, to recover some of the commission and packaging cost. It is a judgement call: it protects margin but can read badly to a customer who notices, so keep any difference modest and consistent rather than item by item.
How do I reduce my reliance on delivery platforms?
Build one channel you own and give people a reason to use it — a direct ordering page, collection orders, loyalty that only works with you, and standing corporate orders. The aim is not usually to leave the platforms but to stop being in a position where losing them would end the business.
Does VAT apply to delivery commission?
The treatment of both the order and the platform's commission invoice needs to be confirmed for your specific arrangement. Ask your accountant to look at an actual statement rather than assuming, since a consistent error here compounds quietly over a year.
Nobody negotiates their way to a good commission rate as a small independent café. What you can do is know your number, price the channel for what it actually costs you, and make sure it is not the only way a customer can reach you. A café with a direct channel treats delivery as one route to market. A café without one is a supplier to somebody else's business.