How Much Commission Does an Irish Takeaway Pay Per Year? A Worked Example With Real Numbers

A takeaway doing 40 online orders a day at a €25 average pays about €90,000 a year in marketplace commission if it sits entirely on Uber Eats at its published Irish rates (30% when Uber delivers, 13% for collection). That is roughly 26% of €350,000 of sales, and about €110,900 if you can’t reclaim the 23% VAT on the fee. Below is the sum line by line, the costs the percentage hides, and what moving the right orders to your own site saves.

Last checked: 8 October 2026. Rates change, so check each company’s page and, above all, your own weekly statement.

What the three marketplaces publish

Only one of the three big apps puts its Irish rates on a public page. The rest is reported by third parties or set in your agreement.

Deliveroo’s terms state that the fee is calculated weekly and that refunds paid to customers are adjusted from what you receive. Just Eat’s partner pages describe weekly invoices with itemised charges, VAT, adjustments and promotions. For the comparison in full, see Just Eat vs Deliveroo vs Uber Eats for Irish restaurants; for how to read an invoice, our Just Eat commission guide.

The worked example: 40 orders a day for a year

Assumptions, so you can swap in your own:

• 40 online orders a day, 350 trading days a year: 14,000 orders.
• €25 average order, so €350,000 of sales.
• 30 orders a day are delivered by the app’s couriers and 10 are collections.
• Rates are Uber Eats’ published ones, because they are the only ones we can verify. Replace them with your own.

Per day, that is about €257 of commission. If you are VAT-registered, you reclaim the VAT in your return and the real cost is the €90,125. If you are not, the extra €20,729 is a real cost: a 30% fee behaves like 36.9%.

Because the app’s 30% also pays the courier, it isn’t all margin lost. The honest question is not “what is 30% of my sales”, but “which of these orders would I get anyway, and what would they cost if they came direct”.

The costs the percentage hides

The rate on the page is the starting point. Four things on your statement move the real figure:

1. VAT on the fee. Covered above. It is 23%, and it matters if you’re not VAT-registered.
2. Promotions. Marketplaces sell offers and sponsored placement. Menuviel’s guide to the Irish apps reports that on Just Eat the commission is charged on the discounted value, so a promotion costs you the discount and the fee on what is left. Check the promotions line on your invoice.
3. Refunds and adjustments. Deliveroo’s terms say refunds to customers are deducted from your payment; Just Eat invoices carry an adjustments section. A “missing item” refund is taken from you, not the courier.
4. Start-up and admin charges. Uber Eats’ €650 initial fee is a hard number. Others are set in your agreement.

Add them for one normal month, divide by gross sales for that app, and you have your real percentage. That is the number to compare with anything else.

What the same orders cost when they come direct

An order on your own site still costs money. Be honest with yourself about three parts:

• Card processing. Stripe’s published Irish rate for standard European cards is 1.5% + €0.25, which is about 2.5% of a €25 order (premium cards: 2.8% + €0.25, about 3.8%).
• The platform. A monthly plan and, with most ordering platforms, a per-order fee. Ask for yours in writing and add it to the card cost. Call the total your all-in direct cost, as a percentage of order value.
• Delivery. On a marketplace, the courier is inside the 30%. On your own site, delivered orders need your own driver. The driver cost guide works it out at roughly €10 per delivery at two drops an hour and under €7 at three. A €3.50 delivery charge (which includes €0.65 of VAT) offsets part of that.

Collection orders have no courier at all, which is why they are the first thing to move.

Three scenarios, one table

All three sell the same €350,000. The table shows total yearly cost of selling it, at four possible all-in direct costs. It includes a plan at €540 a year (€45 a month, annual) as a floor, and ignores VAT on commission.

• Scenario 1: everything stays on the marketplace.
• Scenario 2: the 10 collection orders a day go direct; deliveries stay on the app.
• Scenario 3: the 10 collections go direct, plus 10 of the 30 deliveries a day with your own driver at €7 net a drop, after a €3.50 delivery charge (ex. VAT €2.85) is collected.

Two things stand out. First, the all-in direct cost matters more than the monthly plan: every extra point on €175,000 of direct sales is €1,750 a year. Ask any platform for its per-order figure before you compare. Second, the saving from delivery orders is smaller than the headline 30% suggests, because you take on the driver. It grows if your drivers already work shifts you pay for, or if you charge a sensible delivery fee by distance.

Put your own order count, average order and app mix into the commission calculator to rerun this with your numbers.

How much does it cost to bring 10 customers back?

The cheapest orders to move are your regulars. Ten customers who each order twice a week on an app at a €25 average are 1,040 orders and €26,000 a year. At 30%, that is €7,800 in commission; at the 13% collection rate, €3,380.

To move them you need a reason and a route: a printed card in the bag with your ordering link, and a small offer on the first direct order. A €3 discount for 10 customers is €30, plus the printing. If four of the ten switch, you have moved about €10,400 of sales a year. Our guide to getting more direct orders lists twelve ways to do it, including how to ask for consent before you email anyone.

A fair way to use the apps

Marketplaces do bring new customers, and that has a price. A sensible split for many takeaways:

• Keep one app where discovery is your problem.
• Send every regular a reason to order direct.
• Price collection orders so they are clearly cheaper than delivery.
• Review the statement every quarter. If a promotion line is growing faster than your sales, cut it.

Where OrdFox fits

OrdFox gives a takeaway its own ordering website on its own domain, with card payments going into the restaurant’s own Stripe account. Cards are authorised when the order is placed and charged when the restaurant accepts it, so a refused or cancelled order isn’t charged. Driver dispatch and live tracking are included in every plan, and there is a kitchen screen. Plans start from €45 a month billed annually (€59 monthly), excluding VAT, on a 12-month agreement, and online card payments carry a per-order platform fee that includes card processing, set out in your agreement. See pricing for what each plan includes.

Bring last month’s marketplace statement to a 15-minute call and we’ll run it through the calculator with you, line by line.