18 September 2026
How to Reduce Zomato & Swiggy Commission for Your Restaurant
If you run a restaurant in India, you already know the number that keeps showing up smaller than it should on your Zomato or Swiggy payout: your own order total, minus commission, minus payment processing, minus whatever you spent on ads to get listed higher that week.
Aggregators aren't going anywhere, and for a lot of restaurants they're still the biggest source of new customers. But "biggest source of new customers" and "most profitable order" are two different things — and the gap between them is exactly what this guide is about.
Why aggregator commission is so high in the first place
It's worth being fair about what you're actually paying for. Zomato and Swiggy run a real logistics network (delivery riders, live tracking, support), a discovery engine (search, recommendations, ratings) that brings you customers who've never heard of you, and payment handling. None of that is free to run, and commission is how they fund it.
The commission percentage itself isn't something we'll quote here as a fixed number — both platforms have changed their rate structures over time, they vary by city and plan, and the only accurate number is whatever your own current agreement says. What's consistent across almost every restaurant we've talked to is the shape of the problem: commission, plus a payment gateway cut, plus optional ad spend to stay visible, adds up to a meaningfully large slice of every order — often enough to turn a busy night into a break-even one.
The real cost isn't just the commission line item
Three things compound on top of the headline commission rate:
- Payment gateway / processing charges on top of the platform's own cut
- Ad spend or "promoted" placement, which many restaurants end up treating as close to mandatory just to stay visible against competitors on the same street
- No direct relationship with the customer — the aggregator owns the phone number, the order history, and the ability to remarket to that customer. You can't message a Zomato customer directly to tell them about tonight's special.
5 practical ways to cut your dependency on commission
None of these mean dropping Zomato or Swiggy — for most restaurants that's not realistic, and it isn't what this guide is suggesting. The goal is to stop paying commission on orders that don't need to go through an aggregator at all.
- Build a direct ordering channel — a link or QR code that goes straight to your own menu, with no middleman taking a cut of the order. Put it on receipts, table tents, packaging, and your Instagram bio.
- Use aggregators for discovery, your own channel for retention. A first-time customer might find you on Zomato — but the second, third, and tenth order from that same customer doesn't have to.
- Give a small reason to order direct — a modest discount or a free add-on for orders placed through your own link costs you far less than the commission you'd otherwise pay an aggregator on that same order.
- For dine-in, put a QR code on the table that opens your own menu directly — no app download, no commission, no waiting for a waiter to take the order down.
- Track margin by channel, not just revenue by channel. A ₹500 aggregator order and a ₹500 direct order are not the same ₹500 once commission and gateway fees come out.
What a direct ordering channel actually looks like
This is the part that used to require a developer, a custom app, or a POS vendor's enterprise sales call. It doesn't anymore. A direct ordering channel for a restaurant is: a branded menu page at your own link, a way for customers to pay (UPI QR code or cash on delivery both work without a payment gateway cut), and a place for you to see and manage incoming orders as they come in.
That's the entire product BhojSetu is built around — a public storefront at your own link (yourrestaurant.bhojsetu.in, or your own domain), QR table ordering for dine-in, UPI/COD checkout with no per-order commission, and a live order dashboard, for a flat monthly fee starting at ₹499. You keep the customer relationship, the order data, and the margin.
Frequently asked questions
For most restaurants, no — aggregators are still a real source of new-customer discovery. The practical approach is running a direct ordering channel alongside them, so repeat customers and dine-in/QR orders don't have to pay aggregator commission at all.
It depends entirely on how much of your volume you can shift to direct ordering — every order placed through your own link or table QR code instead of an aggregator keeps the commission that order would otherwise have cost. Repeat customers, who already know and trust you, are usually the easiest to move first.
No. Platforms like BhojSetu let a restaurant owner sign up, build a menu (by hand, by uploading a photo of a paper menu, or with AI-assisted import), set branding, and get a live storefront link — no code and no developer required.
Yes — a UPI QR code is a direct bank-to-bank transfer with no gateway commission. Cash on delivery works the same way it always has. Both are supported on a direct ordering channel without the per-order cut an aggregator or card gateway would take.
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