Online Ordering for a Small Restaurant: What You Need, What to Skip and a Two-Week Launch Plan

A small restaurant or takeaway needs four things to take online orders: an ordering page customers can find, card payment at checkout, a menu with your real prices and options, and a screen in the kitchen that sounds when an order lands. Everything else can wait. At UK prices published on 28 October 2026, the cheapest plans start at £0 a month plus card fees, and Aexir's Web plan, an ordering website with a browser till, is £30 a month ex VAT.

What a small restaurant actually needs to take online orders

A small shop has one or two people on the counter and no time to look after software. The essentials are short, and each one either brings in an order or stops one going wrong.

• An ordering page under your name that works on a phone, linked from your Google listing, your Instagram bio and a QR code on the bag.
• Card payment at checkout, ideally with Apple Pay and Google Pay, so the food is paid for before it is cooked.
• Your real menu: every size, extra and meal deal at your online prices, with allergen information. Our allergen guide covers the UK rules.
• Opening hours and order types that match how you trade: collection only, or delivery with an area, a fee and a minimum order.
• An alert in the kitchen: a tablet or phone that sounds when an order lands, plus a printer if you work from paper tickets.
• A way to refund or adjust an order when an item runs out.

What you can skip in year one

Much of what higher plans sell is aimed at bigger operators. For a single site taking its first online orders, these can wait:

• Self-service kiosks and kitchen display screens. A printer or a tablet does the job at low volume.
• A custom-designed website. A working ordering page beats a beautiful site that takes weeks to build.
• Marketplace integrations that pull Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats orders into one screen: useful at high volume, a monthly fee at low volume.
• Your own delivery fleet. Start with collection or a delivery area you can cover.
• Marketing suites and paid ads. Tell the customers at your counter first.
• A full EPOS if counter trade is light. Our EPOS vs online ordering guide sets out when a till earns its place.

The one early choice worth thinking about is app or website. A website catches new customers from Google, who rarely download an app to order once; an app suits regulars who order every week. Our app or website first guide works through it.

The cheapest sensible setups, at published prices

The table lists the cheapest published plan that takes online orders for every UK vendor in our price index that publishes one below £70 a month, quoted the way each vendor states it. A free plan is not automatically the cheapest once card and per-order fees are added, so those are in the table too.

Three things stand out. Five of these plans include a till: Chefzi, Posso (with a system bought up front), Aexir Web (with POS on the Go), SumUp POS Pro and TableSpark Full. Many vendors do not publish card or per-order rates, so ask for them in writing. And weekly prices add up: £7.50 a week is about £32.50 a month. Setup fees, card rates and terms are in the ordering system price index.

Aexir's plans, matched to what a small shop needs

Worked example, not a quote: a takeaway on the Web plan taking 100 card orders a month at £20 pays £30 ex VAT for the plan and £80 in card fees (50p plus 30p per order), so £1,320 in the first year before any hardware. The same orders at Square Online's 1.4% + 25p per UK card would carry £53 a month in card fees. So compare card rates, not just monthly fees.

UK partner courier delivery is charged per delivery if you use it, and you can use your own drivers. Outside the UK and France, check currency, tax, card payments and delivery for your country with us on the call before you sign.

A two-week launch plan

Two weeks covers the restaurant's side of the work at about an hour a day. This is a worked plan, not a provider's timetable: Aexir's setup page says most apps go live within a month of you sharing your branding, so start the plan once the build is under way.

For the soft launch, our Google order button guide shows how to add your link to your listing, and the free order direct kit has printable cards and posters. The longer version is how to set up online ordering in 30 days.

Mistakes that cost small restaurants orders

1. Comparing the monthly fee and nothing else. Card rates, per-order fees, customer fees, setup fees and the term change the real cost; our card fee comparison sets published UK rates side by side, and what ‘commission-free’ ordering really costs adds per-order and customer fees to the sum.
2. Signing a term without reading it. Flipdish's UK terms (flipdish.com/gb/docs-inner/tac-2, checked 28 October 2026) run 12 months unless agreed otherwise, renew for 12-month periods and need written notice at least 3 months before a term ends; Square's plans page says "No commitments necessary".
3. A menu that does not match the counter. Missing extras, old prices or no allergen information lead to refunds.
4. Nobody watching for orders. A tablet on silent or a printer out of paper turns a paid order into a complaint, so put one person in charge of the screen each shift.
5. Hiding the link. If it is not on your Google listing, your social profiles and your bags, customers keep ordering the old way.
6. Delivering further than you can cover. Our guide to delivery without your own drivers covers courier options.
7. Switching off the marketplaces on day one. Keep them running while direct orders build. Aexir runs alongside the marketplaces and is not connected to them.

If your small restaurant runs on GloriaFood

GloriaFood reaches end of life on 30 April 2027, so it is not a place to start now. If you already use it, the GloriaFood switch offer applies: sign an Aexir plan on a 12-month term before 30 April 2027 and the first three months are £0, then the published price from month four. Cancel before the 12 paid months finish and the free months are charged: £90 on Web or Starter, £120 on Plus, £150 on Pro, ex VAT. Aexir imports your menu at setup from whatever form you have it in.