Cost & Pricing
How Much Does a Restaurant Ordering App Cost in the UK? (2026 Pricing Guide)
Pricing for restaurant ordering apps in the UK ranges from "free with 30% commission" to "£80,000 plus a year of waiting". This guide cuts through the marketing copy with real 2026 numbers for every legitimate route. By the end you will know what each option actually costs over year one, year three, and where the hidden fees hide.
The four buckets of restaurant app pricing in the UK
There are exactly four pricing models in this market. Anyone telling you otherwise is layering one of these four behind a marketing label.
| Model | Year 1 total cost | Year 3 total cost | Commission per order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listing platforms (Uber Eats, Deliveroo) | Variable: 25% to 35% per order | Variable: 25% to 35% per order | 25% to 35% |
| Custom-built app (agency) | £35,000 to £110,000 | £50,000 to £140,000 | 0% (you keep all order revenue) |
| No-code site builders (Wix, Shopify) | £500 to £4,000 | £1,500 to £12,000 | 0% on your site; commission still applies on listing apps |
| White-label builder (Aexir et al.) | £700 to £2,000 | £2,000 to £5,000 | 0% (Aexir: flat 10p per order) |
Figures assume an independent UK restaurant. Year-3 figures include subscription, support, and reasonable feature growth.
Custom-built apps: when £30,000+ is actually justified
A bespoke restaurant ordering app from a UK agency costs £30,000 to £100,000 upfront. That number reflects roughly three to five months of designer and developer time at typical London or Manchester agency rates (£800 to £1,200 per day). On top of that, you will pay £500 to £2,000 per month for ongoing maintenance, App Store updates, security patches, and OS-compatibility fixes.
This route makes sense for national chains (think 50+ locations), brands with proprietary kitchen workflows, or operations with hard integration requirements (legacy ERP, custom hardware, exotic payment methods). For independents and small groups, it is overkill.
Watch out: custom-build agencies almost always quote the "build" without the "run". Maintenance, hosting, and ongoing developer time often double the year-one cost by year three.
No-code site builders: cheap, but only half the product
Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify all offer restaurant-templated ordering. The pricing is genuinely cheap: £30 to £300 per month plus a one-time setup of £500 to £4,000 if you hire help. The problem is the gaps.
- No branded mobile app on the App Store or Google Play. You get a website only.
- Loyalty almost always requires a paid third-party plugin (£20 to £100 per month extra).
- Delivery driver dispatch is usually not included.
- POS integration is rare or expensive.
- Customer support is generic, not restaurant-trained.
For a small cafe with no delivery and a simple menu, no-code can work. For anyone running real ordering volume, the missing app and missing loyalty cost you more in lost orders than you save in subscription.
White-label restaurant app builders: the sweet spot
White-label platforms like Aexir give independents the same product national chains pay £100k for. The setup is £100 to £500. The monthly subscription is £20 to £100. There is no per-order commission, just a small flat platform fee plus payment processing.
Aexir specifically: £399 setup, £31 per month subscription, £130 per year maintenance from year two (£30 per year if Aexir manages your developer accounts), 10p per completed order, £1 per day per additional location, optional £10 per month branded ordering website. Stripe takes its standard UK rate (1.5% + 20p) directly from the customer payment.
No hidden fees, no contract lock-in (cancel monthly), no payment-processor markup. You can find the full pricing on our pricing page.
Listing platforms: "free" until you do the maths
Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat charge nothing upfront and nothing monthly. You join in an afternoon and start receiving orders the next day. The catch is the 25% to 35% commission on every single order.
For a restaurant doing 30 orders per day at £15 average ticket, that is £49,275 per year on a 30% rate. Year one and year three look identical: a quarter to a third of your gross revenue goes to the platform.
See the full breakdown in our Uber Eats commission guide.
Where the hidden costs hide
- App Store / Google Play developer accounts: Apple charges $99/year, Google charges a one-time $25. A good builder either covers these or tells you upfront.
- Stripe (or equivalent) processing fees: 1.5% + 20p in the UK. Some platforms quietly mark this up to 2.5% or higher.
- Hardware: tablets, receipt printers, card readers. Aexir bundles a tablet at £149 and a thermal printer at £199; bundle £349. Other builders sometimes mark these up by 50% to 100%.
- Update fees: some builders charge for menu changes or new feature releases. A flat-subscription builder should include all updates.
- Support: ask whether email and phone support are included or charged separately.
- Branded ordering website: should be a small add-on (Aexir charges £10 per month). Some builders price this at £100 to £300 per month.
Real ROI for a typical UK independent
Take a single-location pizzeria, 40 orders per day on average, £18 average ticket, currently 70% on Uber Eats at 30% commission and 30% direct (phone, walk-in). Annual revenue from delivery and collection: about £262,800.
Current Uber Eats commission cost: £55,188 per year. Cost of switching 50% of those orders to Aexir within the first six months: £399 setup + £372 subscription + roughly £730 in 10p platform fees for the moved orders. Net first-year saving: roughly £27,000. Year-three saving with the same trajectory: well over £100,000 cumulative.
These are not promotional numbers. They are arithmetic.
See exact Aexir pricing for your restaurant.
£399 setup, £31 per month, 10p per order, zero commission. No contract lock-in.
View full pricingCommon questions answered.
A white-label builder like Aexir is the cheapest credible option. Year-one all-in cost sits around £700 to £2,000 for an independent restaurant, compared to £30,000+ for a custom agency build. Listing platforms (Uber Eats, Deliveroo) appear cheaper but cost 25% to 35% of every order in perpetuity, which adds up to far more for any restaurant doing real volume.
No commission, ever. Aexir charges a flat 10p per completed order as a platform fee, plus Stripe's standard UK card processing rate (1.5% + 20p) which goes directly to Stripe. There is no percentage cut, no marketplace fee, and no hidden processor markup.
On a white-label platform with Aexir: £372 per year subscription plus £130 per year ongoing maintenance from year two (or £30 if Aexir manages your developer accounts). A custom-built app from an agency typically costs £6,000 to £24,000 per year just for maintenance.
Yes, three. Setup is £399, hardware is optional (£149 to £349 for tablet and printer bundles), and the £25 one-time Google Play developer account. Aexir covers the Apple developer fee. Everything else is included in the flat subscription.
For a typical UK restaurant doing 30 orders per day or more, Aexir pays for itself within the first month. The saving on commission you would have paid to Uber Eats or Deliveroo on a typical month's order volume covers the first-year subscription multiple times over.
Build your own restaurant app.
Aexir launches branded ordering apps for UK restaurants in under 30 days. Zero commission. From £1/day.