Uber Eats Alternative UK: The Real Cost of 30%

Every restaurant owner in the UK knows Uber Eats and Deliveroo cost a lot. Most cannot tell you exactly how much. This article does the maths once, properly, with the current 2026 commission rates and Stripe processing fees. By the end you will know what your real take-home is on a £15 order via each channel, what an Uber Eats alternative looks like for an independent restaurant, and where the maths starts to favour switching.

Want your own numbers? The commission savings calculator shows exactly what 30% costs your restaurant each year, and the pricing page shows the flat alternative.

What you actually pay Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat in 2026

On published UK rates, Uber Eats charges 30% plus VAT where its couriers deliver (33% on Uber One member orders) and 13% where you deliver or the customer collects, with a £650 activation fee ex VAT; Just Eat publishes 30% and 14% plus VAT on the same split (vendor pages checked 26 October 2026). Deliveroo publishes no UK rate, and restaurants widely report 25% to 35% on full service. Introductory offers come and go; the long-run rate is the relevant number.

On top of commission, the customer pays a delivery fee and a service fee. Those do not go to you. Stripe-style processing fees are baked into the marketplace number, so on Uber Eats you do not pay them separately. If you accept the customer call yourself and use marketplace-only, you pay Stripe (or equivalent) on the order on top of the lower commission.

A £15 order, four ways

Lets walk a single £15 order through the four channels above to see what hits your bank account.

On Uber Eats

• Customer pays £15 + £2.99 delivery + service fee.
• Uber Eats takes 30% commission: £4.50.
• Card processing: bundled, zero extra to you.
• You receive £10.50.

On Deliveroo (35%, the top of the reported range)

• Customer pays £15 + delivery and service.
• Deliveroo takes 35%: £5.25.
• You receive £9.75.

On Just Eat (14% published rate, own delivery)

• Just Eat takes 14%: £2.10, plus 42p VAT on the fee.
• Just Eat’s admin charge and any card charge come on top, per your agreement.
• You receive about £12.48 before those charges.

On your own Aexir-built app

• Card payments at 2.5% + 30p: about £0.68.
• Aexir takes a flat monthly subscription, not a cut of the order.
• You receive about £14.32.

Scaling to a year: this is where it gets painful

Order volumes vary widely, so here is a worked example rather than an average: 50 orders per day, £15 average ticket, 60% of which currently go through a listing platform at 30%. That is 30 orders per day, 10,950 orders per year, with 30% taken off the top.

The gap is staggering. A restaurant doing 50 orders per day pays Uber Eats roughly £70,000 more per year than the same orders would cost through its own app. Even after the flat £30 per month subscription (£360 a year ex VAT), the saving still runs to roughly £69,400 in year one.

Why restaurants stay on Uber Eats anyway

Knowing the maths is not the same as switching. Three real reasons restaurants stay on listing platforms even when the numbers do not work.

1. Customer acquisition. Uber Eats and Deliveroo bring new customers who would never have found you. For new openings or quiet locations, this is genuine value.
2. No tech ownership cost. If your app goes down on a Friday night you have to fix it. On Uber Eats it is their problem.
3. Lock-in by habit. Customers who order from you on Uber Eats once will keep ordering on Uber Eats unless you actively redirect them.

All three are real. None of them justify paying 30% on every order forever. The right strategy is hybrid: use listing platforms as a paid-acquisition channel, then convert customers to your own app with loyalty rewards, smaller delivery fees, and faster service.

How to actually switch (the 90-day plan)

1. Month 1: Launch your own app via a builder like Aexir. Do not change anything on Uber Eats or Deliveroo. Get the app live, tested, and stable.
2. Month 2: Push the app to existing customers. Receipt inserts, table QR codes, Instagram link, "10% off your first order via our app" promo. Set your own target for the share of orders on your own app by the end of month two, and write down where you started.
3. Month 3: Adjust delivery fees and minimum order on listing platforms slightly upward; keep your own app the cheaper option. Add a stamp loyalty tier. Compare the own-app share with your month-two figure.
4. Month 4 onwards: Track the own-app share every month and keep the incentives running. Whatever stays on the listing platforms is your paid-acquisition budget; if one platform brings few genuinely new customers, consider dropping it.

Whichever builder you choose, the alternatives hub puts the main UK providers against Aexir on their published pricing, with the date checked, so you can shortlist on numbers rather than homepages.