Every Way Customers Can Order From You Online — and What Each One Really Costs

First, the Split That Decides Everything

Every online-ordering option on earth lands in one of two buckets, and the bucket matters more than the brand name.

Marketplace ordering is when the customer orders inside the DoorDash, Uber Eats or Grubhub app. The platform found the customer, so the platform takes a cut — typically 15% to 30% of the ticket on delivery orders, depending on the plan tier. The customer's name, email and order history belong to the app, not to you.

Direct ordering is when the customer orders from a page you control — your website, your Google Business Profile button, a link on your receipt. No commission. You pay card processing (roughly 3% plus about thirty cents, same as a dine-in swipe) and sometimes a flat subscription. The customer is yours: their email, their favorite order, their birthday.

On a $40 order, card processing costs you about $1.50. A 30% marketplace commission costs you $12. That gap, times every order, times every night, is the whole conversation.

Neither bucket is evil. The marketplaces are genuinely good at putting your food in front of strangers, and that reach is worth paying for. The mistake we see — constantly, city after city — is restaurants paying marketplace commission on orders from regulars: people who already know the restaurant, searched it by name, and would happily have ordered direct if a direct link existed. Your goal isn't to quit the apps. It's to stop renting your own customers back.

The Marketplace Apps: Reach You Rent

DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub all work roughly the same way for you: tiered plans where a bigger commission buys better placement and wider delivery radius. As of this writing, DoorDash's published tiers run 15% (Basic), 25% (Plus) and 30% (Premier) on delivery orders, with pickup orders around 6% — and the other two land in the same neighborhood. There's usually no monthly fee; the commission is the whole model.

Treat this like an advertising budget, because that's what it is. A new customer discovering you in the app for $9 of commission is a fine trade. Your hundredth order from the family two blocks away, at $12 a pop, is not. Which brings us to everything below.

The Direct-Ordering Options, One by One

Grubhub Direct — free, if you're already on Grubhub

Grubhub will build you a branded ordering website — your colors, your menu pulled straight from your marketplace listing — with no monthly fee and no marketing commission on orders placed through it. You pay card processing, and if you want Grubhub's drivers to handle delivery on direct orders, a delivery service fee (about 10% per delivered order). If you're on Grubhub already, this is close to free money: the site goes live in minutes.

Online Ordering by DoorDash — the same idea, DoorDash flavor

DoorDash's version (you may have seen it as "Storefront") adds commission-free ordering to your own website, your Google listing and your social profiles. No monthly fee, no setup fee, no commission — just payment processing, like a dine-in card. Optional per-order fee if you want Dashers to deliver. Same logic as Grubhub Direct: if you're already on the marketplace, turning this on is a no-brainer.

ChowNow — flat subscription, zero commission, built for volume

ChowNow flips the model: you pay a flat monthly subscription — plans run roughly $249 to $449 a month (a bit less billed annually), plus a one-time setup fee — and every order is commission-free, whether it comes from your website, their marketplace app or a branded app of your own. Processing runs about 2.95% plus 29¢. The math is simple: the more takeout volume you do, the better a flat fee looks next to a percentage. At low volume, it's an expensive way to feel independent.

Square Online — probably already in your pocket

If you run a Square register, you can switch on a free ordering site where the menu syncs from your POS automatically — no retyping, no monthly fee on the free plan. You pay online processing of about 3.3% plus 30¢ (the $49/month Plus plan trims that to 2.9% plus 30¢, which pays for itself somewhere north of $10k a month in online sales). The same logic applies on Clover and most other registers: your POS company almost certainly sells first-party online ordering, and the menu sync alone usually makes it the path of least resistance.

Toast — commission-free ordering, straight into the kitchen

Toast is the other giant POS in independent restaurants, and its online ordering is the reason a lot of kitchens picked it. Orders placed on your Toast ordering page are commission-free and print straight to the kitchen like any dine-in ticket — no tablet to re-key, no marketplace in the middle. The catch is the same as Square's, inverted: you have to run Toast. The $0/month starter POS plan exists, but Toast recoups it in processing — online orders run about 3.5% plus 15¢ — and real-world Toast bills grow with hardware and add-ons. If you're already on Toast, turning on its ordering is the obvious first move; if you're not, it's a reason to consider the whole POS, not a product you can buy alone.

Owner.com — the done-for-you bundle

Owner.com sells the whole stack as one subscription: website, online ordering, a branded mobile app, and the automated email/text marketing that most independents never get around to. Published pricing is about $249 a month plus 5% per order, or $499 a month flat, month-to-month. It's the most expensive option on this page and also the most complete — a fit for restaurants doing serious direct volume who want one throat to choke, not for a kitchen just getting its first ordering button.

Order.now — free and deliberately bare-bones

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Order.now gives you a free direct-ordering page: 0% commission, no monthly fee, no POS lock-in — you keep every dollar minus processing. You won't get marketing automation or a branded app; you get a working order button that costs nothing, which for a lot of small kitchens is exactly the right amount of software.

The Whole Field on One Table

Prices are each company's published rates as of August 2026 and they do change — confirm current numbers before you sign anything. Card processing applies on every option, including dine-in; it's the cost of taking cards, not a platform fee.

Other Names You'll Hear

These come up constantly in sales calls and search results. One honest line on each, so you can place them fast:

Popmenu — website-plus-marketing plans at roughly $179 to $499 a month, with online ordering as a separate add-on (about $50 a month, plus a $1 per-order fee passed to your customer). If their sales team hasn't called you yet, they will. Solid product; just price the whole stack, not the headline number.

BentoBox — the big name in designer restaurant websites with ordering bundled in, starting around $49 a month before per-order and processing fees. Pricing is quote-based and varies widely by package, so get the all-in number for your volume in writing.

Slice — pizza only, and pizzerias should know it: instead of a percentage, Slice charges a flat fee per order, which on a big pie order beats 25% by a mile. Part marketplace, part direct-ordering tool for pizza shops specifically.

Menufy — online ordering plus a website from $149 a month with 0% commission, owned by POS company HungerRush. A common ChowNow alternative quote.

GloriaFood — the "free online ordering" search result, and the core product genuinely is free; you pay for add-ons like card processing and a branded app. A fine zero-budget starting point alongside Order.now.

Olo — powers ordering for the big chains. If you're reading this blog, it's not for you, and that's fine.

Otter and Chowly — not ordering channels at all: they consolidate your DoorDash/Uber Eats/Grubhub tablets into one screen and push orders into your POS. Useful plumbing once you're on multiple apps.

ezCater — a marketplace for catering orders, not takeout. Different job; worth a listing if office catering is your thing.

Uber Eats — covered above as a marketplace, but worth saying plainly: unlike Grubhub and DoorDash, it has no meaningful free direct-ordering product for independents. Use it for reach; build your direct channel elsewhere.

The Part Every One of These Tools Quietly Assumes

Go back through that list and notice the phrase that keeps repeating: "adds ordering to your website." Every direct-ordering product assumes the button has somewhere to live. And this is where we stop being neutral observers, because checking restaurant websites is literally our job — and every week we find great kitchens whose only online presence is a marketplace page they pay 30% for, a dead domain, or a menu photo from three years ago.

A commission-free ordering link buried where nobody can find it earns exactly as much as no ordering link at all.

If you don't control a website, the direct-ordering math never gets to happen. Your regulars search your name, land on an aggregator, and you're back to renting your own customers. That's the problem our website service exists to fix: we build restaurant websites for a flat $250, host them for $25 a month with updates included — email us a new menu and it's live in hours — and we'll wire in whichever ordering platform you pick from this page, at no extra charge. Order button front and center, connected to your Google Business Profile, on a domain you own.

How We'd Stack It, If It Were Our Kitchen

1. Keep the marketplace listings — as advertising. Stay on the lowest commission tier that still gets you seen. That 15-30% buys discovery; let it do that job and only that job.

2. Stand up a free direct channel this week. Already on Square, Toast or Clover? Turn on your POS's ordering. On Grubhub or DoorDash? Their direct products are free. Starting from zero? Order.now or Square's free plan. There is no longer any volume too small for direct ordering — four of these options cost nothing monthly.

3. Put the direct link everywhere you control. Your website's top button, the ordering link on your Google Business Profile — set it as "Preferred by business," our full profile guide shows how — the receipt, a bag-stuffer card: "Order direct next time — it keeps more of your dollar here." Regulars will move; they mostly just need to be told the link exists.

4. Graduate when the volume says so. When direct takeout becomes real money, that's when a flat-fee platform like ChowNow — or the full Owner.com bundle — starts beating percentages. Let the order counts make that call, not the sales rep.

Questions Restaurant Owners Ask Us

What is the cheapest way to take online orders?

Four of the tools above cost $0 a month with 0% commission: Grubhub Direct, Online Ordering by DoorDash, Square Online's free plan, and Order.now. On all of them you pay only card processing — roughly 3% plus about thirty cents per order, the same kind of fee as a dine-in swipe.

What's the difference between a commission and a processing fee?

Processing is what card networks charge to move money — around 2.9-3.3% plus about 30¢, unavoidable on every option including your dine-in register. Commission is the marketplace's cut on top: 15-30% of the ticket. On a $40 order that's about $1.50 versus up to $12.

Do I have to leave DoorDash or Grubhub to go commission-free?

No, and for most restaurants you shouldn't. Keep the marketplace listing for discovery and add a direct channel for your regulars. The apps find strangers; your direct link keeps them.

Which platform should I pick?

Already on a POS like Square, Toast or Clover — use its ordering first. Already on Grubhub or DoorDash — their free direct products take minutes. Serious takeout volume — price out ChowNow or Owner.com flat plans. Starting from nothing — a free page like Order.now gets you live this week.

Can 2for20deals handle the website part?

Yes — that's exactly what our $250 website build is for. We put your menu, hours and photos on a fast site you own, wire in the ordering platform you choose, and keep it updated for $25 a month. And your directory listing here stays free regardless.