A flat fee instead of a percentage of every ticket. Here is what the term actually means, what to check before you buy, and where the break-even sits.
Commission-free means no percentage of each order goes to a marketplace. The software charges a fixed monthly fee instead. Sell $5,000 in a month or $50,000 — the software costs the same.
Read the fine print on anyone who uses the term, including us. On Regulars, Full Heat carries no per-order fee at all. Simmer carries a 3% platform fee capped at $250 a month — small and capped, but not zero, and we'd rather you saw it here than on a statement. Card processing is separate on every provider. What neither plan ever does is add a fee to your guest's bill.
Marketplace apps work the other way. They charge a percentage, so the better your month, the larger their invoice. On a category with margins as thin as restaurants, that structure takes a meaningful share of the profit on every ticket.
Flat fees are worse than commission at low volume and better as you grow, because the fee stops scaling while commission never does.
The arithmetic: divide the monthly fee by your commission rate. At $199 a month against 25% commission, break-even lands around $800 of monthly order value. Above that, flat is cheaper — and the gap widens every month you grow.
You can calculate your current commission bill here.
Five questions. A provider that answers all five plainly is being straight with you; one that talks around any of them has told you something.
Big-name platforms charge your guests 5% on every order. Regulars never touches your guests' bill — your prices are your prices.
Website, menu, app, customer list, reviews — moved by our team in 14 days.
No contracts, no cancellation fees. If we're not growing you, leave — but see the guarantee below.
Restaurants, trucks, bakeries, coffee — vertical playbooks pre-loaded.
Keep your negotiated card rates or use ours — never a forced switch.
A named human who knows your flavor, for the life of the account — not just launch week.
Generally no. The apps do something direct ordering cannot: put you in front of people who have never heard of you. That has real value, and commission on a genuinely new customer is a reasonable acquisition cost.
The problem is paying that acquisition cost repeatedly on the same person. A guest who orders weekly through an app is being “acquired” fifty-two times a year. Direct ordering is how you stop paying twice for someone you already have.
The restaurant pays a fixed fee for the software rather than a percentage of each order. A $200 order and a $20 order cost the restaurant the same in platform fees. The distinction that matters is whether the provider also adds fees to the guest's bill — some platforms describe themselves as commission-free while charging the customer instead.
It depends on volume. A flat fee is worse than commission at very low order volume and better as volume grows, because the fee does not scale with sales. The break-even point is the monthly fee divided by the commission rate you currently pay — at a $199 monthly fee against 25% commission, that is roughly $800 in monthly order value.
No, and most restaurants should not. The apps are useful for discovery — reaching people who have never heard of you. Direct ordering is for the customers who already know you. Running both, and giving repeat customers a reason to order direct, is the normal approach.
With a direct ordering platform, the restaurant does — names, contact details and order history belong to the business and can be exported. This is the substantive difference from marketplace apps, which retain the customer relationship. Verify data export is available before signing with any provider.
Whether guests are charged fees, whether there is a contract or cancellation penalty, whether setup and menu migration cost extra, whether you can keep your own payment processor, and whether you can export your customer list if you leave. Any provider unwilling to answer these plainly is answering them.
No commission on direct orders, no fees added to your guests' bills, no contract. Setup and menu migration included.