The best online ordering system for restaurants is one you own: a commission-free platform that runs your website and app ordering, keeps your customer data, and connects to your till and kitchen, with marketplaces used only as a discovery channel on top.
The market is large and shifting. Lumina Intelligence's UK Foodservice Delivery Market Report 2026 values UK delivery at £14.8 billion. Its 2025 report found company-owned platforms handled 26.4% of delivery occasions in 2024, close behind the largest marketplace at 27.2%. A 2024 CI&T survey of 2,000 UK consumers found 62% would prefer to order directly from brands that have a good app or website.
What are your three options?
Every online ordering system for restaurants in the UK falls into one of three types.
Marketplaces such as the big delivery apps bring customers to you and charge a percentage commission on each order. You get reach but not the customer's contact details, and the margin on every order is thinner.
Commission-free ordering platforms give you a branded ordering website and app for a flat monthly fee. You keep the customer data and the full order value, but you have to promote the channel yourself.
Custom builds mean paying a developer for a bespoke app. You get total control, at a cost that usually runs to five figures plus ongoing maintenance.
Five criteria for comparing a restaurant ordering platform
Judge each option against the same list:
- Total cost per order once commission, card fees and subscriptions are added
- Who owns the customer data and whether you can export it
- Integration with your EPOS and kitchen display so nothing is retyped
- Delivery, collection and table ordering from one menu
- Loyalty, push notifications and email built in rather than bolted on
Add contract length and UK support hours, and you have a fair comparison.
How do you work out the real cost?
Take last month's online order value and apply each model. On £10,000 of orders, a 20% commission is £2,000; a 30% commission is £3,000. A commission-free platform charging a flat monthly fee would cost the same whether you did £10,000 or £30,000. The break-even point is usually a handful of orders a day, which is why volume matters more than headline price.
Remember that marketplace orders still need a card fee and a tablet, and that a custom build needs updating every time Apple or Google changes their rules.
When is a marketplace still the right choice?
If you are new, in a crowded postcode, and have no customer base yet, a marketplace can be a useful advert. The mistake is treating it as the whole strategy. Use it to win first orders, then move those customers to your own ordering platform where the second order is commission-free.
Common mistakes when choosing
The first is choosing on price alone and ending up with a cheap ordering widget that does not talk to the till. The second is picking a custom build for a two-site business and paying a developer for updates forever. The third is signing a long contract before testing whether staff can manage the menu without calling support.
The best online ordering system for restaurants: the bottom line
The best online ordering system for restaurants is the one that lowers your cost per order and builds a customer list you control. OrderApps provides commission-free online ordering with a branded app, EPOS and kitchen display in one platform for UK restaurants, so you can compare it against your current marketplace bill order by order.
Ready to grow your food business?
Commission-free ordering, branded apps, bookings, and EPOS on one platform.
