Delivery apps, your own app, QR tables: where a Gulf restaurant's margin goes

In Riyadh and Jeddah, where our own restaurants run, a large share of orders arrive through delivery platforms. They bring guests a restaurant would never reach alone, and they take a commission for it, along with marketing fees, discounts the restaurant co-funds, and packaging the dine-in plate never needed. None of that is wrong. The mistake is pricing every channel as if it were the dining room.

The same dish, four different margins

• Dine-in: the menu price, minus food cost and the cost of service.
• Delivery platform: the price on the platform, minus the commission in your contract, any co-funded discount, packaging, and refunds the platform charges back.
• Your own app or website, for pickup or delivery: no platform commission, but you pay for delivery or the guest collects, and you own the guest's details.
• QR ordering at the table: the dine-in margin, with fewer order mistakes and a faster table turn, because the guest orders and asks for the bill from the phone.

Most owners know their commission rate. Far fewer know their margin per channel per dish, because the numbers live in different places: the platform's statement, the till, the purchase records. Bring them together and the conclusions are usually quick: some dishes should cost more on delivery platforms, some deals should not run there at all, and some guests should be invited to order directly next time.

Four practical moves

• Price per channel. Keep one menu, with a price for each platform that reflects what that platform costs you. In ORACY Admin this is a column per platform, not a second menu to maintain.
• Know food cost per plate. A recipe per dish turns "this deal feels profitable" into a number, before the deal goes live on any channel.
• Measure orders and payouts per platform every month: how many orders, how much was paid out, how much was refunded or disputed.
• Give guests a reason to order directly: points that are worth using, a welcome voucher in your own app, and a QR code on every table and every delivery bag.

What not to do

Leaving the platforms is rarely the answer; for many restaurants they are the main source of new guests. The goal is simpler: every channel priced for what it really costs, and the guests who already love your food given a better way to come back.

A delivery platform is a marketing channel with a commission. Price it like one.

ORACY for Restaurants keeps channel prices, recipes and food cost, platform order counts and the restaurant's own app in one account, because that is how we needed to see our own numbers. If you run a restaurant in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf and want to see your margin by channel, we would be glad to show you how we do it.