The Delivery P&L Stack
Your Delivery Platform Takes 42%, Not 25%: Here's the Invoice to Prove It
€1,580.96 disappeared from one restaurant's payout in five days. The platform dashboard said €3,711 in sales. The bank said otherwise.
This is part of the Delivery P&L Stack — our framework for understanding restaurant delivery economics from the inside out. We'll use verified European restaurant data because it's what we've audited to the cent — but the economics are the same whether you're on DoorDash in Austin, Deliveroo in Manchester, or Wolt in Helsinki.
How we collected this data
We analyzed payout invoices from 30+ restaurants across 2 delivery platforms in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, over 24 months of consulting engagements. Every calculation in this article has been verified to the cent against actual bank deposits. When we say €2,130.55, we mean €2,130.55 — not "approximately €2,100."
The gap nobody explains
A kebab restaurant in Tallinn. Two venues. Five days of orders on one platform.
The dashboard says: €3,711.51 in sales. The owner runs the mental math — 25% commission, so roughly €2,800 in the bank. Good week.
The bank deposit: €2,130.55.
That's not 25%. That's 42.6% gone. €1,580.96 vanished between the dashboard number and the bank account.
At this rate: €9,480 per month disappears per venue — before food, staff, or rent. Two venues means nearly €19,000 per month in platform costs alone.
The owner didn't know. The owner has never known. This restaurant has been on the platform for years.
Every day you operate without knowing your true platform cost, you lose money you could have kept. At this venue's rate: €316 per day. You've been listed for two years. Do the math on what you've already given away.
Where the money actually goes (line by line)
Here's the actual invoice breakdown for that five-day period. Every number is from the real payout document.
Starting point — gross sales: €3,711.51
This is what the platform dashboard shows. This is the number the owner sees. This is also where the illusion begins.
Commission across three tiers: −€786.86
Not all orders pay the same rate. The platform splits orders into tiers:
- Takeaway orders (customer picks up): 5% commission
- Delivery orders (courier delivers): 19.5% commission
- Premium subscriber orders (platform's subscription customers — free delivery for them, higher commission for you): 19.5-20% commission
These are negotiated rates for this specific restaurant. Standard published rates for new merchants are significantly higher: 15% takeaway, 25% delivery, 30% premium subscribers. Your rates depend on volume, exclusivity history, and how hard you've pushed back.
The total commission bill across all tiers: €786.86.
Merchant-funded discounts: −€354.69
The platform ran a promotional campaign. The restaurant agreed to fund a discount — say 20% off selected items. The platform positions this as "investing in growth."
Here's what "investing" looks like: €354.69 deducted from the payout. This is not the platform's money. This is the restaurant's revenue, given away to customers at the platform's suggestion.
The platform's account manager proposed the campaign. The restaurant said yes. Nobody ran the math on whether the incremental orders covered the discount cost. (They didn't. See Your Last Delivery Campaign Lost Money for the full breakdown.)
Ad campaign spend: −€419.78
On top of the discount, the restaurant was running paid advertising on the platform — boosted visibility, promoted listings.
€419.78 in five days. That's over €2,500 per month in ad spend. Did it generate €2,500 in incremental NET profit? The platform dashboard shows impressions and clicks. It does not show whether the restaurant made or lost money.
Transaction fee: −€42.53
A flat 1.05% fee on all transactions. Calculated on gross sales (including the customer's VAT), plus 24% VAT charged on top of the fee itself.
€3,266.81 × 1.05% = €34.30 + €8.23 VAT = €42.53.
Small per order. Adds up at volume. And like the commission, it's calculated on the VAT-inclusive amount — so you're paying a fee on tax you'll remit to the government.
Self-billing credits: +€25.40
The one positive line item. When a courier makes an error — drops the food, delivers to the wrong address — the platform reimburses the restaurant for the food cost. In this period: €25.40 back.
But notice: the platform charges commission on the original order AND on the remake. You cook twice. You get reimbursed once — for ingredients only, not labor.
The total
| Line item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gross sales | €3,711.51 |
| Merchant-funded discounts | −€354.69 |
| Deductions/corrections | +€2.50 |
| Net goods | €3,356.82 |
| Commission (all tiers, incl. VAT) | −€786.86 |
| Transaction fee (incl. VAT) | −€42.53 |
| Ad campaign spend (incl. VAT) | −€419.78 |
| Self-billing credits | +€25.40 |
| Corrections | −€2.50 |
| Bank deposit | €2,130.55 |
The restaurant kept 57.4% of gross sales. The platform and the restaurant's own campaign decisions took 42.6%.
The double VAT effect (the mechanic nobody understands)
This is the single most misunderstood line item in platform economics. It's also the reason your "effective" commission rate is always higher than the rate on your contract.
Here's how it works:
Step 1: Commission is calculated on gross sales — the price the customer pays, which includes 24% VAT.
Step 2: Then 24% VAT is charged on top of the commission itself.
Worked example from the same invoice:
Delivery sales gross: €933.15
Commission rate (contract): 19.5%
Commission on gross: €933.15 × 19.5% = €181.96
VAT on commission: €181.96 × 24% = €43.67
Total commission cost: €225.63
Headline rate: 19.5%
Effective rate: €225.63 ÷ €933.15 = 24.2%
The gap: 4.7 percentage points on every single delivery order. Your contract says 19.5%. You actually pay 24.2%. This is not a bug. This is not an error. This is how platform invoicing works in every VAT jurisdiction.
This example uses Estonian 24% VAT. Tax treatment varies by country, but the principle — that effective commission exceeds the headline rate — applies in every market. In the US, replace VAT with applicable sales tax treatment. The commission-on-gross mechanic is the same.
Yes, restaurants can reclaim the VAT on commission as an input tax deduction. The economic cost after reclaim is lower — roughly 33% instead of 40%. But the cash flow impact is 42.6%. The VAT reclaim arrives later. The payout hits your bank account now, 42.6% lighter.
Same restaurant, same week, different platform
This is where it gets instructive. The same kebab restaurant, the same time period, on a second platform:
Platform B — one week of data:
| Metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gross sales | €5,528.76 |
| Commission | −€951.89 (17.2% of gross) |
| Refund deductions | −€18.48 |
| Platform campaign subsidy | +€349.01 |
| Campaign fee | −€48.19 |
| Weekly revenue | €4,524.01 |
The restaurant kept 81.8% of gross from Platform B. Compare that to 57.4% from Platform A.
Why the difference?
Three factors:
1. Lower commission rate. Platform B charges 17.2% vs Platform A's 19.5%. A 2.3 percentage point difference sounds small. On €5,500 in weekly gross, it's €127 more in the bank per week — over €6,500 per year from one venue.
2. Campaign co-funding. Platform B co-funds promotions. A 30% discount to customers where Platform B pays 9 percentage points and the restaurant pays 21 percentage points. This appears as a €349.01 positive line item in the settlement — real money back in the restaurant's pocket. Platform A? The restaurant funded the entire discount.
3. Different "gross" definitions. This is critical. Platform A shows full price before discounts as "gross sales" — discounts appear as a separate negative line. Platform B shows the discounted price as "gross sales." You cannot compare the two platforms' gross numbers directly. Without normalization, you'll draw the wrong conclusion about which platform is actually cheaper.
The intellectual honesty moment
We initially assumed the cheaper platform was always the better deal. After analyzing more invoices, we found it depends entirely on negotiated rates and campaign subsidy structure. A restaurant with strong Platform A terms can outperform one with default Platform B rates. The data for your specific venue is what matters — not general advice.
The 30-30-30-10 model is broken
Every hospitality school teaches the same model:
- 30% food cost
- 30% labor
- 30% rent + overhead
- 10% profit
Add delivery:
- 30% food cost (unchanged)
- 30% labor (unchanged)
- 30% rent (unchanged)
- 25-45% platform costs (commission + fees + campaigns + ads)
Total: 115-135% of revenue. That's not a business model. That's a slow bleed disguised as growth.
"But delivery is incremental revenue!" Partly true. Your kitchen is already running. Your staff is already there. The marginal cost of one more order is low. But when 40%+ of that incremental revenue goes to the platform, the margin on each delivery order is razor-thin — and one bad campaign can push it negative.
The only way delivery works profitably:
- Delivery markup pricing — charge 15-20% more on platforms than on-site. The math: Your Food Cost Is Wrong
- Campaign math — model every campaign before committing. Stop the ones that lose money: Your Last Delivery Campaign Lost Money
- Commission negotiation — understand what's actually negotiable: How Platform Account Managers Think
- Direct ordering — shift repeat customers off-platform. €5.86 saved per order: Direct Ordering Saves €9.55 Per Order
- Menu engineering — your best-seller might be your worst margin item: Your Best-Selling Item Outsells #3 by 19x
The 5 levers (and what each one saves)
These five changes account for most of the margin improvement we see in consulting engagements. Each one has a dedicated deep-dive linked below.
Lever 1 — Delivery markup pricing. Add 15% to platform prices. At 500 delivery orders per month: +€555/month per venue. Ten minutes of work, immediate impact, zero risk. This is the single highest-ROI action a restaurant can take. → Full calculation: Your Food Cost Is Wrong: It Changes Per Channel
Lever 2 — Campaign kill list. Stop running promotions that lose money. Most campaigns proposed by platform account managers don't break even at realistic volume lifts. Modeling before committing stops €300-1,200/month in campaign losses. → Full breakdown: Your Last Delivery Campaign Lost Money
Lever 3 — Commission negotiation. Headline rates are not fixed. Volume-based reductions, takeaway rate negotiations, campaign co-funding, and rate locks are all on the table — if you know what to ask for. → The playbook: How Platform Account Managers Think
Lever 4 — Direct ordering channel. Every platform order costs you 25-45% in fees and gives you zero customer data. Every direct order costs ~1.4% in card processing and gives you their phone, email, and order history. At 200 direct orders per month: €1,172/month saved per venue. → The economics: Direct Ordering Saves €9.55 Per Order
Lever 5 — Menu engineering for platforms. The delivery menu is not the dine-in menu. Items that make money on-site can lose money on delivery. Per-item margin analysis reveals which items to promote, which to markup, and which to exclude from campaigns. → The analysis: Your Best-Selling Item Outsells #3 by 19x
Verify it yourself
You don't need to take our word for any of this. Open your last platform payout invoice — the actual settlement document, not the dashboard.
For Wolt: Find the line labeled "Commission" with the percentage. That percentage is your headline rate. Now find the total commission amount (including VAT on commission) and divide it by your gross sales. That's your effective rate. The gap between the two is real, and it exists on every invoice you've ever received.
For Bolt Food: Open the settlement CSV. Look at the "Agenditasu" column (regular commission) and "Bolt Plusi agenditasu" column (premium subscriber commission). Sum all commission amounts. Divide by total sales. Compare to what you thought you were paying.
For DoorDash / Uber Eats / Deliveroo: The same principle applies. Find total fees (commission + service fees + marketing fees + payment processing). Divide by gross sales. Compare to the number on your contract.
If the number is within 2 percentage points of your contract rate, you're one of the rare ones who negotiated well and runs no campaigns. If there's a 10-20 percentage point gap — welcome to the club. Now you know.
What this means for your restaurant
The delivery platform is not the enemy. Platforms bring customers you wouldn't reach otherwise. They handle logistics, payments, and customer service. That has real value.
But the cost of that value is not what you think it is. Not 25%. Not "roughly a third." It's 35-45% of gross, and it's specific to your venue, your rates, your campaigns, and your order mix.
Knowing the real number is the first step. Not to leave platforms — but to stop flying blind on them.
Every day without this visibility: €316 lost at this venue's rate. Not because the platform is stealing. Because the restaurant doesn't know what it's paying.
Want us to decode your actual numbers?
Send us one platform payout invoice. We'll decode it in 30 minutes — free. No pitch, no contract, no obligation. Just your real numbers, line by line, compared to what you thought you were paying.
Book a free 30-minute delivery audit →
Last verified: April 2026. Platform fee structures and VAT rates are checked quarterly against current invoices. If you notice a discrepancy, contact us.