Updated September 2026. This article replaces our 2025 post about the 5% fee. The numbers below come from each company’s published Canadian prices, and the fine print is included.
When a customer orders from your restaurant online, the company that takes the order keeps part of the money. How much depends on who takes the order. This article compares a delivery app with a direct ordering platform like Platesready, using real rates and simple examples.
What delivery apps charge restaurants in Canada
- Uber Eats: 20%, 25% or 30% of each order its couriers deliver, depending on the plan, or 15% if you deliver yourself. Pickup orders: 10% if your prices in the app match your in-store prices, or 15% if they don’t.
- DoorDash: 20%, 25% or 29% of each delivery order, depending on the plan (27% for DashPass orders on the Plus plan). Pickup orders: 8% to 10% if your prices match your in-store prices.
- SkipTheDishes: doesn’t publish a rate card. Ask for its current rates before you sign a contract.
These rates come from each company’s Canadian pricing page, checked September 2026. Rates change, and ads or promotions you choose cost extra. In British Columbia, the law limits what large delivery apps can charge for basic ordering and delivery to 20% of the order, before tax and tip; they can charge more only for extra services you choose.
For that commission, the app shows your restaurant to people who don’t know you yet and, for delivery, sends a courier.
What Platesready charges
- A 5% platform fee on completed orders. It is calculated on the food, not on tax, tips or the delivery fee.
- GST/HST on the platform fee. Sales tax is charged on the fee itself.
- Stripe card processing: 2.9% + 30¢ per payment with a Canadian card, on the full payment. It is deducted from your payout.
- No monthly fee and no setup fee.
- Table booking is free. If you turn on optional paid booking deposits, the 5% platform fee and Stripe processing apply to each deposit.
- Delivery: through Uber Direct and Trexity in supported cities. The customer usually pays the delivery fee.
What Platesready does not do: it is not a delivery app. It gives you your own ordering page, and you bring customers to it from Google, Instagram, your website and your regulars. Partner restaurants are also listed on the Platesready home page.
Example: one $30 order
This is what the restaurant pays the company that takes the order, before sales tax on the fees. The example has no tax or tip.
- Delivery app, delivered by the app’s courier (20% to 30%): $6.00 to $9.00.
- Delivery app, pickup (8% to 15%): $2.40 to $4.50.
- Platesready: $1.50 platform fee + $0.87 and $0.30 Stripe processing = $2.67.
Example: $10,000 of orders a month
Say your online orders add up to $10,000 a month, and the average order is $30 (about 333 orders).
- At a 20% to 30% delivery-app commission: $2,000 to $3,000 a month.
- With Platesready: about $890 a month: $500 platform fee, $290 card processing (2.9%) and about $100 in 30¢ payment fees.
These are illustrations, not quotes, and both are before sales tax on the fees. Your real numbers depend on your plan, your average order and how many orders come from each place.
When a delivery app is worth it
A delivery app can be worth its commission when it brings you customers you would not get otherwise. That matters most for a new restaurant, or one in an area where people don’t know it yet.
For customers who already know you, the app’s main benefit, being found, matters much less. That is why you don’t have to choose one or the other. You can keep one app so new customers can find you, and invite your regulars to order from your own page.
How to move regulars to your own ordering page
- Google: add your ordering link to your Google Business Profile and set it as your preferred option. Our guide shows every step: How to add your own order link to Google Business Profile.
- Instagram and your website: put the link in your bio and add an “Order online” button to your website.
- In the restaurant: QR codes on the tables, at the counter and on receipts.
- Your staff: ask them to mention it when regulars call or pay.
If you tell customers by email or text message, follow Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). You need the customer’s consent first; a customer who bought from you in the last two years usually counts. Every message must also say who it is from and include a way to unsubscribe.
The bottom line
A 5% platform fee is not free, and it does not replace what a delivery app does to bring in new customers. It is a lower-cost way to take orders from the customers who already know you.
For a full overview of every way to take orders, read How to accept orders at your restaurant in Canada. To see the full fee details, visit our pricing page, or apply to Platesready.
Sources
- Uber Eats, Pricing (Canada), checked September 2026.
- DoorDash, Merchant fees and pricing (Canada), checked September 2026.
- Stripe, Pricing and fees (Canada), checked September 2026.
- Province of British Columbia, Food Delivery Service Fee Act, checked September 2026.
Uber Eats, DoorDash, DashPass, SkipTheDishes, Uber Direct and Trexity are trademarks of their respective owners. Platesready is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the delivery apps named here. Fees change; check each company’s current pricing.