the commission problem
food aggregators charge a standard 20 to 25% commission on every order they fulfil. for a guwahati café doing ₹3 lakh a month through swiggy or zomato, that is ₹60,000 to ₹75,000 a month going to the platform — before taxes, before refunds, before the subscription fee to stay visible in search results.
the aggregator relationship makes sense when a café is new and needs discovery. it stops making sense when the regular customers — the ones who come in three times a week — are still ordering through the app and the café is paying a discovery commission for a customer it has already won.
what the direct system is
four pieces. a digital menu — the same menu the café has now, hosted at a url it owns, updated from a browser without a developer. qr codes on every table and at the counter that open the menu without an app install. a checkout with razorpay for upi, card, and net banking. and a kitchen display — a screen in the kitchen that shows new orders as they arrive, with a one-tap confirm and a ready status.
the kitchen display replaces the paper ticket or the shouted order. the order is in the system from the moment the customer taps pay — no re-entry, no transcription error, no disputed order at the end of a busy saturday.
the economics
the system costs under ₹80,000 to build. on a café doing ₹3 lakh a month in aggregator orders, a 25% commission is ₹75,000 a month. shifting half that volume to direct — the dine-in customers and the regulars who already know the café — recovers the build cost in six weeks.
the aggregator relationship does not have to end. keeping a shorter menu on swiggy for new customer discovery while shifting regulars to direct ordering is a common and sustainable split. the economics improve when the café stops paying for customers it has already acquired.
what we build
the typical build is 4 to 6 weeks. week one is research: the menu, the average order size, how the kitchen currently handles tickets. weeks two through five are the system: menu cms, checkout, kitchen display, admin dashboard, daily sales export. week six is handover: qr codes printed and placed, the team trained on the admin panel, one week of post-go-live support included.
the system is yours after handover — hosted on the café's own account, with documentation and a runbook. the menu is updated in-house. the razorpay settlement comes direct to the café's bank account, the same day.