Foodpanda's delivery model takes a share of every order from two directions at once: a commission deducted from the restaurant's earnings and a set of service and delivery charges added to the customer's bill. A new analysis published by The Business Standard lays out both sides of that transaction, a structure that determines whether a kitchen makes money on delivery orders or merely moves volume through a third-party app.

The piece matters because it addresses a question operators ask constantly and platforms answer opaquely: what does this actually change for the restaurant's margin? When a commission is subtracted before the restaurant is paid, the operator's effective revenue per order falls well below the menu price a dine-in guest would pay. The customer, meanwhile, pays more than that menu price once platform-side charges stack up. The gap between those two figures is the cost of the channel.

How the two-sided charge structure works

According to the breakdown, the money a customer pays for an order does not flow intact to the restaurant. The platform deducts its commission first. What reaches the operator is the remainder. The diner's total, by contrast, runs higher than the listed menu price, because delivery and service fees attach at checkout.

That split has direct consequences for menu engineering. Operators who price their delivery menu identically to their in-store menu absorb the commission out of their own margin. Raising delivery-only prices, trimming delivery portions, or limiting the delivery menu to high-margin, travel-tolerant items are the standard responses. The Business Standard's accounting of both sides of the transaction gives operators the raw material for exactly that arithmetic.

Why the customer's receipt keeps growing

The analysis also tracks what the paying side sees. Charges layered onto an order — delivery fees, service fees, and in some markets small-order surcharges — can push the final total well past what the same meal costs at the counter. For restaurants, that dynamic matters commercially: price-sensitive customers deterred by the loaded total may drop the order entirely, while those who pay it have already spent more, leaving less room for a repeat purchase at full price.

The practical question for an operator deciding whether to stay on the platform is whether incremental delivery volume compensates for the reduced per-order revenue. The Business Standard's figures are designed to let a restaurant run that calculation order by order, rather than accept the platform's aggregate sales pitch at face value.

What comes next

As delivery aggregators face rising scrutiny from regulators and restaurant associations across their markets over commission levels and fee transparency, independent breakdowns of this kind are likely to become a routine part of an operator's negotiating kit. Restaurants that know precisely what they net per order — and what their customers pay for the privilege — enter those negotiations, and their own pricing decisions, from a position of arithmetic rather than assumption.