Deliveroo vs Uber Eats vs Just Eat: Commission Comparison

You are on two or three delivery platforms. You know each one takes a cut. What you probably do not know is how those cuts compare once you account for every fee — not just the headline commission, but service charges, VAT on commissions, refund policies, and payout timing.

This guide puts all three UK platforms side by side so you can see what each one actually costs per order.

The headline commission rates

Two of the three platforms publish their UK rates on their own websites. Those are the numbers to start from, and they split by who does the delivering:

All published rates exclude VAT, which is charged on top of the commission.

Deliveroo publishes nothing, so any Deliveroo figure you find is second-hand. Reported ranges cluster around 25–35% for platform-delivered orders, but no first-party source states them, and this guide treats them as indicative only.

The sources are Uber Eats' UK merchant pricing page and Just Eat's partner signup page, whose "Still have questions?" section states: "We take a 14% commission for every order you accept ... for which you use your own delivery drivers ... We take a 30% commission for every order you accept and where we deliver for you." Both checked 2026-08-10.

Two caveats before you plan against these. First, a published rate is the standard signup offer, not a guarantee of your agreement — rates are negotiable and depend on location, order volume and tenure, so an established restaurant and a new one may be on different terms. Second, the delivery model matters more than the platform: on both platforms that publish, taking delivery in-house roughly halves the commission. Just Eat is also the trickiest platform to reconcile, because it reports at the weekly-total level rather than order by order — our guide to reconciling Just Eat payouts walks through the weekly-invoice workflow.

Beyond the headline: the fees that add up

The commission percentage is only the starting point. Each platform layers on additional charges:

Service and payment processing fees

These fees cover payment processing, platform maintenance, and customer support. They are deducted from your payout on top of the commission.

VAT on commissions

All three platforms charge VAT at the standard 20% rate on their commission and service fees. This is a service charge, and services are VAT-able. On a 25% commission, that 20% VAT adds another 5 percentage points to your effective deduction.

If you are VAT-registered, this VAT is input tax and you can reclaim it in full — including where you sell both standard-rated items (hot food) and zero-rated items (cold takeaway food). Zero-rated supplies are taxable supplies taxed at 0%, not exempt supplies, and VAT Notice 700 allows recovery of input tax relating to "supplies you make which are liable at the standard rate, reduced rate or the zero rate." Partial exemption only restricts recovery where a business also makes genuinely exempt supplies, which a restaurant selling food and drink does not. What a mixed menu does require is apportioning your output VAT on sales by rate. See our guide to VAT on commission rules for the mechanics.

Refund policies

This is where the platforms diverge most — and where restaurants lose money they do not expect:

All three platforms deduct refund amounts from your next payout. The restaurant pays even when the refund was triggered by a rider error (late delivery, damaged packaging) or a fraudulent customer claim.

Restaurants across the UK commonly report that a significant proportion of refund claims appear unjustified — items the POS confirms were packed, duplicate claims for the same order, or quality complaints on sealed containers. Without order-level reconciliation, these are nearly impossible to identify and challenge.

Worked example: the same £40 order on each platform

Here is what a £40 food order looks like after deductions, using the published rates for the two platforms that publish and an indicative reported rate for Deliveroo.

Platform-delivered orders: Self-delivered orders (your own drivers), for the two platforms that publish a self-delivery rate: Two things fall out of this. A headline "30%" is really 36% once VAT is on top — that gap is where accounting errors live, and where HMRC discrepancies start. And the delivery model swings the cost far harder than the choice of platform: roughly 36% against roughly 16% on the same order.

This example excludes refunds, marketing opt-ins, and tablet rental, which push the effective rate higher. To turn take-home per order into an actual margin — once refunds, packaging, and food costs are layered in — see our guide to calculating restaurant profit after delivery fees.

Payout schedules: when you actually get paid

All three platforms pay in net lump sums — a single bank deposit that bundles dozens or hundreds of orders with all deductions already subtracted. None of them provide order-level detail in your bank feed.

This creates the core reconciliation problem: you receive one payment but need to verify hundreds of individual transactions to confirm it is correct. Multiply by three platforms, and you have a weekly reconciliation task that takes 2–3 hours if done properly.

Which platform costs you the most?

The honest answer: it depends on your specific agreement. But there are patterns:

• Uber Eats and Just Eat publish near-identical rates — 30% where the platform delivers, 13% and 14% respectively where you do. On published figures there is very little between them
• Deliveroo publishes nothing, so it cannot be compared on a like-for-like published basis at all — for the deduction-by-deduction picture, see our full breakdown of Deliveroo commission rates
• The real cost difference is in the hidden fees — service charges, refund frequency, and marketing programme costs vary more than the headline commission

The most expensive platform is not necessarily the one with the highest commission rate. It is the one where you have the most refund clawbacks, the highest service fees, and the least visibility into what is being deducted.

What this means for your accounting

If you are on multiple platforms, your accounting needs to track each one separately. A single "delivery income" line in your books loses all of this detail — and since January 2024, HMRC receives your revenue data directly from each platform under the Digital Platform Reporting Rules.

Your books need to show:

• Gross revenue per platform (before any deductions)
• Commission expense per platform
• VAT on commissions per platform
• Refunds per platform
• Service fees per platform

If your current setup does not separate these, read our step-by-step guide to reconciling delivery payouts in Xero for the exact journal entry format.

Compare your actual numbers

Use our free commission calculator to enter your real order values for each platform and see your actual take-home after all fees. It shows you the true effective deduction rate — not the headline number.

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This guide compares delivery platform commission structures for UK restaurants as of March 2026. Rates are negotiable and vary by agreement — check your specific contracts. Uber Eats and Just Eat rates cited are the platforms' own published figures (checked 2026-08-10); Deliveroo figures are indicative ranges reported by UK restaurant operators, as Deliveroo publishes no UK rates. This is not financial or tax advice. Consult a qualified accountant for guidance on your specific situation.

Sources

• Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023
• HMRC VAT rates
• HMRC VAT guide (Notice 700) — input tax you can reclaim
• VAT Notice 706: partial exemption
• Uber Eats — UK merchant pricing
• Just Eat — UK partner signup ("Still have questions?" — published commission rates)