Top 5 Alternatives to Just Eat for Restaurants
Why restaurants are looking for Just Eat alternatives
Just Eat puts your menu in front of a lot of hungry people. It also takes 10-15% of every order, and service charges and marketing fees go on top. Say your profit on a delivery order is 8%. A 13% commission is bigger than that. You're working for the platform and hoping to break even on the side.
Plenty of owners hit that point and start asking what else is out there, and whether any of it is actually better.
It depends on what you're trying to fix. If the problem is commission, you need a direct online ordering platform, because every marketplace charges commission. If the problem is reach, another marketplace can bring in new customers, but it'll charge you too. If you want your own brand, your own checkout and your own customer list, you need a website and app that belong to you.
Here are five alternatives, ranked by how well they help a restaurant build order volume it makes money on.
1. Flipdish
Best for restaurants and groups that want to own the customer relationship and stop paying commission on every order.
Flipdish isn't a marketplace. It's a direct ordering platform. When a customer orders through your Flipdish website or app, you pay no per-order commission. You pay a platform fee for the technology instead.
That's the main difference from Just Eat. On Just Eat the customer belongs to the marketplace, and you never see their email or phone number. On Flipdish the customer is yours. You get their details and you can message them whenever you like, which means you can bring them back on a quiet Tuesday without paying anyone a cut.
What you get:
- A branded ordering website on your own domain, with your branding and your checkout
- A branded mobile app for iOS and Android, with push notifications and loyalty built in
- Self-service kiosks for dine-in and quick service
- A restaurant POS that takes online orders directly
- An AI Phone Agent that answers the phone and takes orders, so staff can keep cooking
- Marketing and loyalty tools for automated campaigns, vouchers, SMS and push messages
Run the numbers on your own sales. A restaurant doing £20,000 a month through Just Eat at 13% pays £2,600 a month, or £31,200 a year. Flipdish's platform fee is lower than that, and you keep the customer data.
If you run several sites, Flipdish's centralised management lets you change menus, prices and promotions for every location from one dashboard. Nobody has to ring round the managers to update a price.
See how Flipdish compares to marketplace ordering →
2. Deliveroo
Best for reaching customers who open Deliveroo first and never think to look anywhere else.
Deliveroo works like Just Eat. It's a marketplace, it charges commission on each order, and the rate is usually 25-35% depending on your contract and whether you use its riders. On £20,000 of monthly orders at 30%, that's £6,000 a month.
It's strongest in cities. It doesn't give you customer data, so the customer is Deliveroo's, same as on Just Eat.
Some restaurants keep Deliveroo for finding new customers and use Flipdish to get those customers ordering direct the next time. Flipdish's order management pulls Deliveroo orders and your other channels into one kitchen view, so the team isn't juggling tablets.
3. Uber Eats
Best for restaurants in big cities where Uber's network keeps order density high.
Uber Eats does well in large cities and commission is broadly in line with Deliveroo. It also keeps the customer data and charges per order.
If you're already on Just Eat, adding Uber Eats gets you more reach and the same commission problem, now on two platforms. Flipdish's order management platform can put Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat orders into a single kitchen queue next to your direct orders.
4. Foodhub
Best for takeaways that want a marketplace with lower commission.
Foodhub is a UK and Ireland marketplace that pitches itself as the cheaper option against the big platforms. It goes after independent takeaways, mostly in smaller towns where Deliveroo and Uber Eats don't have much presence.
Coverage is thinner than Just Eat, Deliveroo or Uber Eats, and in most areas fewer customers use it. It can add a few orders alongside your other channels. It's still a marketplace, so you still depend on someone else's customers.
5. Slerp
Best for independent restaurants that want a direct ordering website without a big platform build.
Slerp is a UK direct ordering platform for independents. You get a branded ordering website and it handles payments.
It's lighter than Flipdish. It has no full restaurant management system, no deep POS integration, no loyalty tools, no AI phone ordering and no multi-location management. For a single site that only needs a website to take orders, that may be enough. For a group, or anyone planning to grow, Flipdish does more.
What to ask before you pick one
Whichever platform you look at, get straight answers to a few questions first.
What exactly do you pay, and when? Per-order commission, monthly fees, card processing, setup costs and hardware can all be separate lines, so ask for the full list and add it up against your own sales.
Who owns the customer data? If you can't export names, emails and order history, you don't own it, whatever the sales pitch says.
Does it plug into your till? If staff have to retype online orders into the POS, you'll feel it on every busy Friday. Ask to see an order go from the website to the kitchen screen.
How long does it take to go live, and who builds the menu? A platform that needs three weeks of your manager's evenings isn't free, even if the fee is low.
And can you leave? Read the contract term and the notice period. You want to be able to move if it isn't working.
What staying on Just Eat costs
| Monthly sales | Just Eat at 13% | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| £10,000 | £1,300 | £15,600 |
| £20,000 | £2,600 | £31,200 |
| £50,000 | £6,500 | £78,000 |
These figures leave out marketing fees and paid placement, which can push the real number higher. They also don't count the customer data you never get to keep.
To see what you'd save, take your own monthly sales, work out what share could realistically go direct, and subtract your Flipdish platform fee. Flipdish pricing depends on the plan, so ask for a quote before you do the sum.
Here's a worked example. Say you do £20,000 a month on Just Eat and move 30% of it, £6,000, to your own website and app. At 13% that's £780 a month you no longer pay in commission, or £9,360 a year. If the same £6,000 had been going through Deliveroo at 30%, you'd stop paying £1,800 a month on it. The more you shift, the bigger the gap.
How to move away from Just Eat
Nobody switches off a marketplace overnight, and you shouldn't. Orders from Just Eat pay the bills while your own channel is still small.
Start by launching your Flipdish website and app before you cut anything on the marketplace. There's no point turning off a channel that works until the replacement is taking orders.
Then go after your regulars. They already like your food, so give them a reason to order direct: loyalty points, an offer only direct customers get, early access to a new menu item. A card in every delivery bag with a QR code and a first-order discount catches the customer while they're eating your food and thinking about the next order.
Put QR codes anywhere customers will see them - table tents, receipts, packaging, the window. Each one is a cheap way to start a customer's next order on your site instead of someone else's. A launch promotion on direct orders usually pays for itself within a few orders, since the discount is smaller than the commission you'd have paid.
Check your marketplace contract before you set different prices or run offers that undercut your listing. Some contracts have rules about it.
Once direct orders are growing, watch the split between channels each week and trim marketplace marketing spend slowly. Expect it to take somewhere between six and twelve months before direct orders are a meaningful share of your delivery volume.
Which alternative is right for your restaurant?
| You want to... | Best option |
|---|---|
| Own your customer data | Flipdish |
| Stop paying per-order commission | Flipdish |
| Reach new customers in cities | Deliveroo or Uber Eats alongside Flipdish |
| Pay less commission on a marketplace | Foodhub |
| Simple direct ordering for a single site | Slerp |
| One platform for ordering, POS and marketing | Flipdish |
For most restaurants, especially ones with regulars, the best alternative to Just Eat isn't another marketplace. A second marketplace gives you more orders and the same commission. A direct ordering platform gives you orders from customers you can contact again.
How Flipdish helps restaurants rely less on marketplaces
Flipdish is used by restaurants and restaurant groups across the UK and Ireland. Its online ordering platform runs branded websites and apps. Its AI marketing tools turn one-time customers into regulars by messaging them at the right moment. Its POS system puts in-person and online orders in one place, so you're not reconciling two sets of sales at the end of the night.
For more restaurant technology comparisons, visit restauranttech.co.uk.