Top 5 Online Ordering Systems for Takeaways
What an online ordering system does for a takeaway
An online ordering system lets customers order from your own website or app instead of going through Just Eat, Deliveroo or Uber Eats. The order lands on a screen or printer in your kitchen, the customer pays by card, and you get their name, number and order history. That last part is the point. On a marketplace, the customer belongs to the marketplace.
A decent system has four parts: the ordering site or app customers see, something in the kitchen that receives the order, payments, and a way to get people to order again. Most products cover the first three. The fourth is where they differ most.
What marketplaces cost a takeaway
Most UK takeaways are on Just Eat, and plenty add Deliveroo and Uber Eats. Customers do find new takeaways that way, and that's worth something. It's also expensive.
Just Eat charges between 14% and 20% commission depending on the plan. Deliveroo and Uber Eats charge between 25% and 35%. A takeaway doing £10,000 a month through these platforms commonly pays £2,000 to £3,500 in fees.
Direct ordering won't replace the marketplaces, and most takeaways shouldn't try to drop them. It gives you a cheaper second channel. Someone who already knows your food can order direct and pay less, and you can give them loyalty rewards that a marketplace won't.
Top 5 online ordering systems for takeaways
1. Flipdish
Flipdish is the best fit for takeaways that want to build a direct channel. It puts a branded ordering website, a branded mobile app, loyalty, marketing and a POS in one platform, so you aren't stitching four products together.
The pricing model is the first thing to look at. Flipdish charges a fixed monthly fee, not commission on each order. A takeaway doing £5,000 a month in direct orders pays the same platform fee as one doing £50,000, so the cost per order falls as you grow. Card processing is a separate cost with any ordering system, so ask for the full figure when you compare quotes.
Customers order from your website and your app, not a Flipdish-branded page. Your logo, your colours and your menu run from the homepage to checkout. The app matters more than it sounds, because it gives you push notifications and puts your takeaway on the customer's phone next to the marketplace icons.
Orders from the website and app go straight into the Flipdish POS and onto the kitchen screen. Nobody retypes anything. Counter orders and online orders share one system and one print queue, which means one fewer tablet on the pass.
Customers earn points on every direct order, and points bring people back. The Flipdish loyalty and marketing platform also runs automated campaigns. If a customer hasn't ordered in 30 days, for example, the system can send them a voucher without anyone remembering to do it.
A lot of takeaways still get most of their orders by phone, and the phone rings hardest when the kitchen is busiest. The Flipdish AI Phone Agent answers inbound calls, takes the order, suggests extras and takes payment. Nobody has to stop what they're doing to pick up.
If you stay on Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats, Flipdish's order management system pulls those orders onto the same screen as your direct ones. You can put the marketplace tablets in a drawer.
Flipdish online ordering pricing is available on request.
2. OrderYOYO
OrderYOYO is an online ordering platform used by independent takeaways in the UK and Ireland. It gives you a branded ordering website and a basic app. It charges commission on orders instead of a flat fee, so your bill grows in step with your sales. If you double your direct orders, you double what you pay. Its marketing tools are thinner than Flipdish's.
3. Slerp
Slerp does direct ordering for food businesses, and it suits scheduled delivery and batch orders. Think bakeries, meal-prep services and food producers who know what's going out tomorrow. A busy takeaway taking live orders on a Friday night is a different job, and Slerp is a less natural fit for it.
4. GloriaFood
GloriaFood was a free ordering tool for restaurants. Oracle owns it now, and the free tier's future depends on what Oracle decides to do with it. If your takeaway runs on it today, look at alternatives before you have to, not after something changes.
5. Snappy Shopper
Snappy Shopper is a convenience and takeaway ordering app popular in Scotland and parts of northern England. It works as a marketplace for independent retailers and takeaways, so the commission looks a lot like Just Eat's. It isn't a direct ordering tool, and the customer is still the app's customer.
Online ordering system comparison for takeaways
| Platform | Branded website | Branded app | POS integration | Loyalty | AI phone | Marketplace aggregation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flipdish | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ Native | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| OrderYOYO | ✅ | Limited | Third-party | Basic | ❌ | ❌ |
| Slerp | ✅ | ❌ | Third-party | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| GloriaFood | ✅ | ❌ | Limited | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Snappy Shopper | Marketplace only | Marketplace | ❌ | Marketplace | ❌ | ❌ |
How to choose
Start with the fee. If a system charges commission, work out what that looks like at double your current direct sales. A 10% commission on a quiet month is easy to live with. On a good month it starts to look like the marketplace bill you were trying to get away from.
Then ask whose app the customer downloads. If it's the vendor's app with your name inside it, the vendor owns the relationship. If it's your app, you own it.
Look at what happens when an order comes in. If someone on your team has to read it off one tablet and key it into another, you'll get mistakes on Saturday night. The order should arrive in the kitchen without anyone touching it.
Check what happens to marketplace orders too. Most takeaways will keep at least one marketplace, so a system that only handles direct orders just adds another screen.
Last one: phones. If a fifth of your orders come in by phone, an ordering website alone doesn't fix your busiest problem.
How to get customers to order direct
The hard part is the first switch. Most customers open whichever app is already on their phone. Getting them to download yours or bookmark your site takes some effort, but not much money.
Put a card in every delivery bag that says how to order direct, with a discount on the first order. It costs pennies and it reaches people who have already shown they like your food. For collection customers, a QR code on the counter or the door that opens your ordering site does the same job.
On the discount, do the sums before you pick a number. A £25 marketplace order at 28% commission costs you £7. Give £3 off a direct order and you're still £4 ahead before card fees. Keep the discount below the commission you're saving and it pays for itself the first time.
Once someone has your app, push notifications let you reach them without paying anyone. Tell them about a new dish, a deal, or the quiet Tuesday you want to fill. Loyalty does the rest. Points that only build up on direct orders give people a reason to skip the marketplace, and even a simple digital stamp card changes how often someone reorders.
A sensible way to roll it out
Don't leave the marketplaces on day one. They bring in people who've never heard of you, and that's what you're paying for. Keep them, and use them to find customers you then move across.
Build your menu in the new system first, with the same prices you'd charge on your own counter, and test a few orders yourself before anyone else sees it. Put the QR code and the bag cards out in the first week. After a month, look at the split between direct and marketplace orders. If direct is 10% of your orders, the next job is getting it to 20%, and the lever is usually the discount and the loyalty points, not the website.
Watch the slow nights too. A voucher to people who haven't ordered in a month is cheap on a quiet Tuesday, when the kitchen has room for the orders anyway.
The economics of direct ordering
Take a takeaway with these numbers:
- Monthly marketplace sales: £12,000
- Average commission: 28%
- Monthly marketplace fees: £3,360
- Orders moved to direct: 40% of the marketplace total, so £4,800
- Commission saved on those orders: £1,344 a month
That's just over £16,000 a year, from customers you already have, with no extra orders. It's a gross figure. Take off your platform fee and card processing to see what you actually keep. Even so, the maths gets better the more orders move, because a flat fee doesn't grow with them.
Flipdish pricing is at flipdish.com/pricing.
What about delivery?
An ordering system handles the customer side and the kitchen side. Getting the food to the door is a separate question, and you have three options.
Self-delivery means your own drivers, which gives you full control over timing and how the food arrives. Third-party couriers such as Stuart or Gophr handle the last mile for you, and Flipdish integrates with delivery logistics providers. The third option is collection only. Plenty of takeaways take direct orders for collection and leave delivery to the marketplaces, and it's a sensible way to start. You move the customers who are coming to you anyway and don't pay commission on them.
More restaurant technology comparisons
For independent reviews of online ordering systems and takeaway technology, visit restauranttech.co.uk.
Get started with Flipdish
If you want to see the website, app and kitchen screen working together, Flipdish can show you a demo. Request one and see how it fits your takeaway.