Food Ordering Apps for UK Businesses
We build branded food-ordering apps for UK restaurants and takeaways so your regulars order from a home-screen icon and you keep around 90% of each order. Push notifications for offers, saved favourites, loyalty and one-tap reordering — the direct channel the aggregators don’t want you to have.
Who This Is For
Restaurants, takeaways and small food groups across the UK with a loyal repeat-order base who want their own app, not just a presence on Just Eat. Ideal once you have enough regulars that push notifications and one-tap reordering meaningfully shift volume direct.
A branded app is the strongest direct-ordering channel a busy takeaway or restaurant can own, because it lives on the customer’s home screen and unlocks push notifications — marketing you simply cannot do through Just Eat or Deliveroo. The economics are compelling: no per-order commission means roughly 90% of each order is kept after card fees, and on a shop with strong delivery volume that recovers the build cost within months. Apps work best once you already have a loyal repeat base, which is why British-Asian takeaways — whose regulars order weekly and live on their phones — see the fastest shift. Technically it’s a cross-platform build (Flutter or React Native) sharing one menu, order screen and customer database with your website and EPOS, with Stripe UK, Apple Pay and Google Pay for fast checkout and correct takeaway VAT.
What You Get
One-tap reordering & favourites
Regulars reorder their usual in seconds from a saved-favourites screen — the convenience that beats opening an aggregator and re-searching every time.
Push offers & win-backs
Send push notifications for quiet nights, new dishes and "we miss you" offers straight to the home screen — free marketing you can’t do on an aggregator.
Loyalty built in
Stamp-card or points loyalty that rewards direct orders, with no monthly SaaS fee, training customers to come to you instead of the apps.
Fast Apple/Google Pay checkout
Stripe UK with Apple Pay and Google Pay for sub-minute checkout, correct takeaway VAT and saved cards for return orders.
Shared with your website & EPOS
The app shares one menu, order screen and customer database with your ordering website and EPOS, so everything stays in sync.
Food Ordering Apps in UK Cities
London
Greater London
Leicester
East Midlands
Birmingham
West Midlands
Manchester
Greater Manchester
Wolverhampton
West Midlands
Coventry
West Midlands
Bradford
West Yorkshire
Slough
Berkshire
Harrow
Greater London
Luton
Bedfordshire
Leeds
West Yorkshire
Southall
Greater London (Ealing)
Nottingham
East Midlands
Glasgow
Scotland
Derby
East Midlands
Hounslow
Greater London
Ilford
Greater London
Wembley
Greater London (Brent)
Bolton
Greater Manchester
Oldham
Greater Manchester
Preston
Lancashire
Blackburn
Lancashire
Walsall
West Midlands
Reading
Berkshire
Southampton
Hampshire
Sheffield
South Yorkshire
Peterborough
Cambridgeshire
Gravesend
Kent
The numbers behind a commission-free ordering app for a UK takeaway
Checked
What the aggregators charge, and what they do not say
Only one of the three big UK platforms puts its rates on its partner page. Uber Eats UK lists 30 percent for Uber Delivery orders, 33 percent for Uber One members, 13 percent for Self-Delivery and 13 percent for Pick-up, plus a £650 activation fee excluding VAT that covers the tablet, printer, menu photography and training. Deliveroo's UK partner site names its plans (Core Delivery, Marketplace+, Editions) but publishes no percentages. Just Eat's partner pages do the same. If you want to compare, your own monthly statements are the source.
The ownership of those platforms changed in the same month. DoorDash completed its £2.9 billion purchase of Deliveroo on 2 October 2025, and Prosus closed its €4.1 billion acquisition of Just Eat Takeaway in October 2025. Deliveroo had around 182,000 partners as of August 2024 and reported £2,071.9 million revenue for 2024. None of that money is yours.
Worked payback on a £25 order
| Channel | Published fee | Cost on a £25 order |
|---|---|---|
| Uber Eats, Uber Delivery | 30% | £7.50 |
| Uber Eats, Pick-up or Self-Delivery | 13% | £3.25 |
| Your own app via Stripe UK, standard UK card | 1.5% + 20p | £0.58 |
| Your own app via Stripe UK, premium UK card | 2.8% + 20p | £0.90 |
The difference between the 30 percent plan and a standard card is £6.92 per order. A shop that moves 100 orders a week from Uber Delivery to its own app keeps about £692 a week more, around £36,000 a year, before counting the delivery you now run yourself. Our focused build is £3,500 to £8,000 and the fuller version with loyalty and multi-outlet is £8,000 to £14,000. Fifty orders a week pays either back inside a year; ten orders a week does not, and I will tell you that on the first call.
The compliance pieces I build in
VAT. HMRC's Notice 709/1 zero-rates cold takeaway food and standard-rates hot takeaway food that meets any of the five tests in section 4.2. Delivery charges follow separate HMRC guidance. The VAT code sits on each menu item, so one basket can carry a 20 percent hot main and a zero-rated cold drink and the receipt is right. Registration becomes compulsory once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in 12 months, which a busy delivery shop crosses quickly.
Allergens. The FSA guidance on distance selling requires allergen information before purchase and at delivery. I put the 14 allergens on each dish, add a filter, and print the allergen line on the kitchen ticket and the bag receipt.
Store accounts. Apple charges 99 USD a year for the Developer Program and Google Play a one-time US$25. Both accounts are opened in your name, not mine, so you own the listing if we part ways.
Where the UK demand sits
The repeat-order base that makes an app pay is densest in the British Asian food corridors: Leicester's Golden Mile on Belgrave Road, which hosts the largest Diwali celebrations outside India, and Birmingham's Balti Triangle around Ladypool Road, Stoney Lane and Stratford Road. The Balti Triangle is also a warning: Wikipedia records around 50 balti houses at the peak and four left by 2023. Trade that relied on walk-ins and supermarket-era habits did not survive. Trade that owns its customer list has a better chance.
The SaaS alternatives, honestly
Flipdish sells a POS plus online ordering bundle at €99 a month billed annually or €129 monthly, priced in euros from Dublin. OrderYOYO, the other vendor UK takeaways ask me about, publishes no per-order fee on its UK site either. Foodhub, founded in 2008 in Stoke-on-Trent, says it does not charge a high commission but does not print a figure either. In my experience these work well under about 30 orders a week when you want zero setup cost and someone else maintaining menus.
A custom app from us makes sense when you have the volume above, want the source code and customer database in your name, or run two or more outlets on one menu. We have built from Lucknow since 2017, 200 plus projects, 4.9 stars on Google from 76 reviews, Top Rated on Upwork, with a team of 5 to 20 serving UK clients remotely. UK office hours of 9am to 5pm are 1:30pm to 9:30pm in India, so you get same-day replies.
When a local vendor is better
Choose a UK vendor if you need someone to wire tablets, printers and a kitchen display in the shop, if you want in-person training for staff who do not read English well, or if your main problem is consolidating Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats orders onto one screen, which is a hardware and integration job better handled on site. I do not run delivery fleets or supply drivers. What I do is build the app, the ordering website and the EPOS on one database, and hand you the keys.
Questions we get from The numbers behind a commission-free ordering app for a UK takeaway buyers
- Uber Eats takes 30 percent in the UK. What does my own app cost per order?
- Only the card fee. Stripe UK publishes 1.5 percent plus 20p for standard UK consumer cards, so a £25 order costs you about 58p to process through your own app, against £7.50 on Uber Eats' published 30 percent Uber Delivery plan, or £3.25 on its 13 percent Pick-up plan. Premium and business cards cost more on Stripe (2.8 percent plus 20p) and international cards 3.15 percent plus 20p, so I budget for a blended 2 percent in the plan. Deliveroo and Just Eat do not publish their UK rates on their partner sites, which is why I use the Uber Eats figures when I model payback for a shop. Your own invoices from the aggregators are the real comparison.
- Does the app handle hot and cold takeaway VAT and the £90,000 threshold correctly?
- Yes, and it matters once your taxable turnover passes £90,000 in a rolling 12 months, which is the point HMRC requires you to register. Under VAT Notice 709/1, cold takeaway food such as a cold samosa or a bottled drink is zero-rated, while hot takeaway food that meets any of the five tests in section 4.2 (heated to be eaten hot, heated to order, kept hot, sold in heat-retaining packaging, or marketed as hot) is standard-rated at 20 percent. I set the VAT code per menu item, so a mixed order of a hot curry and a cold dessert produces one receipt with two correct VAT lines, and your accountant gets a clean export.
- What do I legally have to show about allergens in an ordering app?
- The FSA guidance treats an app order as distance selling, so allergen information must be available at two points: before the customer completes the purchase, and again when the food is delivered. In the app that means each dish carries its allergens from the 14 regulated list (celery, gluten cereals, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphites, tree nuts), with a filter so a customer can hide dishes that contain one. For the delivery stage I print the allergen line on the kitchen ticket and on the customer receipt that goes in the bag. The data lives in your menu, so a recipe change updates the app, the website and the printed ticket together.
Sources: Uber Eats UK, Merchant pricing page (merchants.ubereats.com/gb/en/pricing): 30% Uber Delivery, 33% for Uber One members, 13% Self-Delivery, 13% Pick-up, £650 excl. VAT activation fee, 2026; Deliveroo UK, Partner site (merchants.deliveroo.com/en-GB): Core Delivery, Marketplace+, Editions listed without published rates, 2026; Wikipedia, Deliveroo: DoorDash acquisition completed 2 October 2025 for £2.9 billion; FY2024 revenue £2,071.9 million; around 182,000 partners as of August 2024; Wikipedia, Just Eat Takeaway.com: Prosus acquisition for €4.1 billion announced February 2025, completed October 2025; Stripe UK, Pricing page (stripe.com/gb/pricing): 1.5% + 20p standard UK cards, 2.8% + 20p premium UK cards, 2.5% + 20p EEA cards, 3.15% + 20p international cards, +2% currency conversion, 2026; HMRC, VAT Notice 709/1 Catering, takeaway food (gov.uk), sections 4.1 to 4.3: cold takeaway zero-rated, hot takeaway standard-rated under five tests; GOV.UK, Register for VAT: registration required when taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000; Food Standards Agency, Allergen guidance for food businesses (gov.uk): allergen information required before purchase and at delivery for distance selling; 14 regulated allergens; Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 as assimilated law; Apple Developer Program, What's included (developer.apple.com): 99 USD per membership year; Google Play Console Help, Register for a Google Play Developer account: US$25 one-time registration fee; Flipdish, Pricing page (flipdish.com/pricing): POS plus online ordering bundle €99 a month billed annually, €129 billed monthly, 2026; OrderYOYO UK website (orderyoyo.com/uk), terms and privacy pages checked 2026-10-05: no per-order fee published; Foodhub (global.foodhub.com): 'We don't charge a high commission to our outlets'; Wikipedia, Foodhub: founded 2008, Stoke-on-Trent; Wikipedia, Balti Triangle: Ladypool Road, Stoney Lane and Stratford Road, Birmingham; around 50 balti houses at the peak, four remaining by 2023; Wikipedia, Belgrave Road, Leicester: the Golden Mile hosts the largest Diwali celebrations outside India; Codingclave UK pricing, src/lib/uk-app-for.ts and src/lib/uk-pricing.ts
Food Ordering Apps FAQs
If your your town shop has a strong repeat base, an app is worth it — push notifications and one-tap reordering shift more volume direct than a website alone. If you’re newer, we usually start with an ordering website and add the app once your regular base justifies it.
Yes. We submit under your developer accounts (Apple £79/year, Google one-off ~£20) and handle the full review process, so your your town app goes live cleanly with listings, screenshots and privacy declarations done for you.
Yes. The app shares one menu, order screen and customer database with your your town ordering website and EPOS, so a change in one place updates everywhere and orders land in a single kitchen queue.
We provide in-shop QR codes, delivery-bag flyers, a first-order app discount and push-enabled offers. Most your town shops build a meaningful installed base within a few months by promoting it at the counter and in every delivery.