What the apps actually do well
Let's be straight: Just Eat, Deliveroo, and Uber Eats are not the enemy. For a brand-new shop with zero local following, the apps give you instant visibility on a platform where hungry people are already searching. You don't need to earn that traffic — you just pay for it, per order, every time.
The delivery logistics piece is genuinely hard. Rider networks, live tracking, customer support when an order goes wrong — the apps have built all of that. If home delivery is your whole model and you're doing maybe five to fifteen orders a night, paying the commission might be the right call. You're renting infrastructure you couldn't afford to build yourself.
- Built-in customer base actively searching for food nearby
- Rider network and delivery logistics handled for you
- Customer support when orders go wrong
- No upfront marketing cost to get started
- Discovery for customers who've never heard of you
If you're in your first few weeks, still testing your menu, and every order is delivery — staying app-only is a reasonable choice for now. The problem is that 'for now' has a way of stretching to 'forever', and every month you wait is a month you're paying full commission on orders that could have cost you much less.
What the apps will never do for you
The apps are landlords. You trade on their platform, under their rules, and they take a cut of every transaction. That's the deal. But the trade-off goes further than the commission rate.
Your customer data belongs to them, not you. When someone orders through Just Eat, Just Eat knows who they are. You get a name and an address on a receipt. You cannot email that customer a loyalty offer, you cannot tell them about your new Sunday special, you cannot ask them to come back. The relationship is with the app, not with you. We go deeper on this in who owns your customer data.
Your Google presence stays blank. A customer searches 'best chicken shop Wolverhampton' — your app listing does not appear in those local organic results. Google cannot read your menu from a PDF image or a locked app page. If you have no website, you have no Google Business Profile to link to, no menu schema for search engines to index, and no locally-targeted pages to rank. You are essentially invisible outside of the app itself.
Your brand is a logo on someone else's platform. Every page on Just Eat looks like every other page on Just Eat. You cannot tell your story, show your kitchen, explain why your naan is made fresh every morning. Customers cannot tell you apart from the three other similar shops listed next to you.
- Customer contact details stay locked in the app's database
- No Google presence beyond your app listing
- No control over how your menu looks or reads
- No loyalty mechanic or repeat-order incentive you control
- Commission applies to every single order, including your regulars
The commission maths (real numbers only)
Just Eat's collection rate is 14%. Delivery commissions across the main platforms run up to 30–35% depending on your deal. Those are the numbers — we break them down fully in Just Eat, Deliveroo, and Uber Eats commission rates UK 2026.
For collection orders specifically, the comparison is stark. Take a £30 collection order. Through Just Eat's collection service, you pay £4.20 in commission (14%). Take that same order through your own website using Takely Ordering (currently on the waitlist at 4% flat plus card fees): that's £1.20 in platform fee plus roughly £0.71 in card processing — about £1.91 all in. The difference on that one order is £2.29.
That's one order. Multiply by your weekly collection volume and the number becomes significant fast. Fifty collection orders a week at £30 average is over £5,900 saved in a year — money that stays in your till.
| Order channel | £30 collection order | Cost to you |
|---|---|---|
| Just Eat collection | £30 | £4.20 (14%) |
| Own website (4% + card fees) | £30 | ~£1.91 |
| Saving per order | ~£2.29 |
Delivery orders are different. If you need a rider, you either pay the app for that logistics, or you invest in your own delivery setup. A website doesn't solve delivery logistics on its own — it solves the collection and direct-order piece. That's why the growth case for a website is strongest for shops where collection is already part of the mix.
When app-only is genuinely fine (and when it stops being fine)
There is no shame in being app-only at the right moment. Here's an honest read on when it works and when it starts costing you real money.
| Your situation | App-only fine? | Website needed? |
|---|---|---|
| New shop, first 8 weeks, testing the menu | Yes | Not urgently |
| Delivery-only, no collection demand | Probably | For Google presence |
| Doing 20+ collection orders a week | No | Yes — margin leak |
| Regulars ordering repeatedly via the app | No | Yes — data you're losing |
| Expanding to a second location | No | Yes — brand anchor needed |
| Any customer ever asked 'have you got a website?' | No | Yes |
The tipping point for most shops is somewhere around fifteen to twenty collection orders a week. Below that, the cost of commission probably doesn't outweigh the friction of building and promoting a new channel. Above it, you are leaving meaningful money on the table every single week.
What a website actually does for a takeaway
A proper takeaway website isn't just a brochure. It does several things that no app listing can replicate.
Menu as real searchable text. Google cannot read a JPEG menu. It cannot parse a PDF. A website with your menu marked up properly in schema — dish names, descriptions, prices — is readable by search engines. That means when someone searches for 'lamb balti near me' or 'pizza and garlic bread deal Coventry', your menu items can show up.
A Google Business Profile that actually works. GBP links to your website, shows your menu, carries your reviews, and drives calls and direction requests. A shop with a strong GBP and a linked website consistently appears more prominently in local search than one without. Google's own guidance highlights complete, accurate information as a key local ranking signal.
Locally-targeted landing pages. If you serve three areas, you can have a page for each one. 'Takeaway delivery in Erdington', 'Pizza collection in Boldmere' — these pages rank for searches that app listings can't touch.
An ordering channel you control. Whether you wire up an existing system like Flipdish or Slerp, or wait for Takely Ordering to launch, the customer is placing the order on your site, with your branding. You own that relationship. Join the Takely Ordering waitlist to be first to know when it goes live.
- Menu indexed by Google — real text, not images
- GBP integration for local search and maps visibility
- Collection orders at lower cost per transaction
- Customer data you own and can act on
- Your brand story, photos, and personality — not a template listing
- Reviews built through compliant, ethical prompting (no gating, no incentivising)
The decision framework: three questions to ask yourself
You don't need to overthink this. Answer these three questions honestly.
- Do you take collection orders? If yes, and it's more than a handful per week, you are paying commission on orders that walked through your door. That's avoidable.
- Do your regulars know how to order from you directly? If the only way they can reorder is through an app, you don't really have a relationship with them — the app does.
- Can someone find you on Google right now? Search your shop name plus your town. What comes up? If there's no website, no menu, and a thin GBP listing, potential customers are landing on competitors who do have those things.
If you answered 'yes, yes, and not really' — a website isn't a nice-to-have, it's filling a gap that is actively costing you orders. If you answered 'no, no, and yes' — you're probably app-only by design and that might be right for now, but the data question will catch up with you.
Have a look at how much a takeaway website actually costs in the UK to get a realistic sense of what you'd be investing. The short version: Takely's Starter plan is £499 and £49 a month, with your menu live as real searchable text, your GBP linked, and the whole thing ready in seven days. The Growth plan at £999 and £79 a month adds ordering integration, locally-targeted pages, and a monthly analytics report.
Keep the apps — just don't let them own everything
Nobody is suggesting you pull out of Just Eat tomorrow. The apps drive real volume, particularly for delivery, and for many shops delivery commission is simply the cost of running that channel. That's fine.
The mistake is treating the apps as your entire online presence. No website means no Google footprint, no customer data, no owned channel for your regulars, and commission on every collection order for as long as you run the shop.
The sensible move is to use both: apps for discovery and delivery logistics, your own site for collection, Google visibility, and building a direct relationship with the customers who already love you.
That's what a website actually does. Not magic — just putting the things the apps can't do back in your hands.
Frequently asked questions
Can I just use my Just Eat page as my online presence?
You can, but it leaves real gaps. Your Just Eat listing doesn't appear in Google organic search results, doesn't give you customer contact details, and charges 14% on every collection order. It works for discovery and delivery, but it's not a substitute for a Google presence or an owned customer relationship. Most shops that rely on it entirely find growth plateaus early.
Will a website replace my app orders?
No, and it shouldn't try to. Apps bring new customers who've never heard of you — that has genuine value. A website is for a different job: getting found on Google, owning your customer data, and processing collection orders at a lower cost. Run both. Use the apps for delivery and discovery, use your site for the rest.
What if I only do delivery — do I still need a website?
Probably yes, even if only a basic one. Google reviews, your business hours, your menu in searchable text, and a Google Business Profile linked to a real site all affect how prominently you appear in local search. A delivery-only shop with no website is invisible outside of the apps. A one-page site solves most of that at low cost.
How does a takeaway website help with Google rankings?
Google reads your menu text, your location pages, and your site content to understand what you offer and where. A menu uploaded as a JPEG or PDF is invisible to Google. Real text, structured with schema markup, lets search engines index individual dishes and link them to local searches. Google's own guidance cites complete, accurate information as a key local ranking signal — but no one can guarantee positions.
Is it worth getting a website if I'm just starting out?
In your first eight weeks, app-only is usually fine. You're testing your menu, learning your volume, and building word of mouth. Once you're doing consistent orders and collection demand is growing, the maths shift. At that point every week without a direct channel is a week paying commission you didn't have to pay. Most shops find the right moment is two to three months in.
What's the cheapest way to get a takeaway website that actually works for SEO?
The key is getting your menu live as real text with schema markup — not as a PDF or image — and linking it to your Google Business Profile. Takely's Starter plan does exactly that for £499 and £49 a month, live in seven days. That covers the core SEO and Google presence needs for most single-location shops without unnecessary extras.
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