Commission-free online ordering in South Florida What Zayos means by commission-free, and what other vendors mean by it

What does commission-free online ordering actually mean?

Commission is a percentage of the sale. Commission-free means the platform takes none of it, and charges you a fixed amount instead. That is the entire definition, and everything else in this category is a variation on whether the vendor is really honoring it.

Why the shape matters more than owners expect: a percentage is a tax on getting better. Every new regular, every price increase, every good Saturday, the percentage takes a bigger cut in absolute dollars for doing nothing new. A fixed subscription is the same in your best month and your worst. When a South Florida restaurant grows from 400 online orders a month to 900, its marketplace bill roughly doubles and its Zayos bill does not move.

One honest caveat before the rest of this page. Card processing is not commission and no platform can remove it. Every card transaction carries an interchange-based cost. Any vendor claiming to eliminate that is describing something else, usually a surcharge passed to the diner. What a commission-free platform removes is the percentage the platform itself keeps.

Which commission-free claims hold up?

Five models, what the claim really covers, what to watch, and the one question that tests it. This is a map of the models rather than a price sheet, because published vendor pricing moves. Confirm current terms with each vendor, including us, before you sign anything.

Model level summary as of July 2026. Vendor plans, setup fees, contract terms and processing rates change. Verify the current terms of any plan directly with the vendor before signing.

Why is South Florida a different market from the rest of the state?

Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach hold roughly six million residents on a narrow coastal strip between the ocean and the Everglades. That density is the reason the economics here are not the economics of Orlando or Tampa.

Delivery actually works here, which is why commission hurts more

In a sprawling metro, long delivery distances cap how much of your business ever goes online. In South Florida, a two mile radius from a Brickell, Wynwood, Hialeah, Las Olas or Delray kitchen covers thousands of households. Delivery is genuinely viable, online mix is high, and that means the percentage applies to a much larger share of your revenue. Density is why a South Florida operator feels the commission before an operator anywhere else in the state does.

Season runs January to April, and August hurts

Seasonal residents and winter visitors fill the tri-county area from roughly January through April. Late summer is the trough, and September is the month that decides whether a restaurant makes it through the year. A percentage feels fine in February. The comparison you need is over twelve months, and specifically over the months where every fixed cost is heavy and every variable cost matters.

Hurricanes make the customer list an operating asset

Hurricane season runs from June through November, and parts of the barrier islands and coastal Broward and Miami-Dade sit in evacuation zones. Closures here are not rare events, they are an annual planning item. The practical question for an ordering platform is how fast you can pause ordering, publish new hours, and tell your customers you are open again.

Your checkout has to speak your customers' language

In Miami-Dade, Spanish is the language of most households, and large parts of Broward order in Haitian Creole and Portuguese. A checkout that only works in English is leaving money on the counter in Hialeah, Little Havana, Doral, Kendall and North Miami. This is a conversion question, not a courtesy. We publish Spanish pages for Miami and Hialeah for the same reason.

Sales tax and the set-aside

Florida charges 6% state sales tax on prepared food, plus a county discretionary sales surtax. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach have each carried a 1% surtax, putting most South Florida restaurant tickets at 7%, but surtaxes are set locally and change, so confirm your current rate with the Florida Department of Revenue. Zayos moves the collected tax out automatically through DAVO, so the money is set aside before it can be spent on a food order.

When is commission-free the wrong choice?

When your online volume is small. Below roughly $2,000 a month in online orders, a percentage costs less than any flat subscription including ours. If you are a new Wynwood counter doing forty online orders a month, stay on the apps, build the habit, and come back when the math flips. We would rather tell you that now than take three months of subscription and lose you.

When you genuinely need discovery more than margin. A brand new restaurant with no list and no foot traffic needs strangers before it needs efficiency. The marketplaces are extremely good at delivering strangers, and on Ocean Drive, Las Olas or Atlantic Avenue that is worth paying for. Keep them.

When you want one vendor for everything. A POS-led platform such as Toast or Square bundles hardware, payroll and ordering under a single contract. That convenience is real, and you pay for it in per-order economics and switching cost. At dozens of locations with in-house developers, an enterprise platform like Olo is the right tool and we are not.

Who is actually live on Zayos in South Florida?

Naya Grill, a Lebanese fast-casual brand with locations in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach, is the restaurant live and taking orders on Zayos today. It keeps $48k+ a year that used to go to commissions. Storefronts are built, with ordering opening at each launch, for Shishka Lebanese Grill, La Vie Mediterranean, Yummy Grill, aura, Courtyard Cafe, Mr. Smoke across 13 locations, Yalla Market and Tap That Ash.

Zayos is built by Zay Revenue Group, LLC, a Fort Lauderdale company founded by Abdallah Alyousef. South Florida is not a market we are expanding into. It is where we live, and it is the only place in Florida where we can point at a restaurant taking orders today.