Published May 2026 · Updated October 4, 2026
Restaurant online ordering splits into two models: marketplace ordering on a delivery app, which costs 15-30% in base commission and 25-35% blended once delivery, marketing and processing fees stack. The other is direct (first-party) ordering (Zay-OS, Owner, Toast Online Ordering, ChowNow), where the restaurant pays no commission on food revenue. Zay-OS lets restaurants run direct ordering on their own branded site while keeping marketplaces alongside, all on one kitchen tablet via Otter.
Direct ordering with zero per-order commission charged to the restaurant.
An online ordering setup where the restaurant pays no commission on direct orders. The diner pays the small per-order fee (Zay-OS: $0.99 pickup / $0.99 delivery) at checkout, never the restaurant. Operator keeps 100% of food revenue. Contrast with marketplace ordering (the delivery apps) which takes 25-35% of every order off the top.
The 25-35% blended cut the delivery apps take on every order they bring you.
Marketplace platforms charge restaurants a commission on every order placed through their app. Typical range: 15% (basic listing) to 35% (full marketplace + delivery). On a $40 ticket at 30% commission, the restaurant loses $12 before paying for food, labor, or rent. Compounds 200-300 times per month for a busy single location.
The percentage of GMV (gross merchandise value) the platform keeps.
Industry term for what a marketplace or processor extracts from each transaction. DoorDash's blended take rate is ~25-30%, Uber Eats similar, Grubhub similar. Stripe's take rate on a direct order is ~2.9% + $0.30. The difference between paying a take rate of 30% versus 3% is the spread Zay-OS unlocks for a restaurant.
Total dollar value of orders flowing through the platform.
Sum of every order before fees, refunds, or commissions. A restaurant doing $50k/month in marketplace GMV at 30% commission loses $15k/month to the platforms. Zay-OS doesn't care about your GMV — the operator keeps 100% of food revenue regardless of volume.
What's left after all costs — including marketplace commissions, food, labor, rent.
For a typical independent restaurant the net margin is 3-8% on marketplace orders, vs. 12-20% on direct orders, because direct orders skip the 25-35% commission. Shifting 25% of volume from marketplace to direct typically doubles a restaurant's net dollars on those orders.
Orders placed on the restaurant's own branded site, not on a marketplace.
Direct ordering means the diner orders at your-name.com (or in your branded app), not on DoorDash/Uber Eats/Grubhub. You own the customer, the order history, and the margin.
Same as direct ordering — orders that come through channels the restaurant owns.
Industry shorthand for online ordering where the restaurant owns the channel (its website, its app) rather than a third party. The opposite of third-party (marketplace) ordering. First-party data — diner name, email, phone, order history — belongs to the restaurant, not a platform.
The unified-tablet platform that aggregates direct + marketplace orders onto one screen.
Otter is the operator-facing tablet most modern restaurants run on the pass. It ingests Uber Eats + DoorDash + Grubhub orders into one feed, syncs menus across marketplaces, and pushes orders into the restaurant's POS. Zay-OS routes its direct orders through Otter too, so every channel — direct, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, phone-ins — lands on the same tablet in one ticket flow. Replaces three or four separate tablets on the line.
Digital ticket display that replaces paper tickets on the line.
Touchscreen system in the kitchen that shows live tickets, organizes by station (fryer, grill, salad), supports recall + bump, and times each ticket. Zay-OS's kitchen tablet doubles as a KDS for restaurants that don't run a separate dedicated KDS hardware.
Two-way sync between your POS and ordering platform.
When the POS is integrated, menu changes flow from one system to the other automatically, and orders pushed into the POS print + post to the kitchen the same as in-store orders. POS integration is included on every plan: Clover, Square or Shift4 at no extra cost, and Toast bills its own $50 a month integration fee.
One menu change propagating to every channel automatically.
When you change a menu price, 86 an item, or add a new dish, the change cascades from your master menu (in Zay-OS) out to direct ordering, DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, and the POS — via Otter — within seconds. Eliminates the worst-failure mode in modern restaurants: a sold-out item that's still orderable on one app.
Industry shorthand for sold out / unavailable.
When the kitchen runs out of an item, the staff '86s' it. In the analog era this meant pulling printed inserts from menus. With Otter + Zay-OS, one tap on the kitchen tablet 86s the item across every channel in real time.
A third-party sales-tax set-aside service.
DAVO is a third-party service that moves the sales-tax portion of card sales into a holding account and files the return. Zay-OS does not connect to DAVO; it calculates tax per location and gives you sales-tax reports with CSV exports for filing.
When a restaurant has 3-4 separate marketplace tablets stacked on the pass.
The before-state of most independent restaurants: one tablet for DoorDash, one for Uber Eats, one for Grubhub, one for the direct site. Each with its own ticket format, alert sound, and workflow. The line cook bounces between them during a Friday rush. Otter (and therefore Zay-OS) collapses tablet hell into a single screen, single ticket flow.
A delivery-only kitchen, often running multiple brands from one physical space.
A kitchen that exists for delivery only — no dining room. Often runs 3-10 virtual brands from one cooking space (e.g., a single Lebanese kitchen runs a shawarma brand, a falafel brand, and a salad brand, each with its own DoorDash/Uber Eats listing). Zay-OS Concierge tier supports multi-brand routing for up to 5 brands per kitchen, with separate customer lists per brand.
A large-order request usually placed days or weeks in advance, separate from regular delivery.
Catering orders are typically 10-100× the value of a regular order ($300-$5,000+ vs. $30 average ticket) and require advance scheduling, larger preparation lead time, and often a custom quote. Zay-OS Concierge includes a catering inquiry form on the storefront with AI-drafted quote responses.
Routing a delivery to an available driver across multiple courier networks.
When a direct order needs delivery, dispatch finds the fastest available driver. On Zayos a delivery courier is booked for each direct order that needs delivery. Coverage spans most of the US.
Owning the diner's name, email, phone, and order history.
On marketplace orders the customer belongs to the platform — the restaurant gets no name, no email, no way to reach them again. On direct orders (Zay-OS), the customer record is yours: order history, saved card, dietary preferences, lifetime spend. You can text a regular a two-cent offer instead of paying the marketplace $12 to deliver the same diner again.
Percentage of customers who place a second order within a window.
The share of your customers who order again inside a period you choose, for example 30 or 90 days. On your own ordering site a returning customer has a saved card and a one-tap reorder, and you can see the rate for yourself in your reports. A delivery app does not show it to you per customer.
Getting your restaurant to show up in Google searches and Google Maps.
On-page content, schema markup, Google Business Profile optimization, and local citations that get a restaurant to rank for queries like 'best shawarma near me' or 'Italian restaurant Miami'. Zay-OS bakes restaurant-grade SEO into every storefront automatically.
Getting cited by AI search engines — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Apple Intelligence.
The newer discipline of getting your restaurant cited by generative AI when a diner asks an AI assistant a question like 'best Mediterranean restaurant in Fort Lauderdale'. Requires structured data (Schema.org JSON-LD), llms.txt, allow-listed AI crawlers, and citation-ready content patterns. Zay-OS includes GEO in every plan, not just SEO.
Your restaurant's listing on Google Search + Google Maps.
Formerly Google My Business. Lists hours, menu, photos, reviews, and the link to your direct ordering site. The #1 driver of 'near me' searches. Zay-OS integrates with GBP to sync hours, menu, and respond to reviews.
Diners scan a code on a bag, a receipt or a sign to open the restaurant's ordering site.
A QR code on a bag, a receipt or a window sign opens the restaurant's own ordering site, so the next order is a direct one. On Zayos our team makes tracked codes with you. Ordering from the table is not available.
Sources for the prices and rates in this section: DoorDash for Merchants pricing; Grubhub for Restaurants pricing; Uber Eats for Merchants pricing, read 4 Oct 2026. A company can change them; its own page is what counts.
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