◆ Restaurant online ordering

Restaurant online ordering that lets you keep 100% of your food revenue.

Branded direct ordering on your own site. One kitchen tablet for every channel. Marketplaces ingested via Otter. CRM, DAVO sales-tax set-aside, SEO + GEO bundled in. $499/month flat. The diner pays the per-order fee, not you.

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What restaurant online ordering should look like

5 things to demand of any platform.

A restaurant online ordering platform that does fewer than these five things is leaving margin, customer data, or operational simplicity on the table.

1. Branded checkout, not a marketplace tile

The diner should check out on yourrestaurant.com, with your colors and your menu photography, not as a tile in DoorDash. Zay-OS puts ordering on your domain.

2. Zero commission on food revenue

The platform should not take a cut of every order — that is what the marketplaces do. Zay-OS is a $499/month flat fee. The diner pays the $2.99 per-order fee at checkout; the restaurant keeps 100%.

3. One tablet, every channel

Direct, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, phone-ins — all on one kitchen screen in one ticket flow. Zay-OS uses Otter for marketplace ingestion so you do not stack tablets.

4. Customer data ownership

Every diner becomes a row in your CRM — name, email, phone, order history. Exportable. Zay-OS bundles CRM + SMS + email + web push so reorders cost cents, not 30%.

5. Discovery + sales tax bundled in

A great direct-ordering site is useless if diners cannot find it. Zay-OS bundles SEO + GEO + Google Business Profile, plus DAVO daily sales-tax set-aside in all 50 states.

Three ways to run it

Marketplace-only. Direct-only. Hybrid.

There are three structural approaches to restaurant online ordering. One of them is the right answer for almost every operator.

Marketplace-only

DoorDash + Uber Eats + Grubhub do all the ordering. Restaurant pays 25-35% on every order.

Pros

Discovery is built in. Driver dispatch handled.

Cons

You never own the customer. Margin gets eaten alive. Every repeat costs 30% again.

Best for

Brand-new restaurants with zero customer base — short-term only.

Direct-only

Drop the marketplaces, rely entirely on direct ordering. 100% of revenue is yours.

Pros

Zero commission. Full customer ownership.

Cons

You lose first-time-diner discovery from the marketplace apps. Volume drop is real before SEO + CRM compound.

Best for

Established brands with strong local SEO and a repeat-customer base.

★ Recommended
Hybrid (recommended)

Keep marketplaces for discovery. Add direct ordering for repeats. Steer the customer over time.

Pros

Zero margin loss on repeat customers (the majority of order volume), no loss of first-time discovery.

Cons

Slightly higher operational complexity — solved by routing every channel into one kitchen tablet via Otter.

Best for

Every Zay-OS operator. This is the playbook.

The technology stack

What ships in the box.

Restaurant online ordering is more than a checkout page. Here is everything Zay-OS bundles in the $499/month Operator plan.

01
Branded ordering site

Hosted on yourrestaurant.com (or yourrestaurant.zay-os.com if you want us to register). Mobile-perfect, Lighthouse 100, brand-customizable.

02
Kitchen tablet + KDS

One iPad or Android tablet shows direct orders, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, and phone-ins in one ticket flow. Audio alerts, sticky orders, 86-an-item flow.

03
Otter (marketplace ingestion + POS push)

Pulls every marketplace order into your tablet. Pushes direct orders into your POS. Connects to 25+ POS systems (Toast, Lightspeed U, Square, Clover, Aloha, Brink, Oracle Micros, Par Brink, NCR, more).

04
Customer CRM

Every diner becomes a row. Name, email, phone, full order history. SMS via Twilio (A2P 10DLC handled), email via Resend, web push for opted-in regulars.

05
DAVO sales tax

Daily automatic sales-tax set-aside on every direct order. DAVO files + remits when due. All 50 US states. The tax never sits in your operating account.

06
Stripe Connect (payments)

Apple Pay, Google Pay, all major cards. Card data never touches Zay-OS — Stripe handles it, your PCI scope stays with them. Daily payouts to your bank.

07
SEO + GEO + Google Business

Schema markup, llms.txt, mobile-perfect Lighthouse posture. Allow-listed for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini. Google Business hours + menu + reviews sync.

How to get started

4 steps. ~3 weeks to fully live.

1
Run the free grader

Plug your monthly order volume, average ticket, and current marketplace mix into grader.zay-os.com. The grader returns exact monthly + annual commission recovery for your restaurant, so you know the number before you sign.

2
Pick a plan and connect your POS

Pick Operator ($499), Operator + Marketplace ($599), or Concierge ($699). Tell us your POS (Toast, Lightspeed U, Square, Clover, or any of 25+ via Otter) so we wire it before the first order lands.

3
Go live on your branded site

We launch your direct-ordering site on your domain (or a Zay-OS subdomain) within one week. Menu, photos, hours, payment — all live. First direct orders typically arrive within days.

4
Layer in marketplace ingestion + CRM

Over weeks 2-3, Otter ingestion pulls DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub onto the same kitchen tablet, and CRM reorder messaging activates for the diners who already ordered direct.

Straight answers

Restaurant online ordering, answered.

What is restaurant online ordering?
Restaurant online ordering is the system a diner uses to place a pickup or delivery order with a restaurant without calling. It can run through a marketplace (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub — where the marketplace takes 25-35% of every order) or directly on the restaurant's own branded site (where the restaurant keeps 100% of food revenue). Zay-OS is the direct kind.
How does direct restaurant online ordering work?
The diner goes to yourrestaurant.com, picks items from your menu, pays via Stripe (Apple Pay, Google Pay, or card), and the order lands on your kitchen tablet. The restaurant fulfills the order — pickup, your own driver, or a dispatch partner like DoorDash Drive. You keep 100% of the food revenue. The diner pays a $2.99 per-order fee at checkout to cover platform costs.
Why is restaurant online ordering important?
Roughly 60% of US restaurant orders today are placed digitally, and that share keeps climbing. Without your own direct-ordering channel, every one of those orders flows through a marketplace that charges 25-35% commission. For a single location doing 3,000 orders/month at a $35 ticket, that is $48,000+/year going to DoorDash and Uber Eats instead of staying with the restaurant.
Do I have to drop DoorDash and Uber Eats to set up direct online ordering?
No. The hybrid approach (recommended) keeps the marketplaces running for first-time-diner discovery while routing repeats to direct ordering. On Zay-OS Operator + Marketplace, Otter ingests every marketplace order into the same kitchen tablet as your direct orders, so there is no operational tax to running both.
How much does restaurant online ordering software cost?
The fair flat-fee price for commission-free restaurant online ordering is about $499/month per location bundled — that is what both Zay-OS and the leading commission-free competitor charge. Marketplace-based ordering charges 25-35% commission per order, which on most restaurants works out to thousands of dollars per month compared to the flat fee.
What POS systems work with restaurant online ordering?
Through Otter, Zay-OS connects to 25+ POS systems including Toast, Lightspeed U-Series, Square for Restaurants, Clover, Revel, Aloha, Brink, HungerRush, Oracle Micros, Par Brink, and NCR. If yours is exotic, the kitchen tablet runs as a standalone flow so you are not left out.
How long does it take to set up restaurant online ordering?
Most restaurants on Zay-OS take their first direct order within a week of signing. Full marketplace ingestion via Otter is live within two to three weeks. The branded site, kitchen tablet, CRM, and DAVO sales-tax setup all happen in parallel — no waiting on one step to start the next.
Who handles sales tax and PCI compliance on direct orders?
DAVO sets aside sales tax daily on every direct order and files + remits when due, covering all 50 US states. Stripe handles every payment — card data never touches Zay-OS, so PCI compliance scope stays with Stripe, not with you. You get the receipt and the payout; the regulatory burden stays where it belongs.
Keep reading
Florida online ordering →
All 40 FL metros, statewide breakdown.
Zay-OS vs Owner.com →
Same $499 flat. Better bundle.
Zay-OS vs DoorDash →
Commission math, broken out per volume tier.
Also: how it works · integrations · pricing

Stop renting your margin from the marketplaces.

Run the free grader to see what direct ordering would have saved you last month — or jump straight to getting started.

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