How Zayos uses Uber Direct

Published July 2026 · Updated August 8, 2026

Quick answer

Uber Direct is Uber’s courier network without the Uber Eats app. A diner orders on your own Zayos site, Zayos books an Uber driver to your door, and you pay no marketplace commission. Delivery costs the diner $7.99 to $10.99 by distance, and 100 percent of the delivery tip goes to the driver.

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Wait, is this Uber Eats with extra steps?

Same company, different product, and the difference is the whole page. Uber Eats is the app: it lists you, sends you a customer you did not have, and charges a percentage of every ticket for doing it. Uber Direct is only the driver: your website takes the order, and an Uber courier shows up to carry the bag for a distance-based delivery fee the diner pays at checkout.

Put plainly: on Uber Eats you rent the customer. On Uber Direct you rent the car. Zayos books Uber Direct so a delivery order placed on your own site costs you nothing off the food. If you want the full arithmetic on the app side, the numbers live on what Uber Eats charges restaurants.

Uber Eats compared with Uber Direct on a Zayos direct order
The question	Uber Eats	Uber Direct on Zayos
Where the diner places the order	Inside the Uber Eats app, next to your competitors.	On your own Zayos site, on your own domain.
Who owns the customer record	Uber. You get a ticket, not an email address.	You. Name, phone, email and order history sit in your customer book.
What the restaurant pays	A percentage of every ticket: 15 to 30 percent base, 25 to 35 percent blended once delivery, marketing and card fees stack.	No percentage of the food. The diner pays the delivery fee at checkout, quoted by distance.
Who brings you the customer	Uber. That is exactly what the commission buys.	Nobody. Uber Direct is a driver, not a marketing channel.
Who the driver works for	Uber.	Uber. Same driver network, same app on the driver’s phone.
Where the ticket lands in the kitchen	The Otter tablet on your pass.	The same Otter tablet, in the same ticket flow.

Commission ranges are marketplace industry ranges, labeled base and blended. Blended means after delivery, marketing and card processing stack on top of the base rate.

What actually happens between Place Order and the doorbell?

Five steps. Your staff is involved in exactly one of them.

01

The diner checks out on your site

They pick delivery, type an address, and pay with a card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. The diner pays a $0.99 service fee plus the delivery fee: $7.99 up to 5 miles, stepping up to $10.99 at 10 miles. If you choose to subsidize a few dollars of that, the diner sees the lower number.
02

The ticket lands on your Otter tablet

Otter is the tablet software that already sits on your pass and holds your Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub tickets. Your direct order lands in that same feed, so the line cook learns nothing new.
03

Zayos books an Uber Direct courier

Every location is paired to its own Uber Direct store with its exact pickup address, so a driver never shows up at the wrong branch of a multi-location business. The booking is quoted live by real distance to the diner’s door.
04

The driver picks up

The driver arrives, confirms the order, and takes the bag. Your staff hand it over the same way they hand over a marketplace order today. 100 percent of the delivery tip is passed to the driver with the booking.
05

The diner tracks the driver on your page

A live tracking link is shown to the verified customer on your order page, not inside the Uber Eats app. The delivery runs on Uber. The brand on the screen is yours. If no driver can cover the address, the request falls through to the next connected courier network instead of dying.

Dispatch is a cascade, not a marriage. Uber Direct is the network Zayos books today, and DoorDash Drive runs in the same cascade alongside it, so an address one network cannot cover falls through to the next. The concept itself is written up on what delivery dispatch is, and the rest of the stack is on the integrations page.

What do I have to do to turn this on?

Almost nothing, because the courier relationship is ours, not yours. Zayos adds your business under its own Uber Direct account, creates a courier store for each of your locations with that location’s exact pickup address, and pairs it to your storefront. You give us three things: the exact pickup address per location, the delivery radius you are willing to serve, and your delivery hours.

Delivery stays off until every location is paired. That is deliberate: it is the guarantee that a diner can never place a delivery order no driver will ever come for. Most operators are live in under a week. The full timeline is on how it works.

One decision worth making on day one: the subsidy. You can put $2 to $3 per order against the diner’s delivery fee. It keeps the price the diner sees competitive with the apps, and delivery volume follows the number on the checkout screen.

The part most vendors skip

What does Uber Direct not do?

It does not put you on the Uber Eats app

Uber Direct is a courier network with an API, not a listing. Nobody browsing Uber Eats will discover you because Zayos books Uber Direct. If you want app discovery, you keep your marketplace listing, and you keep paying commission on those tickets.

It does not make delivery free

A real driver crosses a real city, and the delivery fee the diner pays at checkout is sized to that: $7.99 up to 5 miles, up to $10.99 at 10 miles. What you control is the subsidy. Put $2 or $3 per order against it and the diner sees a delivery price the apps cannot match.

It does not cover every address

Delivery runs to a 10 mile maximum radius, and courier coverage is dense in metros and thinner at the edges and late at night. Set your delivery radius honestly at launch so a diner never gets a promise you cannot keep.

It does not settle a food complaint

The courier moves a sealed bag. If the food is cold or an item is missing, that is your refund to decide and your customer to keep. The upside: the customer is yours to keep. On a marketplace, the app decides the refund and often keeps the customer too.

It does not let you pick a specific driver

You cannot request a driver, rate a driver, or route around one. The network assigns from the pool. If a delivery goes wrong, the record and the escalation run through your Zayos order history, not through a phone number for the driver.

What does the integration cost?

The Uber Direct connection is included at every Zayos tier. Plans are $399 Operator, $499 Operator + Tablet, and $599 Concierge, per location per month, month to month, no setup fee, no contract. Nothing about delivery changes that number.

Per order, two amounts exist and they are not the same thing. The Zayos service fee is paid by the diner at checkout: a flat $0.99 on pickup and delivery alike, $0 dine-in, 10 percent on catering. The restaurant never pays it and keeps 100 percent of food revenue. Separately, the delivery fee covers the courier: $7.99 up to 5 miles, stepping up to $10.99 at the 10 mile maximum, minus whatever subsidy you choose to add. Delivery orders carry a $12 minimum so a tiny basket never books a real driver.

Tips are split by who earned them: pickup and dine-in tips stay with your staff, and 100 percent of the delivery tip is passed to the driver. Compare the whole model against your current app mix in the commission recovery calculator, or read the plan detail on pricing.

Questions operators actually ask about Uber Direct

Is Uber Direct the same as Uber Eats?

Same company, different product. Uber Eats is the marketplace app: it lists you, brings the customer, and charges a percentage of every ticket, 15 to 30 percent base and 25 to 35 percent blended once delivery, marketing and processing fees stack. Uber Direct is only the driver: your own site takes the order, and an Uber courier carries the bag. No percentage of your food revenue goes to Uber on an Uber Direct delivery.

Do I pay Uber a commission on these orders?

No. The restaurant keeps 100 percent of food revenue on every direct order. The diner pays a $0.99 service fee at checkout, the same as pickup, plus the distance-based delivery fee. Pickup and dine-in tips stay with the restaurant; the delivery tip goes to the driver.

What does delivery cost my customer?

A flat fee by distance: $7.99 up to 5 miles, stepping up to $10.99 at the 10 mile maximum, minus any per-order subsidy you add. Many operators put $2 per order against it, which turns a $7.99 delivery into $5.99 for the diner. There is also a $12 order minimum on delivery, so a $4 side never books a real courier.

Who gets the delivery tip?

100 percent of the delivery tip goes to the driver. It is passed to the courier with the booking, not held by Zayos and not split with anyone. Tips on pickup and dine-in orders stay with the restaurant, also at 100 percent.

What happens if no Uber driver is available?

Dispatch is a cascade, not a single phone call. If Uber Direct cannot cover the address in time, the request falls through to the next connected courier network, DoorDash Drive among them, automatically. If every network is dry, the order surfaces to your staff so a manager can call the customer instead of letting a bag sit under a heat lamp.

Do I need my own Uber Direct account?

No. Zayos holds the Uber Direct relationship, creates a courier store for each of your locations with its exact pickup address, and pairs it before delivery is switched on. Delivery stays off until every location is paired. That is deliberate: an unpaired location can never strand an order that has no driver coming.

Do I pick Uber Direct, or does the system pick for me?

The system picks per order, because the right answer changes by address and by hour. Uber Direct is the network Zayos books first today, quoted live for that delivery, with automatic fallback to the next connected network, DoorDash Drive among them, when the first cannot cover it. That redundancy is the reason Zayos runs a cascade instead of hard wiring one courier vendor.

Who do I call when a delivery goes wrong at 8 pm on a Saturday?

Us, and the order record is already in front of you: the driver, the timestamps and the tracking trail are attached to the order, which is the difference between a support conversation and an argument. Zay Revenue Group is a Fort Lauderdale, Florida company and operators talk to the people who built the system. Naya Grill in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach is the restaurant live and taking direct orders on Zayos today.

Can I use Uber Direct and still stay on the Uber Eats app?

Yes, and most operators should at first. Keep the marketplace listing for discovery, and let the diners who already know your name order on your site instead. Over time the mix shifts. That shift is the entire point: Naya Grill in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach keeps $48k+ a year that used to go to commissions, on a commission model run at 3,000 orders a month.

Still deciding whether to keep the app at all? Read Zayos compared with Uber Eats or what Zayos is first.

See what the apps cost you this year.

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