Zayos and Uber Direct, one delivery start to finish
Published July 2026 · Updated July 26, 2026
Uber Direct is Uber’s courier network for orders placed on your own website. Zayos sends the delivery to Otter Dispatch, which uses Uber Direct or another network, whichever can cover the address. No Uber Eats listing, no commission on the ticket, no second tablet.
Free, 60 seconds, no card. It prices your current app mix against direct ordering.
What does one Uber Direct delivery look like, minute by minute?
A two mile delivery on a Friday, from the tap to the doorbell. Times show the sequence, not a promise.
- 6:47 pm
The diner checks out on your site
Delivery, an address two miles out, card on file. Your menu, your domain, your prices. The diner pays the $2.99 delivery service fee at checkout. You pay nothing and you keep 100 percent of the food revenue and the tip.
- 6:47 pm
The ticket prints in the kitchen
The order lands in the same Otter feed as your Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub tickets. Same tablet, same sound, same ticket flow. Nobody on the line has to be told anything new.
- 6:48 pm
Otter Dispatch shops the delivery
Dispatch quotes the connected courier networks for that exact address, Uber Direct among them, and takes the one that can actually cover it. This is a live quote by distance, not a flat table.
- 6:52 pm
A courier is assigned, with a target pickup time
Dispatch times the courier against the kitchen, not against the clock the diner started. The point is a driver who arrives when the food does, so a bag is not sweating under a lamp for eleven minutes.
- 7:04 pm
Pickup at the counter
The courier arrives, confirms the order name, takes the bag. Your staff hand it over exactly the way they hand over a marketplace bag today. No new register step, no new app to check.
- 7:19 pm
Delivered, and the customer is still yours
The diner tracks the courier from your confirmation page. When it lands, the name, phone, email and order history stay in your customer book. Next Friday you can text them yourself instead of paying to be shown to them again.
Notice what is missing from that list: a second tablet, a second login, and a percentage. The one tablet part is Otter doing its job, which is written up in detail on how Otter integration works.
What happens when it goes wrong?
Any operator who has run delivery knows the four ways a delivery breaks. Here is what the system does about each, and where it hands the decision back to you.
No courier accepts the address
Dispatch does not stop at one network. If Uber Direct has nothing in range, the request cascades to another connected courier network on its own. If every network is dry, the order surfaces on the Otter tablet so a manager can call the customer while the food is still hot enough to do something about.
The courier arrives before the food is ready
The most common real world friction, and it is a prep time setting, not a courier problem. Set your quoted prep time to the truth of your Friday, not the truth of your Tuesday. Dispatch times the pickup against that number.
The address is wrong or nobody answers
Undeliverable orders follow the courier network’s own policy for the market. The order record stays in Otter, which is what you need when you decide whether to remake, refund or credit. You make that call, because it is your customer.
The food arrives cold or an item is missing
That is yours to fix, and that is the trade. On the marketplace, the app decides the refund, keeps the customer’s trust and often keeps the customer. On your own site, you decide, you refund, and you keep the relationship you paid for.
What does Uber Direct not do?
It does not list you on Uber Eats
Uber Direct is a courier API, not a storefront. Turning it on will not put you in front of a single new person browsing the Uber Eats app. If you want that discovery, keep the marketplace listing and keep paying commission on those tickets. Most operators should run both for a while.
None of your Uber Eats history carries over
Not your star rating, not your reviews, not your promo history, and not your customer list. Uber Direct is a separate product from your Uber Eats listing. Your reputation on your own site starts from your own reviews, which is the point of owning it.
It does not carry everything
Alcohol depends on your license and the rules of your market, and it is not something to promise a diner before it is confirmed in writing. Large catering runs are usually not a single courier job either. If catering matters to you, plan it deliberately on the catering ordering side.
It does not give you a driver you can call
You cannot request a specific courier, keep a favorite, or route around one you did not like. Assignment comes from the pool. Escalation runs through Otter and the network, not through a phone number for the person at your counter.
If you are weighing the listing itself rather than the courier, the marketplace math is on what Uber Eats charges restaurants, and the side by side is on Zayos compared with Uber Eats.
What do I have to set up, and what does it cost?
Setup is four settings, not a project: delivery radius, delivery hours, prep time, and the pickup instructions a courier needs at your door. We handle the dispatch wiring during onboarding, and in the standard setup you do not sign a courier contract network by network, because Otter aggregates those relationships.
Cost has exactly two moving parts. Your plan, which is $499, $599 or $699 per location per month with no setup fee, includes the integration. Then per order: the diner pays the Zayos service fee at checkout, $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine-in and 10 percent on catering, and the courier network bills its own per delivery rate quoted by distance. The restaurant keeps 100 percent of food revenue and 100 percent of tips, on every channel, always.
Plan detail is on pricing. The onboarding sequence is on how it works. Every other connected system is listed on integrations.
Uber Direct, six straight answers
Is Uber Direct the same thing as being on Uber Eats?
Do I pick Uber Direct, or does the system pick for me?
What does the Uber Direct integration add to my monthly bill?
Can I keep my Uber Eats listing and use Uber Direct at the same time?
How long does it take to get delivery running?
Who do I call when a delivery goes wrong at 8 pm on a Saturday?
Price your own delivery, honestly.
The free AI report reads your real order mix and shows what direct delivery would keep. 60 seconds, no card.
Want your zip codes checked for courier coverage first? Send them over.