Cost per Order Worksheet for Marketplaces and Direct Orders

Each channel does a different job

Marketplaces like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub bring guests who haven't found you yet. They also handle delivery you may not want to run yourself.

Direct ordering serves the regulars who already know you. It gives them a way to reorder on your own site, earn loyalty rewards, and hear from you when something new is on the menu.

The worksheet below puts both channels side by side with your own numbers. Nothing in it is an industry average, so the answer fits your restaurant.

Start from last month's statements

Pick one full calendar month. Download each marketplace's monthly statement from its merchant portal, then your direct ordering report and your card processor's statement for the same month.

Use the same month for every channel. A February marketplace statement beside a March direct report compares a short month with a long one.

Fill in one worksheet per location. Menus, delivery areas, and fees differ from one location to the next, and the Appetier fee cap applies to each location on its own.

Fill in six lines for each channel

Give each marketplace its own column, and give direct orders one more. Then fill in the six lines in the table below.

The example column is the made-up marketplace statement used in the next section.

Marketplace plans commonly charge a percentage per order, and the rate depends on the plan you chose.

Some statements list card processing on its own line, and others fold it into the fees. Read the fine print so you don't count it twice.

Work out what one order costs you

Add every cost line in a column, then divide by that column's orders. The result is your cost per order. Divide the same total by sales to see it as a share of sales.

Practice on a made-up marketplace column first. It shows 350 orders and $11,200 in sales. Fees of $2,600, promotions of $180, and adjustments of $76 add up to $2,856.

Now divide. $2,856 across 350 orders is $8.16 an order, and $2,856 against $11,200 in sales is 25.5%. Swap in your own statement and run the same two divisions.

The direct column has its own formula. The Appetier fee is your direct sales times 5%, and it stops at $199 a month per location.

At $2,000 in direct sales, the fee is $100. Past $3,980 in a month, later direct orders carry no Appetier fee at all.

Appetier adds no markup to card processing on direct orders. Take your card fees from your processor's statement and add them to the direct column.

Delivering direct orders yourself adds one more line. Put in driver pay and mileage, minus any delivery fees guests paid. Pickup orders skip it.

The table below sets the marketplace example out in one place.

Put the average ticket beside the cost

Average ticket is sales divided by orders. In the made-up column, $11,200 across 350 orders is $32.

Tickets often differ by channel. Some restaurants price their marketplace menu higher, and an office lunch order builds a bigger cart than a solo dinner.

A fixed cost per order weighs more on a small ticket. $8.16 on a $32 order is a quarter of it, but on a $60 catering order it's about 14%.

Write each channel's average ticket right under its cost per order. The two numbers read together tell you more than either one alone.

What you learn about the guest

A direct order comes with the guest's name, contact details, and order history, as they share them at checkout. That's what lets you send a birthday reward or tell a regular their favorite dish is back.

Give it a line on the worksheet: can this channel help you reach the guest again? For a marketplace, your merchant portal and your agreement with the marketplace say what you see.

For direct orders, count the guests who chose to hear from you, then count repeat guests. 120 direct orders from 70 guests works out to 1.7 orders per guest for the month.

Track that number across a quarter. Loyalty rewards and campaigns are what move it, so it tells you whether they're working.

Read each column by the job it does

Judge each column against its own job, not against the others. A marketplace column full of guests who've never ordered from you is doing exactly what it's for.

The direct column's job is repeat orders. Regulars who already know you may not know they can order from you directly.

Give them an easy way to reorder direct: the order link on your Google listing, a sign at the counter, a reorder button in your emails.

Refill the worksheet each quarter with the newest month. One month can mislead, while three in a row show which way things are moving.

Fix the numbers that won't line up

A statement with one lump deduction and no breakdown won't fill the six lines. Most merchant portals offer a detailed order export, and its fee columns will.

Refunds can land a month after the order. Move each one back to the month the order came in before you divide.

A month with a big promotion, a closure, or a holiday reads high or low. Mark it on the worksheet and compare a normal month instead.

Fees that don't match your agreement are worth a support ticket to the marketplace. Include the order numbers and the statement dates.

Running several locations? Fill a worksheet for each, then add them up at the end. The Appetier cap works per location, so one combined total hides where it applies.

Run both from one screen

Appetier brings DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub orders into one queue and prints them in your POS next to your direct orders.

It takes no commission and adds no markup on those marketplace orders. The Appetier fee applies to direct orders only, so the marketplace columns on your worksheet stay the same.

Each marketplace is connected once. The kitchen then works from one ticket stream instead of a row of tablets.

A menu or hours change you make reaches the site, apps, POS, marketplaces, and listings. Yelp can hold a change for up to two weeks.