Third-Party Delivery Management · Add-On · Duluth, GA
A new channel,
and a service we never offered you.
Takeout is live, and with it a delivery business that did not exist when we started working together. Third-party delivery management is something we run for a portfolio of restaurants and never brought to you, because until now there was no reason to. This is what the service does, what it has produced for four accounts we manage, and what it costs.
Client
Madras Catering & Co.
Investment
$500 per month
When we started working together, Madras was an events and catering business — weddings, large functions, fully custom multi-cuisine menus. Third-party delivery was simply not part of that world, so it never came up in any conversation we had. That is on us as much as anything: the service existed the whole time and we never put it on your radar.
Takeout changed the picture. There is now an Indian menu running out of the first suite of the central kitchen, pickup-only, with orders arriving through the site we built and through the delivery platforms. That is a genuinely different business from catering, with a different economics problem — and it is young enough that the decisions made in the first months tend to set the pattern for the years after.
Third-Party Is the Delivery Business
There is no dining room and no delivery fleet of your own. For the takeout concept, the platform is not one channel among several — it is how delivery happens at all.
That makes the channel structural rather than supplementary. What it earns, and what it keeps, is worth managing with the same seriousness as the catering calendar.
A Channel Still Finding Its Level
Takeout launched recently, so the storefront, the item mix and the promotion history are all young. Nothing has had time to settle into a pattern yet.
This is the cheapest window there is. Setting the rate, the merchandising and the offer rhythm now costs far less than unwinding habits a year from now.
The Direct Channel Is Already Ours
We built the website and wired the POS to the order button, so the highest-margin path — a guest ordering direct — is already under management.
Adding the platform side completes the picture. Direct and third-party stop competing blindly and start being balanced deliberately, with one team seeing both.
Rate Leverage You Cannot Get Alone
Commission is negotiated on volume, and a single location negotiates with the volume of a single location.
We negotiate through an Uber Eats partnership built on the whole portfolio we manage. Across those accounts, measured commission runs 17–23% of sales.
A Kitchen With Room In It
Catering and takeout share one central kitchen. On days without a large event, the rent, the equipment and the team are fixed costs that are already being carried.
Delivery volume fills capacity you are paying for regardless. That is a margin argument most restaurants with a dining room simply cannot make.
Where This Starts
The first thing we would do is sit down with Jeet and read the account together — the current rate, the offer history, the payout trend. If that read says the channel is already in good shape, we will tell you exactly that, and there is nothing further to discuss.
Third-party delivery management is not a listing cleanup and it is not a one-time setup. It is an account we run every month, the same way we run paid media — with a calendar, a budget, a report, and someone accountable for the number at the bottom.
Commission Rate Negotiation
Through our Uber Eats partnership, built on the volume we manage across the portfolio, we negotiate rates a single operator generally cannot get alone. Across our managed accounts, measured commission runs 17–23% of sales.
The Offer Calendar
Promotions run on a schedule, not on a hunch. We decide what runs, on which items, for how long and against which audience — new-customer offers, BOGOs, delivery-fee promotions, Uber One targeting — and we turn them off when they stop paying.
Platform Co-Funding
Uber co-funds a share of ad campaigns on accounts that are actively managed under a negotiated relationship. Across our accounts in 2026 that has meant thousands of dollars of ad spend the restaurant did not pay.
Menu & Listing Merchandising
Item names, descriptions, photography, category order and storefront pricing. What gets promoted, what gets bundled, what belongs at the top of the page, and what is quietly dragging the average basket down.
The Monthly Payout Report
Orders against promotional spend against net payout, every month, on one page. The report is the product: it is what makes the channel legible month over month, instead of something you can only judge by gross sales.
Ongoing Optimization
Availability, prep times, ratings, and the item mix. We watch which direction things move so a problem gets caught in month two instead of month six — which is the entire difference between a managed account and an open one.
Most operators judge a delivery platform by gross sales. Gross sales are the least useful number on the page. The one that decides whether the channel is worth running is the payout: the money the platform actually deposits into your account after commission, marketing and fees.
Here is what that looks like across the accounts we manage. In every one of these, the restaurant was on the platform before we took it over — what changed is that someone started steering it.
| Account | Payout under management, 2026 | Before |
|---|
| Mojitos · 2 locations | 60–70% every month | 37–41% at the same sales levels |
| Eclipse di Luna · 3 locations | 62–74% every month | 37–44% during the 2025 discount push |
| The Crossing | 64–71% every month | ~53% average, as low as 45% |
| Buckhead Pizza Co. | 65–74% every month | 70–74% — but on half the volume |
That last row is the one worth pausing on. Buckhead’s payout share barely moved — because it was already healthy. What changed is that the account doubled in six months while staying inside the same band. Margin protection and growth are not a trade-off when the investment is structured.
The Thing Everyone Gets Backwards
The commission is not what eats the margin. Measured across our accounts, Uber’s commission runs a fairly narrow 17–23% of sales — and it is essentially fixed. Everything else that separates gross sales from payout is marketing spend, which is a decision. Unmanaged, that decision gets made by default, month after month. That is where the margin goes.
Every one of these is a real Uber Eats account we manage, with figures pulled directly from Uber Eats reporting. They are not all the same story — which is the point. The right move depends on where the account starts.
Situation: through all of 2025, Uber Eats sales sat flat around $6,000 a month with no marketing running on the platform. What we did: took the account over in January 2026 — negotiated rates, a graduated offer program, and a monthly payout review. Result:
+105%
Monthly Sales
$6,506 → $13,307 in six months
+95%
Monthly Orders
150 → 292, with a June peak of 343
65–74%
Payout, Every Month
Average ticket held at ~$41 — volume, not price
Read the full case →
Situation: 2025 volume was bought with $14–20K a month in discounts, and only 37 to 41 cents of every dollar reached the restaurant. What we did: rebuilt the same sales levels on a structured offer strategy instead of always-on discounting. Result:
+$9,173
More Deposited
Jun 2025 vs May 2026 — on nearly identical sales
+104%
Sales, Jan to Jul
$18,862 → $38,509 per month
60%+
Payout, Every Month
Versus 37–41% in the discount-led 2025
Read the full case →
Situation: the channel grew in 2025 on heavy discounting, with only 37 to 53 cents per dollar reaching the restaurant. What we did: restructured around profitability first, then leaned back into a concentrated offer window backed by Uber-funded ads. Result:
$43,623
Best Month on Record
+59% vs July 2025, across 19 months of data
+87%
Money Deposited
$14,419 → $27,027 vs the same month prior year
3 of 3
Locations Grew
Payout still climbed from 53% to 62%
Read the full case →
Situation: roughly one of every four dollars sold was being given back in offers and ads, and the restaurant kept as little as 45 cents per dollar. What we did: deliberately unwound the subsidy and accepted the volume trade-off. Result:
71%
July 2026 Payout
Of every $100 sold, $71 deposited — up from $49
−66%
Marketing Bill
$52,851 → $18,175 year over year
85%
Of the Money Kept
Deposits held while a third of volume was cut
Read the full case →
Read Them Together
One account doubled. One recovered nine thousand dollars a month on the same sales. One set a record without losing margin. One cut its marketing bill by two thirds and kept the money. The service is the same; the diagnosis is what changes.
Third-Party Delivery Management · Add-On
$500
per month · per location · Uber Eats · added to your current program
What the add-on includes
Commission rate negotiation through our Uber Eats partnership
Offer calendar — built, run, measured and turned off
Platform co-funding secured and applied to your campaigns
Menu and listing merchandising on the storefront
Monthly payout report — orders, promo spend, net payout
Ongoing optimization of availability, ratings and item mix
This add-on covers Uber Eats — the platform where our partnership gives you a rate advantage a single operator generally cannot negotiate, and where every case study above comes from. Your DoorDash storefront stays as it is today and is not part of this scope. The fee sits on top of your current RestoLite program, is billed the same way, and follows the same terms: month to month, 30 days’ notice. Nothing about your existing program changes.
This rate applies while Uber Eats sales stay under $15,000 a month. If the takeout channel grows past that, we re-scope it together — an account at that scale takes more hands, and we would rather agree on that in advance than surprise you with it later.
Important · How the Money Splits
The fee and the offer budget are two different things
The $500 is our management fee. The offer and promotion investment inside the platform is yours and stays under your control — we recommend it, you approve it, and it never passes through us or carries a markup. In the accounts above that investment ranges from about 3% of sales in a quiet month to the high teens during a deliberate growth push. Platform co-funding, which we negotiate, reduces what you actually pay. We will never scale that spend without showing you what the payout did last month.
The Arithmetic
What it takes for the fee to pay for itself
At $10,000 a month in platform sales, a five-point improvement in payout share is $500 — the fee. Across the four accounts above, payout moved by 15 to 24 points. We are not promising your account will do the same, because we have not read it yet and every account starts somewhere different. The point is narrower than that: the fee is covered by a fraction of the improvement we typically see, and the monthly report is what tells you whether it actually happened.
There is nothing to sign today. This page exists so you and the family have the full picture before deciding — now, or whenever the takeout volume makes it worth it. When you are ready, it is three steps:
01
A Read of the Account
We sit down with Jeet and go through the Uber Eats account together — current rate, offer history, payout trend. About an hour, and it costs nothing.
02
We Come Back With What It Says
You get a straight read of what the channel is doing today and what we believe it could do — including, honestly, if the answer is that it is already running well.
03
We Take It Over
Rate negotiation goes in motion, the offer calendar gets built around your most-ordered items, and the first monthly payout report lands 30 days later.
