Check if your delivery food cost is calculated separately from dine-in

This item passes if you keep a separate costing sheet for your delivery menu instead of reusing the dine-in one. The mistake I see over and over in kitchens across Bogotá, Medellín, and Mexico City is identical: they calculate food cost for the dine-in plate and copy it straight into the app. That oversight costs 8 to 14 margin points per order, based on the average ticket we audit at Masterestaurant. Platforms like Rappi, Uber Eats, or DiDi Food charge commissions ranging from 18% on basic plans to 35% on plans that include marketing, and almost no restaurant builds a distinct menu structure to absorb that cost. If your costing spreadsheet has a single column for both channels, you're already losing money without knowing it. The fix takes one afternoon: duplicate the sheet, add each platform's real commission, and compare the resulting margin against your 32% food cost ceiling.

Does your delivery price cover the commission without killing your margin?

This item passes if your app price already includes an 8% to 15% markup over the dine-in price, calculated on each platform's real commission.

The 2026 reality is that the delivery channel already accounts for 22% to 40% of revenue in urban restaurants, based on the data we gather in Masterestaurant consulting engagements, so you can't treat it as a marginal channel anymore. Ignoring the commission in your pricing isn't a social media myth: it's an accounting decision that drags real food cost up to 38%-45%, well above the recommended 32% ceiling. I've seen owners raise app prices 40% overnight and lose orders because the customer compares against competitors on the same screen. The right adjustment is gradual, dish by dish, prioritizing the highest-volume, lowest-current-margin items first. This item passes if no single platform accounts for more than 60% of your delivery orders.

Review whether your platform mix concentrates risk in a single app

Restaurants that depend 80% or more on one app are exposed to any unilateral commission change, and in Latin America those adjustments have reached up to 5 percentage points in recent contract renewals. A real case: a ghost kitchen in Mexico City we audited at Masterestaurant had 92% of its volume on a single platform; when that platform raised its commission from 22% to 27%, operating margin dropped from 11% to 4% in a month because the owner didn't adjust prices in time. Diversifying across two or three platforms, even if it adds operational work, reduces that concentration risk. The goal isn't maximizing total orders, it's sustaining margin when one platform decides to change the rules. This item passes if your delivery packaging costs less than 3% of the average ticket and survives real delivery time without ruining the dish.

Confirm you're packaging for delivery, not for dine-in

Poor packaging choices generate up to 12% of orders with complaints or refunds, based on historical data we track in Masterestaurant consulting work, and every refund erases margin twice: once in the dish's cost and again in the commission already paid to the platform. The common mistake is using one generic packaging style for the entire menu, when pasta needs different ventilation than a burger. Spending an extra 200 to 400 pesos per order on category-specific packaging cuts complaints by 60% in the cases we've measured. That savings in refunds almost always outweighs the extra cost of the right packaging. This item passes if you can state, without a calculator, how many daily orders per platform you need to cover in-house delivery staff payroll, packaging, and commission before generating any profit. Most owners we work with at Masterestaurant know their dine-in break-even point but not their delivery one, and these are completely different cost structures.

Do you know your real break-even point per delivery channel?

Payroll, rent, and fixed utilities don't get charged to the individual dish, they go into the channel's overall break-even calculation; mixing both costing methods is the second most common mistake we see after miscalculated food cost.

A mid-size restaurant in Medellín we audited needed 34 daily orders per platform to cover its fixed delivery costs; it was running 21, meaning it carried a hidden loss on that channel for eight straight months. Calculate that number before deciding whether staying on a platform is still worth it. This item passes if every dollar spent on sponsored promotions inside the platform has a measured return in incremental orders, not just visibility. Marketing plans that push commission from 18% up to 30% or 35% promise more visibility, but in the cases we've reviewed at Masterestaurant, only 4 out of 10 restaurants get enough extra orders to cover that added commission cost.

Check if you're paying for in-app advertising without measuring return

The mistake is signing up for the premium plan under the platform's sales pressure, without running a one-month test comparing the same dish with and without paid promotion. If your commission went up and your orders didn't grow at least 15% in that period, you're paying for advertising that isn't converting into margin, and the right move is to downgrade the plan immediately. This item passes if your delivery menu has 30% to 40% fewer items than your dine-in menu, prioritizing the dishes with the lowest food cost and best transport resistance. It's a myth to think the solution to commissions is just raising prices without touching anything else; the reality, and I've seen this in dozens of restaurants through Masterestaurant consulting, is that trimming the menu to the most profitable dishes cuts ingredient waste and speeds up kitchen times, which improves app ratings and, with them, organic order volume.

Does your delivery menu have fewer dishes, not just higher prices

A restaurant that cut its delivery menu from 45 to 27 dishes recovered 6 margin points in three months without raising a single price, simply by removing the dishes that contributed least and consumed the most relative commission due to their low ticket size.