How to choose an online ordering system for a small food business

The right online ordering system for a small café or takeaway is the one whose whole-year cost you can write on the back of an envelope, that pays card money into your own account, and that your busiest shift can run without anyone thinking about it. Everything else is detail. The trouble is that the detail is where the sales call goes, so here are the eight questions we'd ask in your shoes, in the order that saves you the most time.

You can use this list on any provider, us included.

1. What does it cost in a year?

Monthly prices are easy to compare and easy to misread. Add up four things for twelve months: the monthly fee, any fee per order, the card fees, and anything you pay once (set-up, a tablet, a printer, a menu-loading charge).

The fee per order is the one that grows with you. Say you take £4,000 a month in online orders. A charge of 5% per order is £200 a month, which is £2,400 a year, on top of the card fees. A flat monthly fee stays the same whether it's a quiet January or a mad December. Neither is wrong, but you should know which one you're signing up to, and work out the year total at the volume you actually do.

Card fees are worth one specific question: is the rate the payment company's own, or has the ordering system added a margin on top? Ask for the rate on a normal UK debit card and on a business card, because they differ.

2. How long is the contract, and how do you leave?

Ask three things. How much notice do you have to give? Is there a fee to leave early? And what do you take with you: your domain, your menu, your photos, your customer list?

A monthly plan with nothing to hand back is the safe default for a small shop. If a provider wants a twelve-month term, ask what you get for it. Sometimes it's a better price, which is fair. Sometimes it's just harder to leave.

3. Where does the money land?

Some systems take the card payment into their own account and pay you out later, weekly or fortnightly, minus their fees. Others take it straight into an account in your business name, so the money is yours from the moment the customer pays.

The second is better for cash flow, and it means there's nobody to chase if a payout is late. Ask who the payment is in the name of, how long it takes to reach your bank, and who handles a refund when a customer complains.

4. How do orders reach the kitchen?

Picture a Friday at seven. Does a new order ring until somebody deals with it, or does it sit silently on a screen? Can it print a ticket at the pass, or is it a tablet only? Is there a backup, like an email copy, if the tablet's battery dies or the Wi-Fi drops?

Ask to see the screen your staff will use, not the one the customer sees. A good one shows the order, the time it's wanted, collection or delivery, and the phone number, without anyone scrolling.

5. Do your app orders arrive on the same screen?

If you sell on Uber Eats, Deliveroo or Just Eat, you already have a tablet for each one. A new ordering system that adds one more screen is solving half the problem. Ask whether orders from the apps you're on can land on the same screen as the ones from your own site, so the kitchen works from one queue.

6. Who changes the menu, and how fast?

Dishes sell out. Prices go up. Ask what happens at half eight when the lamb runs out: can you mark it sold out in a tap, and does that change reach your own site and the apps you sell on, or do you do it three times?

Ask the same about price changes and photos. If the answer is "you log into each one", that's a job you'll do forever.

7. Who sets it up?

Plenty of systems hand you a login and an empty menu. Typing in sixty dishes with their prices and descriptions takes an evening if you're quick, and the mistakes show up as refunds. Ask whether they build the menu for you, and whether you get to check it before a single order comes in.

8. Whose customer list is it?

When somebody orders from your own site, you should get their name and phone number with the order, and the list should be yours to keep if you leave. Ask what you can export, and whether the system will ever market other restaurants to your customers.

Questions to take to the call

If you only remember a few, take these:

• What's the total for a year at my volume, card fees included?
• Is there a fee per order, and is there a margin on the card rate?
• Is it monthly, and what do I take with me if I leave?
• Does the card money go into an account in my name?
• Can my app orders come onto the same screen?
• If I mark a dish sold out, where does that change show up?
• Do you load the menu, or do I?

Where Rowbo fits

We built Rowbo around those answers, so here's how it does against the list.

Ordering plans are £50, £149 or from £349 a month per location, billed monthly, with no contract and no fee per order. Card payments are from 1.5% + 20p on every plan, which is Stripe's own standard rate with nothing added by us (checked 3 October 2026). On a £25 card order that's £0.58, and you keep £24.42. The money goes into your own Stripe account, in your business name.

We build your site and menu from your Google listing and your menu, and you check it before you switch ordering on. Orders for collection, your own delivery or the table ring on a phone or tablet you already have, with an email ticket as a backup and a receipt printer if you want one. Your orders from Uber Eats and Deliveroo come onto the same screen, and when you change the menu once with us, we update it on each app you sell on.

We don't supply riders, and we don't take table bookings.

If the list points our way, see how ordering works and what each plan includes.