Online ordering for restaurants in India, without the aggregator cut

Running direct ordering in an Indian restaurant: what the first month looks like

The first thing most owners notice after switching on a direct ordering link is not the saving. It is the phone. WhatsApp messages that used to say “bhaiya, what is the menu today?” turn into a link reply, and the order arrives typed, paid and with an address. The saving shows up at the end of the month when the aggregator settlement is smaller because some of the regulars went elsewhere, to you.

Aggregators and direct are different tools

Swiggy and Zomato are discovery channels. A student who moved to Whitefield last week finds you there. Nobody is suggesting you switch them off. What they are not good at is cheap repeat business: the same customer ordering the same chicken 65 every Friday still costs you the full commission every Friday, and you still do not have their number.

A direct link is the opposite. It brings in almost nobody on its own, but every order through it is yours. Restaurants that do well with it tend to have one of three things: a dine-in crowd that can be pointed at a QR code, a social media following, or a delivery radius small enough that the same families order every week. If you have none of those yet, start anyway, but expect the direct share to grow slowly. Start anyway; the direct share grows with every bag that leaves with a QR on it.

UPI changed the economics of collecting payment

Five years ago, collecting money online meant card fees that ate a visible chunk of a ₹200 order. UPI changed that. On Razorpay’s published standard plan (May 2026) the platform fee is 2 per cent per successful transaction across domestic methods, with 18 per cent GST on the fee itself, so a ₹300 dosa order costs roughly ₹7 to collect. The gateway is the only percentage on a direct order; Tuckly does not add one.

Two practical notes. First, the gateway fee is on the amount collected, so if you pass a delivery charge to the customer, the fee applies to that too. Second, if you allow cash on delivery or pay-at-counter for parcels, ask us how that is handled on your account rather than assuming it; this page describes online payment.

GST and FSSAI on direct bills

When an order comes through an aggregator, the platform has paid GST on the restaurant service since January 2022. When it comes through your own site, you are back to the position you are in for a walk-in customer: 5 per cent GST charged on the bill and remitted by you, without input tax credit for a standalone restaurant (the GST Council’s September 2025 press release confirms standalone restaurants cannot opt into the 18 per cent with credit route). Your accountant already handles this for dine-in; direct orders simply join that pile.

FSSAI’s 2021 order requires the 14-digit licence or registration number on bills and receipts, enforced from January 2022, and FSSAI’s 2024 direction bars e-commerce food platforms from listing any business that does not display a valid licence. Enter your number once during setup and it prints on every direct order bill.

Delivery is the part to plan carefully

Porter is the reason a restaurant with no riders can offer delivery on its own site. It runs two-wheeler delivery across the cities on its site, and its API is available for two-wheelers. The honest caveats are on the Porter integration page: there is no self-serve developer portal, so the depth of automation inside Tuckly is being validated with Porter’s enterprise team, and the workflow we promise today is requesting a rider against an order.

If you already employ a rider, assign orders to them from the order screen. If you do both, choose per order: Porter for the far-off address at 9pm, your own rider for the three orders going to the same apartment complex. Delivery areas and charges are yours to set, and a charge that covers the trip without scaring people off is worth an evening of thought.

Where the first direct orders come from

Four places, in the order that works for most restaurants: the Google Business Profile order link, because people searching your name are already customers; the QR sticker on every parcel bag; the Instagram bio and story highlight; and a WhatsApp Business auto-reply with the link. A table card for dine-in guests comes next. None of this needs a budget, and the commission calculator will tell you what each hundred orders moved is worth with your numbers.