Swiggy and Zomato Commission for Bakeries: What You Really Keep From a ₹1,000 Cake

When a baker signs up with Swiggy or Zomato, the number they hear is the commission rate. Somewhere between 15% and 25% is common. It sounds manageable.

Then the first payout arrives and it's smaller than expected. That's because the commission rate is only part of the cost.

What actually gets deducted

For most restaurants and bakeries, the deductions look roughly like this:

• Base commission: usually around 15% to 25% of the order value, depending on your contract, city and whether you use the platform's delivery
• GST on that commission: 18%, charged on the commission amount
• Payment processing charges on online-paid orders
• Discounts you agreed to fund, if you joined an offer or campaign
• Ads, if you paid to show up higher in search

(DineOpen, Petpooja)

Petpooja, which builds software for restaurants, puts it simply: the commission in your contract is not the total cost of being on the platform.

What you keep from a ₹1,000 cake

Commission and the GST on it alone, before payment charges, discounts or ads:

Now put that against your costs. If your 1 kg cake costs you ₹680 to make once you count ingredients, packaging and your time (we showed the maths in our pricing guide), then at 25% commission you're left with about ₹25. One discount campaign and you're losing money on every order.

Over a month

Say you sell 80 cakes a month through the apps at an average of ₹800, at 20% commission.

Commission plus GST is ₹188.80 per order. Over 80 orders, that's ₹15,104 a month, or about ₹1.8 lakh a year.

For many home bakers and small cake shops, that's more than rent. It's worth knowing the number, even if you decide the apps are still worth it.

Why bakers raise prices on the apps

This is why the same cake often costs more on Swiggy than at the counter. Plenty of bakers set higher prices on the app to cover commission. Read your own contract for any price parity terms before you do it.

The catch: higher app prices can make you look expensive next to bakeries that don't raise theirs. It's a balancing act.

When the apps are worth it

To be fair to them, the apps do things that are hard to do alone:

• They put you in front of thousands of people who have never heard of you
• They handle delivery, which matters a lot if you don't have a rider
• They bring late-night and impulse orders you'd never get otherwise

If most of your app orders are from new customers, you're paying for marketing, and that can make sense.

When they aren't

The maths turns against you when the same customers keep ordering through the app. Your regular who orders a cake every month for office birthdays is paying commission to a platform for a relationship you built.

Those are the orders to move to a direct channel: your own order link, your own UPI, and delivery through a same-day courier or your own rider.

How to reduce what you pay

1. Know your real number. Look at your last three payouts and work out the total deducted as a percentage of order value. Not the contract rate. The real one.
2. Negotiate once you have volume. Platforms do negotiate with high-volume partners. Ask at your next account review.
3. Be careful with discounts. Platform-run offers can bring orders, but check who funds the discount before you join.
4. Build a direct channel for repeat customers. Give them a reason and an easy way to order from you directly next time.