Foodhub Alternative: The Best Foodhub Alternatives for Takeaways
What is Foodhub?
Foodhub is a delivery and collection marketplace that most UK takeaways know by name. It sells itself as the cheaper option next to Just Eat and Uber Eats: you pay a flat monthly fee instead of a commission on every order.
At high volumes that does look cheaper. A fixed fee doesn't grow when your orders do, and a percentage cut does. The catch is what you don't get for the money. The customer orders from Foodhub, not from you. You never see their email address or phone number, you can't text them a voucher, and when they want food again next Friday they open the app and scroll through every other takeaway in the area. Plenty of owners work this out after a year or so and start looking for a way to build something of their own.
Why takeaways look for Foodhub alternatives
Customer data is the first reason, and usually the biggest. Foodhub holds the relationship. Someone who has ordered from you forty times is still Foodhub's customer, and you have no way to contact them.
Then there's competition on the same screen. Your menu sits next to every other takeaway on the platform, so customers compare on price and delivery time. If you're not the cheapest or the fastest, you lose the order, however good the food is.
You're also exposed to someone else's decisions. If Foodhub changes its fees, drops in the rankings or loses ground to a bigger rival, your revenue moves with it and you get no say.
The tools are thin too. Foodhub doesn't give you much in the way of loyalty, marketing or CRM, so there's little you can do to turn a one-off order into a regular one.
None of this means another marketplace fixes it. Swapping Foodhub for a different aggregator gives you the same problems with a different logo. What helps is a direct ordering system where the brand, the customer list and the prices are yours.
1. Flipdish - best Foodhub alternative for takeaways
Best for UK and Irish takeaways and restaurant groups that want to build direct ordering.
Flipdish is a direct ordering platform for takeaways and restaurants in the UK and Ireland. Customers don't land on a marketplace page. They land on your own ordering website or your own mobile app, and every order adds a customer to your database.
Here's how it compares with Foodhub:
| Capability | Flipdish | Foodhub |
|---|---|---|
| Branded ordering website | ✓ | - |
| Branded mobile app | ✓ | - |
| Customer data ownership | ✓ | - |
| Built-in loyalty programme | ✓ | - |
| SMS and automated marketing | ✓ | - |
| POS integration | ✓ | Varies |
| AI Phone Agent | ✓ | - |
| Self-service kiosks | ✓ | - |
The customer list is the part that changes things. Each order through Flipdish adds to a database you own, and you can use it. Run loyalty campaigns, send SMS marketing when Tuesdays are quiet, set up automated promotions for people who haven't ordered in a month. Nobody takes a cut each time a regular comes back.
The branded website and app mean customers order from you and only you. There's no row of competitors underneath your menu.
Loyalty is built in: points, vouchers, automated campaigns and a CRM. You don't need a separate tool or a separate login.
With POS integration, online orders go straight to the kitchen. Nobody types them in again and there's no spare tablet by the counter.
The AI Phone Agent answers phone orders, takes payment and suggests extras. If your takeaway still gets a lot of calls on a Friday night, that's a lot of staff time handed back.
You don't have to drop the marketplaces to try this. Marketplace order management pulls orders from Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo into the same kitchen queue as your direct orders, so you keep taking them without extra tablets or re-keying.
The reasoning is simple. Every customer you move from a marketplace to your own channel stops costing you commission on all their later orders. One order isn't much. A customer who orders twice a month for two years is.
Pricing is on the Flipdish online ordering pricing page.
2. Just Eat
Best for takeaways that want volume from a big marketplace.
Just Eat is still the largest food delivery marketplace in the UK by order volume. If you need a lot of customers quickly, it can deliver them. You pay for that in commission, typically somewhere between 14% and 30% depending on your contract.
The drawbacks are the ones you'd expect. You don't own the customer data. You compete with every other takeaway on the platform. And you can't market directly to people who ordered from you through Just Eat, even if they've ordered from you a dozen times.
It's a good way to find new customers. It's a poor thing to build a whole business on, because one platform then controls your order flow and your margin. The better approach is to run Just Eat next to a direct channel, not instead of one.
3. Uber Eats
Best for takeaways and restaurants in cities with a lot of Uber users.
Uber Eats works mainly in larger cities and is well known among younger customers. The commission structure is close to Just Eat's.
You pay high commission on each order and you get no customer data. Coverage is concentrated in urban areas, so if you're in a smaller town it may do little for you. And your visibility depends on Uber Eats' algorithm, which you can't see or control.
Like Just Eat, it brings orders in but it isn't a sound business on its own. City operators tend to keep it for volume and sit a direct ordering platform alongside it.
4. Deliveroo
Best for premium restaurants and urban takeaways.
Deliveroo aims at the upper end of the delivery market and has a strong brand in the UK. Commission is in line with the other big marketplaces.
Again, commission is high, there's no customer data, and reach drops off outside major cities. How many orders you get depends heavily on the algorithm.
The customer ownership argument is the same as for the others. Deliveroo is a useful channel for orders. It doesn't replace having your own.
5. Building your own ordering channel
Best for takeaways with someone in-house who can run the technology.
Some owners think about getting a website built and taking orders themselves. The instinct is right, because owning the customer relationship is the whole point. The execution is where it gets hard without a specialist platform.
A custom site needs menu management with real-time updates, payment processing, a POS connection so orders print in the kitchen, and ongoing maintenance when something breaks on a Saturday night. Someone has to do all of it, and keep doing it.
A purpose-built platform like Flipdish comes with those pieces already working, plus a team that deals with restaurant technology all day. Building from scratch usually costs more in time and money than using one that exists.
What to check before you switch
Ask any provider, Flipdish included, a few plain questions. Does it connect to the POS you already use, or do you need a new one? Who pays the card processing fees, and how much are they? How do payouts reach your bank account, and how fast? Can you export your customer list if you ever leave?
Check the menu setup too. If you have a long menu with modifiers, like sizes, sauces and extras, ask to see how it looks on a phone before you commit. Most of your direct orders will come from phones, so that screen matters more than the desktop site.
Last, work out your own numbers. Pull a month of marketplace statements, add up the commission you paid, and compare it with the pricing page. That figure tells you how many direct orders you need before the move pays for itself.
The commission calculation
Take a takeaway doing 500 orders a month at an average of £25, all through a marketplace charging 20%.
- Sales: £12,500 a month
- Commission: £2,500 a month
- Commission over a year: £30,000
Now suppose 100 of those 500 orders a month come through your own website or app instead. That's £2,500 of sales no longer charged at 20%, so you keep £500 a month, or £6,000 a year. At 200 direct orders a month it's £1,000 a month and £12,000 a year.
A direct ordering platform has a monthly subscription, so those savings aren't pure profit. The subscription is fixed, though, and the commission isn't. The more orders you move, the bigger the gap.
The saving also builds up over time, because a customer who orders directly once is far easier to get to order directly again. After two or three years you have both lower costs and a customer list with real value.
Should you leave Foodhub entirely?
Probably not straight away. What works for most takeaways is a gradual shift:
- Set up a direct ordering channel with a Flipdish website and app.
- Keep taking marketplace orders while you build direct customer relationships.
- Use loyalty, SMS marketing and promotions to get marketplace customers ordering directly.
- Cut back on marketplace spend as direct orders grow.
Small things help with step three. Put a leaflet or a QR code in every delivery bag, with a first-order discount for ordering direct. It costs next to nothing and it's the most obvious way to reach a customer who found you on a marketplace.
Flipdish is set up for this. Its marketplace order management puts Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo orders into the POS, so running two channels doesn't mean running two workflows.
For more comparisons of restaurant and takeaway technology, see restauranttech.co.uk.
Ready to build your direct ordering channel?
Flipdish gives UK takeaways a branded website, an app, a loyalty programme and marketing tools on one platform. You own the customer relationship, and the commission stays with you.
