There I was, trying to push my restaurant online, thinking it’d be a breeze. It took me a while to wrap my head around all the different fees and costs. Let me walk you through what I learned about setup costs, monthly fees, and those pesky transaction fees. It took some effort to make sure I picked a platform that wouldn’t break the bank but still did what I needed it to do.
🤣 “I plunged into the depths of platform fee structures, navigating a maze of service fees, delivery fees, and marketing fees. It felt like deciphering a secret menu in a foreign land, each twist revealing new surprises” Quote of the day
The Upfront Stuff: Setup Costs
First up, setup costs. This is the cash you shell out at the beginning to get things rolling. For me, this meant getting our menu online, hooking up our current sales system, training my crew on how to use it, and tweaking things here and there so it worked for us.
The price tag for this part? It depended on how fancy we wanted to get and how well it needed to work with our existing setup. I opted for the simplest plan for starters, knowing that I could upgrade later if needed.
The Monthly Bite: Subscription Fees
Next were the subscription fees – that’s the regular bill for keeping the platform up and running for your restaurant. Turns out, there’s a whole menu of options here, from basic to premium, each with its own set of features like how many orders it can handle, the kind of data insights you get, and tools to improve order management. Picking the right plan felt a bit like ordering off a fancy restaurant menu without prices listed – exciting but kind of nerve-wracking. I had to figure out what we actually needed versus what would be nice to have, all while keeping an eye on the bottom line.
Every Swipe Counts: Transaction Fees
And then there’s the kicker – transaction fees. Every time someone places an order or makes a booking through the platform, a little slice of that goes to the platform. It might be a flat fee per transaction or a percentage of the sale, or sometimes both. At first glance, these fees seem small, but they add up fast. Based on our usual order sizes and volume, I crunched some numbers to see what these fees would look like. The last thing I wanted was those fees eating up all our profits.
So there you have it – my journey through the maze of platform fees. It was a bit of a balancing act, making sure we chose something that fit our budget without skimping on the features we needed to grow. But in the end, getting our restaurant online has opened up so many doors. Just goes to show, with a little digging and a lot of questions, you can find the right fit for your place too.
Before you decide on your online ordering system, read our simple guide. It takes you through a process of how to select an online ordering system for your restaurant.
