Choosing the best online ordering system for restaurants is less about features and more about who ends up owning the relationship with your customer. Some systems take a cut of every order. Some rent you a page on their domain. Some run on your own website and charge nothing per order. This comparison lays out the main types, the trade-offs of each, and where RestroPress fits, including the things it is not good at.
How to judge an online ordering system for restaurants
Before comparing names, agree on what matters. For most independent restaurants it comes down to six questions:
- What does it cost per order? Commission-based systems look free until you do the maths on a busy Friday. Uber Eats, for example, publishes US marketplace fees of 20% to 30% per delivery order plus 7% to 10% on pickup (Uber Eats pricing). A flat monthly or yearly fee is easier to predict.
- Who owns the customer data? If you cannot export your customers and order history, you are renting, not owning.
- Is it on your domain? Ordering on yourrestaurant.com builds your brand and your search presence. Ordering on platform.com/yourrestaurant builds theirs.
- Which order types does it handle? Pickup, delivery, dine-in at the table, scheduled orders, pre-orders.
- Does it fit your operations? Kitchen printing or a kitchen screen, delivery zones, opening hours and cut-offs, staff apps.
- What happens if the vendor changes course? The GloriaFood shutdown in April 2027 (notice on gloriafood.com) is a reminder that free hosted platforms can disappear.
The four types of restaurant online ordering system
1. Delivery marketplaces (Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, Just Eat, Deliveroo)
What they are: apps with a large existing audience that list your restaurant alongside hundreds of others and, if you want, handle delivery with their own drivers.
Strengths: immediate reach to people who have never heard of you; you do not need to run delivery; no setup cost.
Weaknesses: the commission. Published rates run from the mid-teens to 30% of the order value depending on plan and whether you use their drivers; the customer is theirs, not yours, and you cannot market to them directly; you compete on the same screen as every rival in your postcode.
Best for: new-customer acquisition, and as a secondary channel. Not a good home for your regulars.
2. Hosted ordering platforms (ChowNow, Menufy, Owner, Square Online, Toast Online Ordering and similar)
What they are: a branded ordering page or widget hosted by the vendor, usually for a monthly fee, sometimes with a per-order fee or payment-processing mark-up on top. Some are tied to a specific POS.
Strengths: quick to launch; the vendor handles hosting, updates and uptime; often integrated with their own POS or marketing tools.
Weaknesses: you are locked to the vendor’s roadmap and pricing; the ordering page is often on their domain or embedded as a widget; data export varies; if you leave, you start over. Check each vendor’s current pricing page, because plans change often and we would rather not quote figures that go stale.
Best for: restaurants that already use that vendor’s POS and want one supplier for everything.
3. General e-commerce platforms with a restaurant add-on (Shopify, WooCommerce)
What they are: online shops bent into restaurant ordering with apps or plugins.
Strengths: very flexible; huge ecosystems; you own the site.
Weaknesses: they are built for shipping products, not for a kitchen. Pickup times, delivery zones, “ready in 25 minutes”, table numbers and kitchen tickets all have to be bolted on, and the checkout flow tends to feel like buying a T-shirt rather than ordering dinner.
Best for: restaurants that also sell merchandise, sauces or gift cards and want one shop for it all.
4. Restaurant ordering plugins on your own WordPress site (RestroPress)
What it is: an ordering system that installs on your own WordPress website. RestroPress is our plugin; the free version on WordPress.org handles pickup, delivery and dine-in ordering, a menu with add-ons and dietary labels, scheduled orders and pre-orders, customer accounts with one-tap reorder, a live orders board, and PayPal, Stripe and cash on delivery. It does not need WooCommerce.
Strengths: no commission and no per-order fee; the site, menu, customers and orders are yours and sit in your own database; it runs on your domain; it works with the hosting and theme you already have; paid plans add the operational pieces (delivery zones, store timings, order tracking app, kitchen display, QR dine-in) as a yearly licence rather than a percentage. See the pricing page and the full extensions list.
Weaknesses, honestly:
- You need a WordPress site and decent hosting, and someone has to keep WordPress, the theme and the plugins updated. If nobody on your team is comfortable with that, factor in an agency or a maintenance plan.
- There is no built-in driver marketplace. If you do not have your own drivers, you still need a courier arrangement or a marketplace for delivery.
- Reach is yours to build. A plugin on your site does not bring you new customers the way an app with millions of users does. It is for serving the customers you have and the ones you win through Google, social media and word of mouth.
- Some features that hosted platforms include by default (SMS alerts, delivery zones, kitchen display) are paid extensions here. The upside is you only pay for what you use; the downside is a longer shopping list on day one.
Best for: independent restaurants and small groups that already have a WordPress site, want a commission-free channel for repeat customers, and want to own their data.
A side-by-side summary
| Type | Cost model | On your domain | You own customer data | Brings new customers | Needs technical upkeep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketplace apps | Percentage of each order | No | No | Yes | No |
| Hosted ordering platforms | Monthly fee, sometimes plus per-order | Sometimes | Varies | Limited | No |
| Shopify / WooCommerce | Monthly fee plus apps | Yes | Yes | No | Some |
| RestroPress on WordPress | Free core; yearly licence for extensions | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
The approach most restaurants end up with
Very few restaurants should pick only one. The pattern that works is a marketplace listing for discovery, and a commission-free ordering system on your own website for everyone who comes back. Your job is then to move people from the first to the second: a card in the bag, a better price direct, a loyalty scheme, and a link on your Google Business Profile that goes to your site rather than to an app.
If you are weighing up the move, the RestroPress docs show exactly what the setup involves before you install anything, and the free plugin lets you test the whole ordering flow on a staging site without spending a penny.
Frequently asked questions
Which online ordering system is cheapest for a small restaurant?
Per order, a plugin on your own website is cheapest because there is no commission. In cash terms the free RestroPress plugin plus your existing hosting costs nothing extra; the paid plans are a fixed yearly amount regardless of how many orders you take. Marketplaces are the most expensive per order but cost nothing to join, which is why they make sense as an acquisition channel rather than your main one.
Do I need a developer to set up RestroPress?
Not for a standard setup. If you can install a WordPress plugin and add menu items, you can get pickup and delivery ordering live in an afternoon by following the setup wizard. You may want help for a custom design, POS integration, or moving a large menu across from another platform.
Can I use RestroPress alongside Uber Eats or DoorDash?
Yes. Many restaurants run both. RestroPress handles orders from your own website; the marketplaces handle theirs. Orders arrive in separate places unless you use a POS integration, so plan where staff will watch for each.
