Restaurant Online Ordering in Alberta: What the Apps Take, and What to Do About It

Ask an Alberta restaurant owner what the delivery apps take and you'll get a wince before you get a number. The apps bring orders — real ones — but on margins of 3–9%, a 25% commission means many of those orders lose money once food cost and packaging are counted.

Here's what the platforms actually charge in 2026, what the direct-ordering alternative really costs, and a section specifically for Chinese restaurants — where the web gap (and the opportunity) is biggest.

What do Skip, Uber Eats and DoorDash actually take?

The 2026 numbers for Canadian restaurants:

• SkipTheDishes: roughly 25–30% commission on delivery orders, 11–14% on pickup — plus tablet rental in some markets and paid placement fees
• Uber Eats: tiered — Lite 15%, Plus 25% (the standard tier for most independents), Premium 30% with priority placement
• DoorDash: similar tiers — plus one option worth knowing: orders through its website-ordering product are commission-free, card fees only (~2.9% + 30¢)

Concretely: on a $40 delivery order at 25%, $10 leaves before you've paid for the food. A restaurant doing $8,000/month through the apps at that rate hands over roughly $24,000 a year. There's no commission cap in Alberta — the pandemic-era caps ended, and no permanent federal or provincial cap exists in 2026.

Should you just quit the apps?

No — and the restaurants that thrive don't. The apps are a discovery channel: a customer who's never heard of you scrolls, finds you, orders. That first order at 25% is expensive marketing, but it's marketing.

The leak is repeat orders. When your Tuesday regulars order through Skip because it's the button they know, you're paying a finder's fee for customers you already found. The fix isn't leaving the apps — it's giving regulars an easier direct path:

• A flyer in every app bag: "Order direct next time — here's 10% off"
• A QR code on tables and takeout counters that opens your menu, not a PDF
• A direct-order button on your website and Google profile that's faster than the app

What does direct ordering actually cost?

This is where owners expect a big number and the honest answer is small:

• DoorDash website ordering: commission-free on your own site's orders; you pay card fees
• Dedicated ordering systems: typically $50–$150/month flat
• Ordering built into your own site with Stripe: card fees only (~2.9% + 30¢) — on that $40 order, about $1.46 instead of $10
• Need delivery? Courier services charge a flat $5–$7 per drop — a fee you can pass on or split, instead of a percentage of the bill

"We're on Skip and we have Facebook — do we still need a website?"

Yes, and here's the specific reason: Google is where hungry people search — "thai food near me," "best pho calgary," "chinese food airdrie." The apps rank themselves for those searches, then charge you commission when your own customer clicks through. Facebook posts don't rank at all. A real website with your menu as readable text is the only version of your restaurant Google can actually show searchers — and the only channel where the customer relationship (and their reorder) belongs to you.

What's different for Chinese restaurants?

Chinese restaurants are consistently the best food in town with the weakest web presence — and the two facts are related. The specific gaps:

• The menu is a photo. Most Chinese restaurant menus online are JPEG scans. Google cannot read a photo — which means the restaurant is invisible for every dish-level search in both languages. The single highest-return fix is a real HTML menu.
• One language, half the market. A bilingual text menu (English + 中文) ranks for "dim sum calgary" and 中餐/点心 searches, serves the WeChat crowd and the non-Chinese family equally, and ends the phone calls asking what's in the dish.
• Two names, one profile. If customers know you by an English name and a Chinese name, both belong on your Google Business Profile and website text — people search both, and Google should match either.
• Word-of-mouth is strong but sealed. WeChat groups and family referrals fill tables, but they're invisible to new residents and non-Chinese customers. The restaurants winning those searches aren't better — they're just readable.

What actually moves online orders?

In priority order: a text menu with prices Google can read (bilingual if your customers are), accurate hours on your Google profile (nothing kills a dinner order like a wrong "closed"), real photos of the food, a direct-order button ahead of the app links, and a steady trickle of reviews. None of it is exotic — it's the boring plumbing most competitors haven't done, which is exactly why it works.