Why your Deliveroo menu is costing you more than commission

Commission is the number every operator watches. And it's the wrong number to focus on.

Yes, 25-30% to Deliveroo stings. But a menu that converts badly, with items that don't rank, photography that doesn't click and bundles that don't build basket size — that costs you far more than a percentage point of commission ever could. The gap between a passive listing and an optimised one typically runs to thousands of pounds a month, site by site.

Here's what that gap actually looks like.

How the platform ranks your items

Deliveroo's search and browse algorithm rewards performance. Items that get ordered convert to more orders. Items with strong photography rank above items without. Items with keyword-rich names surface in category searches; items called "Chicken Burger" don't.

Most menus are built by chefs, not for platforms. The name that sounds right on a printed menu isn't the name someone types when they open the app hungry at 7pm. "Crispy Korean-style chicken thigh burger with gochujang mayo" is a better Deliveroo item name than "Korean Chicken" — not because it's more poetic, but because it captures search intent and tells a customer what they're getting before they click.

Photography: the click you don't get

The majority of restaurants on Deliveroo use either no photography or photography taken on a phone under kitchen strip lighting. On a platform where a customer scrolls past 40 restaurants before they choose one, that matters enormously.

A professional, well-lit hero image on your most popular item can improve click-through rate by a significant margin. And click-through rate feeds the algorithm. Better photography means more clicks, more orders, better ranking, more exposure. The compounding effect is real.

You don't need to shoot your entire menu. Start with your top five items by volume, get them shot properly, and watch what happens to their performance. In our experience working with operators across London, a single photography refresh on key items generates a measurable uplift within weeks.

Bundle logic and average order value

Platforms push their own upsell prompts, but they're blunt instruments. A well-structured menu does the bundle work for you.

Meal deals, add-on prompts at the item level, side pairing suggestions built into item descriptions — these aren't tricks, they're the same mechanics a good server uses when they suggest a side with your main. On delivery, you don't have a server. Your menu structure has to do it.

Operators who treat bundle logic as a menu-build decision rather than a platform feature consistently see higher average order values. The arithmetic is simple: a 15% uplift on average basket across 200 weekly orders adds up fast.

Price anchoring

How you price items relative to each other shapes what customers choose. A menu with a single price tier trains customers to order the cheapest thing. A menu with thoughtful anchoring — a premium option that makes the mid-tier feel like value, a bundle that makes the standalone item feel expensive — sells more of what you want to sell.

This isn't about inflating prices. It's about understanding that the order in which items are listed, and how they're priced relative to one another, has a direct effect on what ends up in the basket.

The active versus passive menu

Most operators set their Deliveroo menu and revisit it occasionally when they launch a new dish or change their prices. The operators generating serious revenue from delivery treat it as a live asset.

That means reviewing item performance weekly. Pulling items that don't convert. Testing name and description changes. Running promotions against your highest-margin items rather than your lowest. Tracking how competitors in your category are positioning and pricing, and adjusting accordingly.

This is the work Pace does for the operators we run. It's not glamorous work, but the compounding effect of small, consistent improvements to menu performance — month over month — is what separates operators who treat delivery as a frustrating overhead from operators who treat it as a growth channel.

Commission is fixed. Menu performance isn't. That's where the opportunity sits.