Foodhub Alternative: The Best Foodhub Alternatives for Takeaways
The best Foodhub alternative
The best alternative to Foodhub for UK takeaways is Flipdish. It gives you a direct ordering channel - your own website, your own mobile app and phone ordering - so orders that come through it carry no commission.
Foodhub is a marketplace. It puts takeaways in front of local customers and charges less commission than Just Eat or Deliveroo, which is the main reason independents sign up. It still takes a cut of every order, though. It also keeps the customer details, and it decides how your menu and brand appear on the page.
Below are five alternatives, who each one suits, and what to sort out before you move anything across.
Why takeaways look for a Foodhub alternative
Commission comes first. A lower rate is still a rate. If you take £10,000 a month through Foodhub, several hundred pounds of that goes to the platform, and it happens again next month and the month after.
Then the data. When someone orders through Foodhub, you get the order and Foodhub gets the customer. You can't text a regular a Friday offer, you can't tell last month's first-timers about a new menu, and you can't run a loyalty scheme through someone else's app.
Brand is a quieter problem. A customer who finds you on Foodhub remembers Foodhub. If most of your orders arrive that way, you're building the marketplace's name more than your own.
And control. Menu layout, pricing, promotions and how you talk to customers all sit inside whatever the marketplace allows. If the rules change, you hear about it afterwards.
1. Flipdish
Flipdish is the only option on this list where the ordering channel belongs to you.
A takeaway on Flipdish has its own ordering website and, if it wants one, its own branded mobile app. Customers who order there pay no commission to anyone. The name, phone number and order history of each customer stays with the takeaway. That's the real difference from a marketplace. On Flipdish you build the customer relationship yourself instead of renting access to someone else's.
What's in it for a takeaway:
- An online ordering website in your branding, fully managed
- A mobile app with your name on it
- AI phone ordering, which answers calls, takes the order and takes payment
- Loyalty and marketing tools: SMS campaigns, automated offers, messages to customers who haven't ordered for a while
- Marketplace management, so if you keep Foodhub running, its orders land in the same place as everything else
- An integrated POS that puts counter, online and phone orders into one queue
The phone ordering is worth a second look if your phone rings during the dinner rush. A missed call is a missed order, and nobody is paying a marketplace for it, so it's pure loss.
On cost: Flipdish charges a subscription, not commission per order. For most UK takeaways already paying commission, the crossover is where the monthly fee drops below the commission you've saved. That tends to happen after a fairly small number of orders move to the direct channel. The numbers further down show how to work it out.
It suits independent takeaways of all kinds - pizza shops, Indian and Chinese takeaways, chicken shops, kebab shops.
2. Just Eat
If all you want is more customers from a different marketplace, Just Eat is the obvious comparison. Its customer base in the UK is much bigger than Foodhub's.
It also charges higher commission. And everything that's wrong with Foodhub from an ownership point of view is just as wrong here: no customer data, no brand of your own, a cut of every order.
Just Eat makes sense if you want volume and are fine with the commission that comes with it.
3. Deliveroo
Deliveroo is mainly a delivery marketplace, and its commission is higher than Foodhub's. If you already have your own drivers, you'd mostly be using it to find new customers rather than to deliver food.
Same structural issue as the others. Deliveroo owns the customer.
It suits takeaways that need delivery logistics and are happy to pay for the reach.
4. Uber Eats
Uber Eats is widely used by UK takeaways, and customers know the name. Commission is similar to Deliveroo. Compared with Foodhub you'd get more volume and pay more for it.
Worth considering if acquiring customers is your main goal and you accept marketplace terms.
5. OrderYOYO
OrderYOYO sells direct ordering tools to independent takeaways, so like Flipdish it gives you a branded channel of your own. It's a smaller operation than Flipdish, and it doesn't cover as much. AI phone ordering, kiosk integration and multi-location management are the gaps.
A reasonable pick for a single-site takeaway that wants a simple direct ordering setup and nothing else.
Marketplace or direct
Picking between Foodhub, Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats is a smaller decision than it looks. The bigger one is how much of your business should depend on any marketplace.
| Marketplace (Foodhub, Just Eat, etc.) | Direct channel (Flipdish) | |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | Per order | Fixed monthly |
| Customer data | Platform owns it | You own it |
| Brand | Theirs | Yours |
| Loyalty | Not available | Built in |
| Marketing | Limited | Your call |
| Dependency | High | Low |
Plenty of UK takeaways run both. The marketplace brings in people who've never heard of you. The direct channel is where you keep them. Getting a customer through a marketplace is expensive, and serving that same customer again and again at commission rates costs you more every time. So you take the first order wherever it comes from, then give them a reason to order direct next time.
How Flipdish works for a takeaway
Setup is three jobs.
First, ordering. Flipdish builds your branded website and loads your menu, delivery zones and payment processing.
Second, the POS connection. Orders from the website, the app, the phone and any marketplace you're still on arrive in one queue at the counter. Nobody retypes a Foodhub order into the till or keeps a tablet for each platform.
Third, marketing. Once orders are coming through the direct channel you have customer details, and you can start on loyalty and SMS.
Flipdish handles the technical side. Getting customers to use the direct channel is your job, and that's where most of the effort goes. What tends to work is simple: a sticker on every bag or box, a discount on the first direct order, and a loyalty reward for the second and third. A QR code on the packaging that opens the menu does the same job as the sticker with fewer steps for the customer.
What the numbers look like
Say a takeaway does £8,000 a month through Foodhub and pays 12% commission. That's £960 a month.
Move a third of those orders to a direct channel and about £2,670 of monthly sales no longer carries commission. At 12% that's roughly £320 a month, or about £3,840 a year, back in the till. Move half and it's £480 a month, £5,760 a year.
Subtract the cost of the direct platform from those figures to see what you actually save. The Flipdish online ordering pricing page has the current subscription details. Card processing fees apply to online payments whichever channel they come through, so include those on both sides when you compare.
You also end up with a customer list you can message, which a marketplace never gives you.
Before you switch
Don't switch off Foodhub the day you launch a direct channel. Leave it running while direct orders build up, and watch what share of your orders come through each one for a month or two.
Read your Foodhub agreement for notice periods or anything about exclusivity before you cancel or reduce your presence.
Work out who delivers. If you already have your own drivers, direct delivery orders work the same way. If you've relied on a marketplace's couriers, you'll need to cover that gap first.
And tell your regulars. A line on the menu, a message on the bag, a word at the counter. People who already like you are the easiest to move.
If you want more independent comparisons, restauranttech.co.uk has them.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Foodhub alternative for a UK takeaway? Flipdish. It gives you a direct ordering channel with a branded website, a mobile app and integrated phone ordering.
Does Flipdish charge commission on orders? No. It uses a subscription instead of per-order commission. The pricing page has the details.
Can I keep Foodhub while also using Flipdish? Yes, and many operators do. Flipdish can pull marketplace orders into the same POS queue as your direct orders.
What's wrong with using only marketplaces? You pay commission on every order, you don't own any customer data, and you build no brand of your own. If the marketplace changes its terms or a competitor shows up on the same app, you have no customers of your own to fall back on.