How Does Zomato Make Money in 2026? Business Model Explained

When you order food worth ₹500 on Zomato, Zomato does not earn ₹500. Most of that money belongs to the restaurant, while another portion may be linked to delivery and taxes. Zomato earns only a part of the transaction through commissions, platform fees, advertising and other charges.

This may look like a small amount on one order, but the economics change completely when hundreds of millions of orders pass through the platform every year.

In FY26, Zomato processed around 979 million food-delivery orders with a net order value, or NOV, of ₹37,993 crore. Its food-delivery business generated ₹10,159 crore of revenue from operations during the year.

So the important question is not how much food is sold on Zomato. It is how much money Zomato can earn every time an order passes through its platform.

Zomato sits between restaurants and customers

Zomato operates as a marketplace connecting three important groups: customers, restaurants and delivery partners.

Customers use the app because they can discover restaurants, compare menus, place orders, make payments and track deliveries from one place. Restaurants use Zomato because it gives them access to millions of customers without having to build their own ordering and delivery network.

When an order is placed, the restaurant prepares the food while a delivery partner usually handles the last-mile delivery. Zomato provides the technology and marketplace that connects everyone.

For creating this demand, restaurants pay Zomato commissions and other commercial charges.

The exact commission can differ across restaurants and arrangements, so there is no single rate that applies to every order. However, restaurant commissions remain one of the main ways Zomato monetises food delivery.

Zomato also earns directly from customers

Restaurant commissions are only one side of the business.

Customers increasingly contribute to Zomato's revenue through platform fees and other charges attached to an order. A platform fee may look small when viewed on a single order, but a few rupees multiplied across hundreds of millions of annual transactions can become meaningful.

Zomato said higher platform fees were one of the reasons its revenue per order improved during FY26.

The company can therefore increase revenue in two ways. It can process more orders, or it can earn slightly more from each order through better monetisation. Ideally, both happen together.

Restaurants also pay to get noticed

Open Zomato and search for something popular such as pizza, biryani or burgers. In a large city, dozens or even hundreds of restaurants may compete for the same customer.

Being visible near the top of the app can therefore have real value. Restaurants can spend money on advertising and sponsored visibility to improve their chances of being discovered.

This gives Zomato another revenue stream that does not depend only on charging a commission on the final order. The larger Zomato's customer base becomes, the more valuable this advertising space can become for restaurants.

Zomato therefore monetises not only transactions but also the customer traffic flowing through the app.

Does Zomato make money from delivery charges?

This part can be confusing because the amount a customer pays for delivery does not automatically become Zomato's normal revenue.

Zomato reports a measure called Adjusted Revenue that includes certain customer delivery charges and other amounts that are not included in revenue from operations.

In FY26, food-delivery revenue from operations was ₹10,159 crore, while Adjusted Revenue was ₹11,698 crore. This also explains why Zomato's ₹37,993 crore NOV should not be confused with its revenue.

NOV represents the value of food orders placed through the platform. Zomato's revenue represents the amount the company actually earns from commissions, fees, advertising and related services.

A simple way to understand the difference is:

• NOV: value of orders flowing through Zomato
• Revenue: what Zomato earns from those transactions
• Profit: what remains after Zomato pays its own costs

This distinction is important because looking only at the value of orders can make the company appear much larger than the revenue it actually keeps.

Why more orders can improve Zomato's economics

Zomato's food-delivery model becomes stronger when more customers, restaurants and delivery partners join the network.

Average monthly transacting customers increased from 20.6 million in FY25 to 24.3 million in FY26. The platform also had around 330,000 average monthly active restaurant partners and about 552,000 active delivery partners.

These groups reinforce each other. More restaurants give customers more choice. More customers make Zomato more attractive to restaurants. Higher order volumes give delivery partners more earning opportunities, which helps Zomato maintain delivery capacity.

Scale can also improve profitability because many technology and corporate costs do not rise at the same rate as orders. Zomato does not need to build a completely new app every time another customer starts ordering. The same technology platform can serve millions of additional transactions.

Food delivery generated ₹2,017 crore of Adjusted EBITDA in FY26, compared with ₹1,505 crore in FY25. Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of NOV improved from 4.6% to 5.3%.

That improvement shows how higher scale and better monetisation can gradually strengthen the business.

But every order also carries costs

Zomato cannot simply maximise orders at any cost. It has to support delivery operations, customer service, technology, payments, employee expenses, discounts, refunds and marketing.

If discounts or delivery costs rise too quickly, higher order volumes may not translate into better profits. Competition matters as well.

Food delivery is a business where customers can easily switch between apps based on price, discounts, restaurant availability or delivery time. Zomato therefore has to improve monetisation without making the platform unattractive to customers or restaurants.

That balance is one of the most important parts of the business.

What really matters for Zomato?

Zomato's food-delivery business is essentially a marketplace sitting between restaurants and customers. It earns money when restaurants receive orders, customers pay platform-related charges and restaurants spend money to improve their visibility.

The company does not need to own the ₹37,993 crore of food ordered through its platform. Instead, it needs to remain the platform through which a large share of those orders take place.

As long as orders keep growing and Zomato can earn a little more from each transaction without allowing costs to rise just as quickly, the economics of the business can continue to improve.

That is the real engine behind how Zomato makes money.