Why Zomato Keeps Raising Platform Fees On Food Orders: The Real Reason

You open Zomato, choose a restaurant, add food to the cart, and move to the final bill. That is when a small line item appears: platform fee.

At first, it may not look like a big amount. A few rupees on a food order does not feel large enough to change the decision for most customers. But this small fee has quietly become one of the most important parts of Zomato’s food delivery economics.

Zomato increased its platform fee from ₹12.50 to ₹14.90 per order in March 2026, a rise of about 19%. The fee is charged before GST, which means the amount visible to customers can be slightly higher after tax. This was not the first increase. Zomato had started with a much smaller fee in 2023 and has raised it several times since then.

So the real question is not whether Zomato is charging a platform fee. The real question is why it keeps increasing it.

The answer is simple: platform fees are one of the cleanest ways for Zomato to improve margins without changing the entire food delivery model.

The Platform Fee Is Small For Users, Big For Zomato

For a customer, ₹15 may look small on a ₹400 or ₹500 food order. It is usually not large enough to make most users cancel the order immediately. That is exactly why this fee works.

But for Zomato, the same small fee becomes very large because of order volume.

During the October to December 2025 quarter, Zomato delivered around 266.9 million orders, according to a Nomura report cited by The Economic Times. When a company has this kind of order scale, even a small increase in fee per order can add a meaningful amount of income.

This is the basic logic behind the platform fee.

Zomato does not need every customer to pay hundreds of rupees extra. It only needs a small amount from a very large number of orders. That is why a small line item on the bill can become a powerful margin lever for the company.

Why This Fee Helps Margins So Much

Food delivery is not an easy business to make profitable.

Zomato has to manage restaurant partnerships, delivery partners, customer support, refunds, technology, payments, discounts and marketing. It also has to keep prices acceptable for customers and commissions acceptable for restaurants.

That leaves limited space to improve margins.

If Zomato increases restaurant commissions too aggressively, restaurants may push back. If it reduces delivery partner payouts too much, service quality can suffer. If it cuts discounts sharply, some customers may order less.

The platform fee avoids some of these problems because it is charged directly to the customer as a fixed fee per order. It does not require Zomato to renegotiate every restaurant contract. It does not directly reduce delivery partner earnings. It also does not look as large as a major price increase on the food item itself.

This is why analysts see it as a strong profitability lever. Elara Capital estimated that every ₹1 increase in platform fee can add about 26 basis points to Zomato’s take rate and roughly ₹120 crore to adjusted EBITDA.

That explains why Zomato keeps returning to this fee. It is small enough for customers to tolerate, but large enough to matter for the company.

Eternal’s Annual Report Shows Why This Fee Matters

Eternal’s FY26 annual report makes this point clearer.

The report says food delivery revenue from operations grew 26% year-on-year to ₹10,159 crore in FY26. It also says revenue per order increased because of higher commission income, higher platform fee and better ad monetisation.

This is important because it confirms that platform fee is not just a small extra charge on the bill. It is one of the reasons Zomato’s revenue per order improved.

The annual report also separates delivery charges from platform fee and other charges. Actual customer delivery charges paid in the food delivery business stood at ₹875 crore in FY26, down from ₹1,001 crore in FY25.

Platform fee and other charges paid on food delivery orders, which were not already included in revenue from operations, stood at ₹664 crore in FY26, compared with ₹337 crore in FY25.

This distinction matters.

The ₹664 crore figure is not delivery charges. Delivery charges are shown separately. It is also not necessarily the full platform-fee income, because the company’s wording says “platform fee and other charges” and only covers the portion not already included in revenue from operations.

But even with that caveat, the direction is clear. This line item almost doubled in one year. That shows why Zomato keeps testing platform fees. Small customer-side charges can become very meaningful when they are applied across millions of orders.

Zomato Is Testing Its Pricing Power

Every platform fee hike is also a test of pricing power.

Pricing power simply means whether a company can charge more without losing too many customers. Zomato is testing how much extra customers are willing to pay for the convenience of ordering food online.

So far, the company seems to believe that customers are still accepting the fee. Analysts have also argued that the increase is unlikely to hurt demand meaningfully because the fee remains small compared with the total order value.

This is important because Zomato is not only selling food delivery. It is selling convenience. Customers use Zomato because they can compare restaurants, see ratings, track delivery, pay online and get food delivered without calling anyone.

That convenience has value.

As long as users feel the final bill is still acceptable, Zomato has room to charge a platform fee. But this room is not unlimited. If the fee keeps rising, customers may start noticing it more clearly.

The Blinkit Connection

Zomato is now part of Eternal, and the company is no longer only about food delivery. Blinkit, its quick commerce business, has become a major part of the group’s growth story.

Quick commerce is expensive to build. It needs dark stores, inventory, delivery partners, technology, local operations and constant availability of products. Growth can be fast, but it also requires heavy investment.

This is where Zomato’s food delivery business becomes important.

Food delivery is the older, more mature business. If Zomato can improve margins in food delivery, it can create more room for the group to invest in Blinkit and other growth areas. The Economic Times described the platform fee hike as part of Zomato’s push for profits to help fund quick commerce growth.

That does not mean every rupee from platform fees directly goes into Blinkit. But at the group level, stronger food delivery profitability gives Eternal more flexibility.

This is why the platform fee is not just a food delivery charge. It is also part of the larger Eternal strategy.

Why Not Just Increase Delivery Charges?

A natural question is: why does Zomato need a separate platform fee at all? Why not simply increase delivery charges?

The reason is that each charge has a different meaning.

Delivery charges are linked to the cost of getting food from the restaurant to the customer. Customers often understand delivery fees because someone is physically bringing the order to them.

A platform fee is different. It is a charge for using Zomato’s platform. It helps Zomato monetise the app experience itself: discovery, ordering, payments, tracking, customer support and convenience.

This separation is useful for Zomato.

It can keep delivery charges tied to logistics while using platform fees to improve platform-level monetisation. In simple words, Zomato is not only charging for delivery. It is also charging for access to the digital marketplace it has built.

Why Customers Have Not Pushed Back Strongly Yet

Customers complain about extra charges, but most people still look at the full order experience.

If someone is hungry, likes the restaurant, has a coupon, and gets food delivered in 30 minutes, a small platform fee may not stop the order. This is especially true when the fee is spread across the total bill.

A ₹15 fee looks very different on a ₹120 order and a ₹600 order. On larger orders, it becomes easier to ignore. On smaller orders, it feels heavier.

This is why Zomato has to be careful.

The company wants the fee to be high enough to improve margins, but not so high that customers feel punished for using the app. The moment users start thinking, “Zomato is becoming too expensive,” the fee can become a problem.

For now, Zomato seems to be betting that convenience is strong enough to absorb the increase.

Swiggy Is Doing It Too

Zomato is not alone. Swiggy has also increased platform fees, and the two companies now operate in a market where such charges are becoming normal. Moneycontrol reported that Swiggy raised its fee after Zomato’s hike, showing that platform fees are becoming an industry-wide monetisation tool rather than a one-company experiment.

This matters because competition shapes customer reaction.

If only Zomato charged a higher fee and Swiggy did not, some users may shift orders. But if both major platforms charge similar fees, customers have fewer easy alternatives within mainstream food delivery.

That gives both companies more room to improve monetisation.

Still, this does not mean there is no risk. Newer models such as Rapido Ownly are trying to challenge the high-cost food delivery structure with lower commissions and lower charges. Financial Express reported that Rapido Ownly expanded to Hyderabad after Bengaluru, positioning itself as a lower-cost alternative in food delivery.

If such models scale, Zomato and Swiggy may face more pressure on fees.

The Risk Is Fee Fatigue

The biggest risk for Zomato is not one platform fee hike. The risk is repeated fee fatigue.

Customers already see many charges in a food delivery bill. There can be restaurant price differences, packaging charges, delivery fees, GST, platform fees and sometimes surge or small cart-related charges. Even if each charge has a reason, the final bill can start feeling heavy.

That is where the danger lies.

Zomato’s platform fee works only as long as customers treat it as a small cost of convenience. If customers begin to see it as unfair or excessive, it can hurt trust. Once trust weakens, users may start comparing more aggressively, ordering directly from restaurants or reducing order frequency.

So Zomato has to balance two things at the same time.

It wants to earn more from each order. But it cannot make the customer feel that the app is becoming too expensive.

What Really Matters

Zomato keeps raising platform fees because it has found a simple and powerful way to improve the economics of food delivery.

The fee is small at the customer level, but meaningful at Zomato’s scale. It helps improve revenue per order, supports margins and gives Eternal more financial room as it invests in growth areas like Blinkit.

The annual report makes this even clearer. Platform fee and other food delivery charges not already included in revenue from operations rose to ₹664 crore in FY26 from ₹337 crore in FY25, while delivery charges were reported separately. This shows that customer-side charges have become a serious part of the food delivery model.

This is not just about charging ₹14.90 instead of ₹12.50. It is about Zomato learning how much pricing power it has with customers.

For now, the answer seems to be that customers are still willing to pay. The convenience of food delivery is strong enough to absorb small increases.

But the limit will come if the fee becomes too visible, too frequent or too painful on smaller orders. At that point, the same platform fee that helps margins can start hurting customer perception.

That is the real balance Zomato has to manage.

Platform fees are good for profits, but only as long as customers still feel the convenience is worth the price.