Rapido slashes food delivery charges by half to take on Zomato, Swiggy
Ride-hailing firm to charge 8-15% commissions under new terms with NRAI; Bengaluru pilot to launch soon.
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Ride-hailing app Rapido has finalised a partnership with restaurants that offers significantly lower commissions than Zomato and Swiggy, people familiar with the development told in a media report. The initiative is set to go live by late June or early July, starting with Bengaluru.
According to the terms agreed with the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI), Rapido will charge restaurants commissions ranging from 8-15% - nearly half of the 16-30% typically levied by Zomato and Swiggy.
Rapido's model will include a fixed fee of Rs 25 on orders below Rs 400 and Rs 50 on orders above Rs 400, translating into the lower commission structure.
Consumers will be able to place orders via the Rapido app, where restaurants will be listed, potentially giving smaller establishments an alternative to the high-cost models of the larger players. "This will especially help small restaurants," one of the executives involved in the discussions said, the report added.
“We’ve been in discussion with Rapido over the last few months, just as we are working closely with ONDC,” said NRAI president Sagar Daryani in the media report. “We are discussing a structure that is economically and democratically much more viable for restaurants to sustain.” Daryani also emphasised the importance of access to customer data - a long-standing point of friction between restaurants and dominant platforms.
Rapido declined to comment on the partnership when contacted, the report added. The company's bike-tax riders currently undertake food deliveries for Swiggy under a non-exclusive arrangement in select cities.
NRAI, which represents over 500,000 restaurants, is also pursuing a similar but slower-moving partnership with the government-backed ONDC network.
Meanwhile, dissatisfaction among smaller restaurant owners with the current duopoly has been building.
“Zomato is becoming unsustainable for small restaurant owners like us,” wrote Vandit Malik, founder of The Garlic Bread, in a recent LinkedIn post. He cited the additional ₹30+ per order required to advertise and maintain visibility on the platform, leaving margins razor-thin or negative.
Similarly, another NCR-based eatery, Saffroma, went viral last week after posting on X that it was quitting Zomato over “zero payouts, mystery service charges and advertisements initiated without approval.” The post has since been deleted.
