Food delivery service platforms Zomato and Swiggy charge platform fee, which part of their revenue.
| Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam

Online food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy have hiked platform fee in certain cities in the midst of festive season.

In a regulatory filing, clarifying on a report that the company has hiked its platform fee to ₹10 amid festive season rush, Zomato said, “We have indeed increased the platform fee yesterday (Wednesday) across certain cities.” In the national capital, Zomato is now charging ₹10 as “festive season platform fee”.

“Such changes in our platform fee are a routine business matter and are done from time to time and may vary from city to city,” the company said without specifying in which cities it has hiked the platform fee and by how much.

Similarly, Swiggy has also increased its platform fee but the comments from the company could not be obtained as it did not respond to queries.

Swiggy had introduced a platform fee of ₹2 in April 2023, after which Zomato did the same in August that year. It is marked for every food order regardless of customers having enrolled for membership plans on both platforms. The platform fee is a different charge from the delivery fee, goods and services tax (GST), restaurant charges and handling charges that are levied. 

Most late night orders in the last fiscal year came from Delhi NCR, while most breakfast orders came from Bengaluru, Zomato shared in the report. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Food delivery aggregator Zomato, which began charging platform fee on orders from last August, collected ₹83 crore through the new levy till March, the company’s annual report has revealed.

Platform fee has been cited as one of the three key factors driving Zomato’s Adjusted Revenue, which grew 27% year-on-year to ₹7,792 crore in FY24.

“Adjusted Revenue as a percentage of GOV (gross order value), continued to increase primarily due to increase in restaurant commission take-rates, improvement in ad monetization and introduction of platform fee from Q2FY24 onwards,” the report stated.

All of these factors more than compensated for the reduction in customer delivery charge per order due to the free delivery benefit available on Gold orders, it added.

Interestingly, most late night orders in the last fiscal year came from Delhi NCR, while most breakfast orders came from Bengaluru, Zomato shared in the report.

The food delivery aggregator began levying platform fee at Rs 2 per order last August, which has gradually been increased to ₹6 now in key markets.

Its main rival Swiggy also charges platform fee on its orders.

The introduction and increase in platform fee is seen as one of the means to increase profitability by food delivery aggregators.