The commission you were quoted when you signed up is almost never the one you end up paying. Not because anyone is lying to you: the commission is just one of several lines that come out of every order. This guide is so you can work out your real number — the one that matters — with your own statement in hand.
The published commission is not what you pay
Publicly advertised rates in the region sit roughly like this:
- PedidosYa Panama promotes a commission of around 10% on its partner site for restaurants that join.
- Uber Eats typically sits between 25% and 30% nominal, depending on country, plan and whether the platform provides the courier.
But the number that matters is not that one. It is the effective take rate: how much of everything you sold the platform keeps, across all lines. That also includes:
- In-app advertising to appear higher in the listing.
- Your share of promotions (2-for-1, free delivery, campaign discounts).
- Delivery costs when your plan passes them on to you.
- Refunds and customer compensation.
Add it all up and the effective take rate operators report tends to land well above the nominal rate. We have heard of cases above 35–40% in Panama. Do not take that as your number: take it as a reason to work out your own.
How to work out your real number in 10 minutes
Take last full month's statement and pull two figures:
- Gross sales: what your customers paid for your food, before any platform deduction.
- Net deposit: what actually landed in your account.
Real take rate = (Gross sales − Net deposit) ÷ Gross sales × 100
That percentage is your channel cost. If it comes out at 12%, the app is a good deal for you. If it comes out at 35%, you are working a good part of the month for the platform.
One detail that trips people up: compare it against your sales, not against your profit. If your gross margin on the food is 30% and the channel takes 30% of the sale, that channel is leaving you nothing.
The question almost nobody asks
Delivery apps do something you cannot do on your own: they bring you customers who did not know you existed. That is worth real money, and paying a commission for a new customer is perfectly reasonable.
The real question is a different one: how many of the orders you pay commission on come from customers who were already yours?
The customer who has ordered every Friday for eight months is not discovering you any more. They know you, they like your food and they know exactly what they want. And you are still paying the same commission on them as on day one.
Run the exercise on your statement: look at how many orders come from repeated numbers or addresses. In most fast-food restaurants recurrence is high — and that is where the recoverable money sits.
Why this is getting more urgent
In July 2026 Uber announced it would buy Delivery Hero — the owner of PedidosYa — for USD 14.8 billion. The deal is not closed yet, regulatory review is still pending, and exactly how Panama ends up is not yet confirmed. But the direction is clear: the sector is consolidating.
Less competition between platforms rarely translates into better terms for the restaurant. And the underlying point is simpler: when your sales channel belongs to someone else, so do the rules. They can change the commission, change the listing algorithm or change owner, and you find out afterwards.
What you can do without burning the bridge
The answer is not to leave the apps. If you depend on them to be discovered, walking away overnight means losing real sales over an idea.
What does work is more boring and much safer: keep your regulars on a channel of your own. The most obvious one you already have, and it is your WhatsApp — the number on your packaging, on your receipt and in your shop, that nobody can take away from you.
The perennial problem is that handling WhatsApp by hand does not scale. At peak time it is three people answering chats, screenshots, and orders getting lost. That is why most restaurants have the channel open but unattended.
That is exactly what Sotoban does: it answers your WhatsApp, builds the order with AI, prices it against your menu, sends it to the kitchen display, takes the Yappy or bank-transfer receipt so a person can validate it, and quotes delivery by zone. The same order placed at the counter follows the same path.
We will not bring you new customers: that is what the apps are for. We let you serve properly the ones you already have.
Want to know your number? Send us last month's statement and we will work it out together, no strings attached. Knowing what your channel costs is useful even if you never work with us.