Restaurant menu software with no commission: how flat pricing works

No-commission restaurant menu software charges a flat subscription — or nothing — instead of taking a percentage of every order. You pay a fixed monthly fee, and 100% of what a guest spends stays with the restaurant. This guide explains how flat pricing works, when it beats commission, and what to watch out for.

Commission vs flat fee: the core difference

There are two ways software makes money from restaurants:

• Commission: the platform takes a percentage of each order. Third-party delivery and ordering apps typically charge 15–30% per order. The more you sell, the more you pay — forever.
• Flat fee: the platform charges a fixed monthly subscription regardless of how many orders you take. MenuBear’s Pro plan is €59 per month with no per-order cut.

The difference compounds. On a €40 table, a 25% commission is €10 — on every single order. A flat fee does not move whether you serve 50 covers or 500.

When does flat pricing win?

Almost always, once you pass a handful of orders a month. A quick illustration: at €59 per month, MenuBear costs the same as roughly six €40 orders at 25% commission. Every order beyond that is pure saving — and a busy restaurant does that volume in an evening. The busier you are, the more lopsided the math becomes in favour of a flat fee.

Commission only looks cheap when volume is near zero, which is precisely when a free menu tier (like MenuBear’s free Menu plan) already covers you at no cost.

It is not just about money

Commission-based marketplaces also own the guest relationship. The contact details, the loyalty, the ordering data — they belong to the app, not the restaurant. Every order routed through a marketplace trains the customer to return to the marketplace, not to you. No-commission software keeps that relationship, and the data, with the restaurant.

What to watch out for

“No commission” is a popular claim, so read the fine print:

• Stacked add-ons. Some free tools are free only until you need payments, a website, or promotions — each a separate paid module. Add them up and compare against a single flat fee. See how this plays out in our GloriaFood comparison.
• Payment processing fees. Card-processing fees (charged by the payment provider) are separate from software commission. That is normal; a per-order software commission is not.
• Tools that are shutting down. Pricing means nothing if the product is being retired. GloriaFood, a popular free ordering tool, is being shut down by Oracle on April 30, 2027, affecting an estimated 123,000 restaurants with no migration tool provided. If you are affected, see GloriaFood alternatives.

The all-in-one angle

Flat pricing is most powerful when one subscription replaces several. Instead of paying separately for a menu, an ordering widget, a reservation tool, and a loyalty app — each with its own bill — an all-in-one platform bundles them. MenuBear’s Pro plan includes in-table ordering, a kitchen board, reservations, loyalty, and analytics for one flat €59 per month. Compare the full pricing to whatever stack you run today.

No-commission, flat-fee software is the simplest way to make restaurant technology predictable: you know exactly what you pay each month, it does not punish you for being busy, and every euro your floor brings in stays yours.