How to tell if an Uber Eats or Deliveroo promotion is profitable for your restaurant

What promotions can you run on Uber Eats and Deliveroo?

Both platforms offer percentage discounts, discounts above a spending threshold, “buy one, get one free” and free delivery. Here are the formats mentioned on their pages for restaurants in France, checked on 1 October 2026.

Deliveroo also mentions “réductions fixes” (fixed discounts) and “offres groupées” (bundle offers). “Not mentioned” means absent from the pages checked, not necessarily absent from your account. The offers available for your restaurant are shown in the “Marketing” tab of Uber Eats Manager and in Deliveroo’s Partner Hub (“Portail Partenaire” in French), under “Marketer” then “Offres” (offers).

You also choose who sees the offer. Uber Eats lets you target all customers in your delivery area or only new ones. Deliveroo mentions new customers, inactive customers, or all customers during certain periods.

Who pays for the discount, you or the platform?

You do, unless otherwise agreed. Uber Eats’ terms in France (version of 10 September 2026) say that you are “solely liable for the Offer Cost” (translated from French), which is withheld from your payouts. Deliveroo’s terms in France state: “Unless we agree otherwise, you will bear the cost of all Offers used by customers” (translated from French). Deliveroo’s “Récompenses” programme follows the same rule: “The credit is funded by you” (translated from French).

The commission, however, is based on the discounted price. Uber Eats charges its service fees “on the basis of the reduced Retail Price and not on the full Retail Price” (translated from French). Deliveroo writes that “your service fees will be calculated on the reduced price paid by the Customer” (translated from French). If Deliveroo agrees to fund an offer, the commission goes back to the undiscounted price.

Free delivery works differently. On Uber Eats, you pay the share of the delivery fee that the customer no longer pays, and the commission doesn’t change. On Deliveroo, these costs “vary from Order to Order” (translated from French): set a maximum budget.

Finally, count the tool fees. Uber Eats’ marketing page says you pay no extra fee per offer. Yet its terms provide that “Frais d’Utilisation des Offres” (offer usage fees) may apply to each discounted order, with an amount given before the offer is created. Deliveroo also provides for “Frais Marketer” (Marketer fees), which the Marketer platform displays.

Also check that you have access to offers. Uber Eats can restrict its offer tools if your success score, which includes your rating, is too low. Deliveroo can suspend access to Marketer depending on your performance: see how to improve your rating on Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

How many extra orders do you need for a promotion to be profitable?

Enough to get back to your total margin from before the promotion. The calculation fits in one table, to redo with your own figures.

Take a pizza sold at €14, which costs you €4 in ingredients and packaging, with a 30% commission. This rate is an example: yours depends on your contract (see Uber Eats commission and Deliveroo commission). To keep it simple, we ignore VAT. You sell 100 pizzas a week and test a 20% discount.

The 20% discount on the price cuts your margin per pizza by 34%. To keep your €580 of margin a week, you need to sell 152 pizzas instead of 100, that is 52% more. The formula: usual orders × margin without promotion ÷ margin with promotion, so 100 × 5.80 ÷ 3.84 = 151.04, rounded up to the next whole number: 152.

Calculating the commission on the discounted price helps you. If it were still calculated on €14, your margin would fall to €3.00 and you would need 194 pizzas.

“Buy one, get one free” costs more than it looks. You take €14 for two pizzas: after €4.20 of commission and €8 of ingredients and packaging, €1.80 is left. To keep €580 of margin, you would need 323 orders instead of 100, unless the customer adds more to their basket.

Two settings limit the cost. The first is a minimum order value, which Deliveroo recommends to “protect your margins” (translated from French). The second is targeting new customers: only their orders are discounted, so redo the calculation on that share. If tool fees apply, also take them off the margin with the promotion.

Should you keep an eye on your neighbours’ promotions?

Yes, because your customers compare offers on the same screen. A promotion is judged against those of the restaurants delivering to the same street.

At Deliveroo, whether a restaurant “is currently running a promotion” (translated from French) is one of the ranking criteria. An “Offres près de chez vous” (offers near you) banner also highlights restaurants running a promotion. At Uber Eats, your offer appears “on your store listing in the feed and on your menu page” (translated from French).

If all the restaurants around you show 30% off, your 10% may go unnoticed. If none of them shows an offer, a modest discount may be enough to make you stand out. Also look at their base prices: a discount on a dish that is already more expensive than others in the area may not be enough. For this comparison, see how to analyse your competitors’ prices.

Deliview spots the promotions shown by restaurants in your area, on Uber Eats and Deliveroo. It shows you what has changed since the previous analysis: a new promotion, a changed price, a new competitor. See how Deliview chooses your promotions.

How do you test a promotion without losing your margin?

Launch a single offer, short and capped, then compare the result with the threshold you calculated beforehand. Here is the method in six steps.

1. Note your starting point: orders and margin over the last four weeks, on the same days and time slots.
2. Calculate your threshold: the number of orders that keeps the same margin, tool fees included.
3. Choose one offer, one platform and one time slot. Deliveroo advises targeting quiet periods, and Uber Eats offers a “Happy hour” from 14:00 to 17:00.
4. Set an end date and a maximum budget. On Uber Eats, the offer stops by itself when the budget is reached. On Deliveroo, you can cancel it “at any time without penalty” (translated from French).
5. Measure at the end: orders, average basket, margin, new customers. Uber Eats shows offer performance under “Marketing”, in the “Performance” tab, and Deliveroo in the Partner Hub.
6. Follow the next two weeks, to see whether the new customers come back without a discount.

Never raise your prices just before a promotion. Deliveroo’s terms name this abuse, which can lead to suspension. They require a reference price no higher than the lowest price charged in the 30 days before the offer.

If the offer doesn’t reach its threshold, stop it and keep the figures: they will be the baseline for your next test.