Your own delivery drivers for a UAE restaurant

Running your own drivers means your restaurant takes the order, assigns a rider and delivers it yourself, so you pay no marketplace commission on it. In the UAE that is the difference between keeping the full ticket and handing a double-digit cut to an aggregator. With Menuthere you switch delivery on free, and on the Pro plan you add your own riders, give each one the rider app, assign an order with one tap, and let the customer watch the rider on a live map. Keep Talabat, Noon, Careem and Deliveroo for people who have never heard of you; move your regulars to your own number and your own drivers.

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When own delivery beats an aggregator in the UAE

Aggregators are a shop window. They are worth it for a first-time customer who found you by browsing. They are expensive for the regular who already knows your name, because you pay the same commission on an order they would have placed anyway.

A simple rule works in the UAE:

• First-time, "surprise me" orders → keep them on Talabat, Noon, Careem and Deliveroo. You pay for the reach.
• Repeat orders from people who know you → take them on your own ordering page and deliver with your own drivers. You keep the whole ticket.

Use the delivery-app loss calculator to see what a year of aggregator commission costs you, then decide how many of those orders you could carry yourself.

A worked example (AED)

Say your average delivery order is AED 90 and you do 1,500 delivery orders a month.

The maths swings on one number: the commission rate each app charges. We publish what each app takes, sourced, on its own page — Talabat, Noon, Careem and Deliveroo. Even a modest share of your repeat orders moved in-house usually clears the cost of paying your own drivers.

How own delivery works in Menuthere

1. Switch delivery on (every plan). In Settings → Ordering → Order types turn on Delivery, then set your area and what you charge in Delivery settings — a flat fee, by distance or by zone.
2. Add your riders (Pro). In Settings → Ordering → Delivery boy settings press Add delivery boy and enter each rider's name, phone and password. The phone number is their username in the rider app.
3. Get the rider app to your drivers. Share the Download delivery boy app links for the App Store and Google Play, plus the login you set. Riders sign in on their own phones.
4. Assign with one tap. On an order press Assign rider. Online riders appear first; assigning marks the order dispatched and pushes a New Delivery Assignment to the rider's phone.
5. The customer tracks live. The order page switches to On the way, with the rider on a live map, an arrival estimate and a Call button.
6. Collect at the door. The rider shows a QR code for card payment, or takes cash, and marks the order delivered.

The rider app

Your drivers use the Menuthere delivery app on Android or iPhone. They sign in with the phone number and password you set, get a push message when you assign an order, share their location while delivering, and mark the order delivered at the door. You can turn a rider's Taking orders off to pause them without deleting the account, and if no rider is free you can Dispatch without a rider so the order still goes out.

Route near and far orders differently

You do not have to choose one carrier for everything. In the UAE a common set-up is: your own riders cover the orders close to the restaurant, and a courier partner or an aggregator handles the ones further out. Menuthere lets you combine your own drivers with other carriers, so a near order goes to your rider and a far one goes to a partner.

Who it suits in the UAE