The question we hear most from an owner considering the move isn't "how much cheaper is it" — most have already done that sum, and if they haven't, we've done it for them. It's "what actually happens to my business on the day I switch." The honest answer is: less than people brace for, and it happens in stages rather than overnight.
What doesn't change
You keep taking online orders. Customers still pay by card. Food still needs to be cooked and either handed over or delivered. None of the operational reality of running service changes because the order arrived through a different site.
You can also keep your existing marketplace listing running in parallel — most restaurants do, for a while. It still brings in new customers who've never heard of you. The shift isn't "marketplace off, own site on" in one afternoon; it's moving the customers who already know you onto a channel that doesn't take a cut of them.
What changes immediately
- The site is yours. Your name, your branding, your domain — not a listing inside somebody else's app, competing for attention next to three other takeaways on the same street.
- Orders route straight to the kitchen. Tickets land on the kitchen display the moment they're placed, sorted to whichever station cooks them, instead of a printer bridging two different systems.
- Your drivers use your own app — with turn-by-turn directions to the customer, not a courier marketplace's driver pool. More on exactly what that changes in how the driver app removes third-party courier fees.
- The commission disappears — replaced by a flat £69 a month regardless of order volume, instead of whatever percentage a marketplace was charging.
The actual first week
Sign up, build the menu, set opening hours and prep times, connect a bank account for payouts — that's the whole setup described on the getting-started page, and it's built to take minutes rather than a multi-week onboarding call.
The part that takes longer isn't the technical setup — it's telling customers the new site exists. That's the actual first week: the QR code on the counter, the link on the receipt, a line in the "order ready" text message. None of it needs to be finished before you go live, because the marketplace listing is still doing its job for anyone who hasn't seen the new site yet.
What to expect in month one
Don't expect the marketplace's order volume to move across immediately — it won't, and that's fine. What moves first is the customers who already order from you regularly, because they're the ones who'll notice a link on a receipt or a mention at the till. That's also exactly the group a marketplace commission was costing you the most to keep, since you were paying full rate to reach people who didn't need discovering.
Track it with one number: how many of this month's orders came through your own site versus the marketplace. It moves slowly at first, then faster once staff get used to mentioning it.
No setup fee, no contract, cancel any time. Nomvo is £69 a month, or £54 a month equivalent billed annually — no commission on any order. Card processing is charged separately by Stripe at their own published rate.
