A detailed look at how restaurants can keep more margin and build a direct catering customer base instead of renting buyers from a marketplace.
As a restaurant owner, every dollar counts. You've worked hard to build your business, create amazing food, and attract loyal customers. So why should a catering platform take a huge bite out of your hard-earned profits?
While ezCater is well-known, their commission-based model means they profit more as your business grows. The bigger issue is ownership: the office buyer, reorder history, and follow-up loop often live inside someone else's platform.
FlashCater helps you diagnose that leakage, move more catering demand direct, and build a customer base your restaurant controls.
FlashCater provides you with your own branded ordering website with zero commissions. When customers order through your website, you keep 100% of the revenue—as it should be. Your website, your customers, your money.
ezCater charges a 7% commission just for taking orders that come from a link on your own website. Even when customers find you directly through your restaurant's website, ezCater still takes a significant cut of every order.
Key Takeaway: Why pay 7% to ezCater for orders that come from your own website when FlashCater lets you keep every dollar?
FlashCater is a flat $79/month per location—zero commissions, zero hidden fees. You keep 100% of what customers pay you, so your profit scales directly with your sales, instead of disappearing into marketplace cuts.
ezCater charges a 15% commission on every accepted order plus a ~2.99% payment-processing fee. There are no setup or monthly fees, but every sale you take through their platform gets shaved by these percentages.
Key Takeaway: If you're doing more than about $400/month in catering revenue, FlashCater immediately saves you money—and every dollar above that is pure incremental profit.
FlashCater helps you build a direct catering book that belongs to your restaurant. We focus on capturing buyer details, tracking order history, and moving repeat customers into your own reorder pipeline—so the next order doesn't have to come through a marketplace.
ezCater owns the guest data and controls re-marketing. You see order histories in ezManage, but you can't message those customers directly outside their system—and you compete against dozens of neighbors on their marketplace.
FlashCater is your own branded ordering website. You decide pricing, menu presentation, and up-charge logic (e.g. special instructions, gluten-free fees)—and updates go live instantly via our intuitive dashboard.
ezCater enforces price-matching rules (you must offer your lowest publicly listed price) and handles menu updates via support tickets—sometimes incurring order rejections or penalties if something slips.
FlashCater includes:
ezCater's optional "Preferred Partner" or ezRewards programs let you pay more commission for better placement—but you still pay on every order, and there's no built-in way to automatically re-engage past customers.
FlashCater provides a unified dashboard—orders, customer CRM, marketing analytics, and delivery management (including Uber integration)—all under one roof, for one flat fee.
ezManage centralizes order acceptance, dispatch requests, and performance metrics in one portal—but it doesn't include marketing, loyalty, or direct-to-guest messaging. And you still pay commissions on every order you handle.
FlashCater lets you choose:
With ezCater's ezDispatch, you pay a 10% delivery-subsidy fee (min $30), offset by customer delivery fees. Drivers keep tips but you're still hit by their cut.
FlashCater is $79/location—no surprises, no per-order add-ons, just one predictable line item.
ezCater fees vary by order size, delivery zone, and optional marketing tiers—you never know exactly what your net take will be until the bill arrives.
Keep 100% of your revenue with zero commissions.
Own your guests—data, branding, and repeat ordering live in your control.
Build a direct catering pipeline instead of renting demand order by order.
Scale delivery on your terms—use your team or third-party drives.
Budget confidently on one flat monthly fee, not shifting percentage cuts.
Marketplaces can send orders, but they also sit between you and the buyer. FlashCater helps you keep the margin, the relationship, and the next reorder.
Free catering growth audit
Enter your restaurant name and get a report on where catering revenue is leaking, what competitors are doing, and how to win more direct orders without marketplace commissions.
We scan your catering presence, local competitors, search visibility, and direct-order setup.
You see which changes can move the most revenue: outreach, ads, reorders, ordering flow, or customer ownership.
The goal is a catering channel you own, with office buyers and repeat customers coming back directly.
Opens the FlashCater audit scanner