Foodhub Alternative: The Best Foodhub Alternatives for Takeaways
Foodhub alternatives for takeaways
For most takeaways the best Foodhub alternative isn't another marketplace. It's your own direct ordering channel, built on a platform like Flipdish. Orders through your own website or app cost less than marketplace orders, the customer details stay with you, and the order goes straight to your kitchen printer or screen without anyone retyping it.
Below is what Foodhub does, why some takeaways want out, and how the main UK options compare.
What is Foodhub?
Foodhub is a UK online food ordering marketplace. Unlike Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo, which take a percentage of every order, Foodhub charges restaurants a fixed monthly fee. For a busy takeaway that looks good on paper, because the bill doesn't grow with every extra order.
You list your menu, customers find you on the Foodhub site or app, and the orders come in. That's the whole deal.
Why takeaways look for Foodhub alternatives
The biggest issue is that the customer isn't really yours. Someone orders your chicken kebab through Foodhub and you get the order, but not their contact details in any form you can use. You can't text them a voucher, add them to a loyalty scheme or see how often they order from you. Foodhub can. You can't.
Then there's the dependency. If Foodhub changes its pricing, rejigs how restaurants are ranked or simply loses ground to a competitor in your area, your sales move with it. A takeaway that gets most of its orders from one marketplace has nowhere to go when that happens.
It's also hard to stand out. On a marketplace you're one tile in a list, and customers pick on price, star rating and delivery time. Nobody remembers a brand they only ever saw inside someone else's app.
And you can't market on your own terms. A quiet Tuesday afternoon is exactly when a text to your regulars would help, but without their numbers there's nothing to send.
None of that makes Foodhub useless. A marketplace listing reaches people who'd never have found you otherwise. It becomes a problem when it's the only way anyone can order from you.
The best Foodhub alternatives for takeaways
1. Flipdish - best for building a direct ordering channel
Flipdish covers the pieces a takeaway needs to take its own orders. That means a branded ordering website, a mobile app with push notifications, integrated payments, loyalty, SMS marketing and a restaurant POS system.
Every customer who orders through your Flipdish website or app ends up in your own customer list. You can see who they are, what they order and when they last came back. Keeping a customer is cheaper than finding a new one, and this is how you keep them.
Cost works differently too. Flipdish charges a platform fee, not a slice of each order, so the cost per order drops as you get busier. A marketplace charges the same rate whether you do 100 orders a week or 1,000.
Your customers see your name and your menu the whole way through, with no marketplace branding around it. People who see your brand at every order are more likely to type your address in next time instead of opening a delivery app.
The built-in loyalty tools and automated marketing campaigns do the follow-up. A text to someone who hasn't ordered in 30 days costs almost nothing, and if even a few of them come back it pays for itself.
Plenty of takeaway orders still arrive by phone. The Flipdish AI phone agent answers those calls, takes the order and sends it to the kitchen, so nobody has to stop what they're doing to pick up the handset on a Friday night.
Online and phone orders land on the same kitchen display as counter orders. No separate tablet on the shelf, and no one copying orders by hand.
Can Flipdish also handle Foodhub and other marketplace orders? Yes. It pulls marketplace orders from Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo onto the same POS screen. You can keep your listings and run a direct channel side by side, with one kitchen queue and one set of reports.
Pricing is on the Flipdish pricing page.
2. Just Eat
Just Eat is the biggest food delivery marketplace in the UK by order volume. A listing puts you in front of a large customer base and, in many areas, a delivery network that's already running.
It's a poor answer to the question, though. Just Eat has the same problem as Foodhub: the customer belongs to the platform, not to you. Moving from one to the other swaps the logo and keeps the problem. Just Eat also takes a percentage of each order, so for a high-volume takeaway it will usually cost more per order than Foodhub's flat fee.
Use it as an extra channel next to your own ordering. Don't use it instead.
3. Uber Eats
Uber Eats is well known, has plenty of UK customers (more so in cities) and a polished app. Customers like using it.
The cost is commission on every order, usually somewhere between 15% and 30% depending on your arrangement. You don't get the customer data, and you depend on the platform in the same way you do with Foodhub.
It makes sense as one channel among several. It doesn't replace a direct one.
4. Deliveroo
Deliveroo has built a more upmarket image in the UK, with a lot of its business in the bigger cities and a focus on quality restaurants.
Its commission is at the high end of the big UK marketplaces, and it doesn't give restaurants usable customer data. If your takeaway already has a loyal local following, the new customers Deliveroo sends your way may not be worth what each order costs you.
5. Slerp
Slerp is a UK direct ordering platform for restaurants and food businesses. You get a branded online ordering page rather than a marketplace listing, so the customer relationship stays closer to you.
It does online ordering. It doesn't include a native POS, kiosks or AI phone ordering the way Flipdish does. If you've already got a POS you're happy with and only want a way to take online orders, Slerp is worth a look. If you'd rather have ordering, POS and phones in one system, Flipdish covers more.
Comparison table
| Option | You own customer data | Cost per order | Loyalty possible | POS integration | AI phone ordering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flipdish (direct) | ✓ | Platform fee (falls with volume) | ✓ | Native (same platform) | ✓ |
| Foodhub | ✘ | Flat monthly fee | ✘ | Via middleware | ✘ |
| Just Eat | ✘ | ~15-30% per order | ✘ | Via middleware | ✘ |
| Uber Eats | ✘ | ~15-30% per order | ✘ | Via middleware | ✘ |
| Deliveroo | ✘ | ~20-30%+ per order | ✘ | Via middleware | ✘ |
| Slerp | ✓ | Platform fee | Limited | No native POS | ✘ |
Using direct and marketplace orders together
You don't have to quit marketplaces. Most takeaways that do well with direct ordering kept their listings and slowly moved more of their regulars onto their own channel, where each order is cheaper and the customer is theirs.
A sensible order of work looks like this.
Start with the website. Launch a Flipdish ordering site and tell people about it: put the address on packaging, on the counter and on your social accounts. Offer a small discount on a first direct order so people have a reason to try it.
A few months in, add the branded app and push notifications, and start a loyalty scheme. The second order from any customer is the one to work for, because that's when a one-off turns into a regular.
At around the six-month mark, look at how your orders split between direct and marketplace. Send a re-engagement campaign to anyone who hasn't ordered direct in the last 60 days.
Keep the marketplace listings going all the while. They're how new customers find you. Once someone has ordered twice through a marketplace, send them an offer to order direct next time.
Why your own channel beats a better marketplace
If you're searching for a Foodhub alternative because you want a marketplace with a slightly lower rate, you're solving the wrong problem. The better goal is a channel you own.
Picture two takeaways, both doing 200 orders a week.
Takeaway A only uses Foodhub. Foodhub holds the customer contact details. There's no loyalty scheme. If Foodhub changes its pricing, or its ranking pushes the listing down the page, orders fall and there's nothing to fall back on.
Takeaway B takes 150 orders a week direct through Flipdish and 50 through a marketplace listing. The direct customers are in its own customer list, loyalty points bring them back, and an SMS on a slow Tuesday afternoon fills some of the gap. If the marketplace changes its terms, Takeaway B loses a quarter of its orders, not all of them.
Put some rough money on it. Assume an average order of £20 and a 20% marketplace commission. Fifty marketplace orders a week is £1,000 in sales and £200 in commission. Move 30 of those to your own channel and you're no longer paying commission on £600 of sales every week. These are made-up round numbers, so use your own average order and your own rate, but the sum is quick to do.
Setting up a direct channel takes real work, and it does take some time before it pays back. Owning the customer pays back for longer.
For more on building a direct ordering strategy, visit restauranttech.co.uk.
Get started with Flipdish
Flipdish works with takeaways and restaurants across the UK and Ireland. It runs alongside your Foodhub and other marketplace listings, so you can build the direct channel without switching anything off.
View online ordering pricing or explore the full Flipdish platform.