Every time a regular orders your food through an aggregator, you pay commission on a customer you already won. A restaurant ordering app in Canada that you own — menu and modifiers, pickup, own-driver delivery, loyalty and Interac payments — turns those repeat orders commission-free. Meridianstacks builds it with senior, fluent-English engineers anchored by hubs in Africa's three tech capitals, quoted in Canadian dollars from a published price book and billed by milestone. Your matched hub is Lagos (UTC+1) — your whole Eastern morning overlaps our afternoon, live, every day.
Canadian restaurants commonly pay a double-digit percentage commission on every aggregator order — and some provinces have, at points in time, capped what delivery apps can charge, which tells you how heavy those fees can get. The honest answer isn't to quit SkipTheDishes, Uber Eats or DoorDash — they genuinely bring new customers and drivers. It's a dual run: aggregators for discovery, your own ordering app for regulars and pickup, where the commission is zero. We build that app for CA$10,500–CA$63,000 depending on tier, from our published price book, billed by milestone, and you own every line of code.
Credit where due: SkipTheDishes, Uber Eats and DoorDash put your menu in front of thousands of hungry people who have never heard of you, and they run the driver fleet so you don't have to. For discovery and marginal delivery capacity, they earn their fee. Pretending otherwise would be bad advice.
Commission on every order — commonly a double-digit percentage — including orders from regulars who searched for your name and would have ordered from you anyway. The customer data, the reorder relationship and the push channel belong to the platform, not to you. You're renting your own regulars back.
Keep the aggregators for what they're good at: new customers. Move regulars and pickup to your own app — a card by the till, a QR on the receipt, a first-order loyalty bonus. Every order that shifts is commission that stays in your kitchen. You change the mix over months, not overnight.
Some provinces have at times capped delivery-app fees charged to restaurants; caps have changed over time and vary by province — check what currently applies where you operate. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
| Aggregator orders / month | Commission at an illustrative 20% | Over 12 months |
|---|---|---|
| CA$10,000 | CA$2,000 / month | CA$24,000 |
| CA$20,000 | CA$4,000 / month | CA$48,000 |
| CA$30,000 | CA$6,000 / month | CA$72,000 |
Compare: our Focused tier — a custom storefront with menu, modifiers, pickup and payments — is a one-time CA$10,500–CA$21,000. If even a slice of your regulars' orders moves to your own app, the build pays for itself out of commission you were already spending.
Illustrative maths only — the 20% rate is a worked example, not any platform's actual rate. Real commissions vary by platform, plan, province and service (delivery vs pickup); pull the effective rate from your own statements and rerun the sums.
This isn't a menu PDF with a phone number. It's the full ordering machine — the same customer experience the aggregators offer, wearing your brand, feeding your kitchen, and paying you.
| Who gets… | Aggregator | Your app |
|---|---|---|
| Commission per order | Them | Nobody — CA$0 |
| Customer data & reorder channel | Them | You |
| Your brand on the screen | Theirs, next to rivals | Yours alone |
| New-customer discovery | Them — genuinely | You market it |
| Driver network | Theirs, at scale | Your own drivers |
Two honest wins for the aggregators — which is exactly why the answer is both, not either.
| Build | Canadian agency | Aggregator | Meridianstacks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ordering site: menu, modifiers, pickup, payments — Focused tier (custom storefront) | Commonly 2–3× these bands | Free to join — but commission on every order, forever | CA$10,500–CA$21,000 |
| Ordering platform + loyalty, kitchen display, own-driver delivery — Standard tier | Commonly 2–3× these bands | CA$21,000–CA$42,000 | |
| Full ordering product + iOS & Android apps — Full tier | Commonly 2–3× these bands | CA$31,500–CA$63,000 | |
| Support retainer (monthly) | — | — | CA$1,000–CA$3,000 |
Prices published from our Open Price Book (v1.0 · July 2026 · next review October 2026). All prices exclude VAT.
All figures exclude tax. Indicative bands in Canadian dollars; every engagement is quoted as a fixed price in CAD before work begins and billed by milestone — you pay for delivered, accepted work. Typically 40–70% below a local agency, with full code ownership either way.
A 30-minute call on your timezone to map your menu, locations, delivery zones and how orders reach the kitchen today. You get a fixed quote in CAD, milestones, and the senior engineers who'll build it. Week 0.
We model your menu with every modifier and combo, design the branded ordering flow — bilingual where you need it — and agree pickup, delivery and refund rules before code is written. Weeks 1–2.
Ordering engine, customer accounts, kitchen display and the pickup flow — reviewed with you in live weekly demos, on your morning. Weeks 2–6.
Interac and card payments in CAD with provincial tax, the loyalty programme, push offers, and own-driver delivery with tracking. Weeks 5–9.
Automated tests, real-device checks and a soft launch on pickup orders first — real revenue before the full rollout, and a milestone you accept before it's billed. Weeks 8–12.
Full code ownership, documentation and a warranty period — plus the practical playbook for moving regulars across: till cards, receipt QRs, first-order rewards. Ongoing.
Typical timeline: 5–8 weeks for a focused ordering site, 8–12 weeks with loyalty and own-driver delivery, 10–15 weeks with iOS & Android apps.
Book a free 30-minute scoping call with a senior engineer — on your timezone. Bring your aggregator statement; we'll give you an honest answer on whether an own-brand ordering app pays for itself, with no obligation.
Book a free scoping call →