Delivery zones and fees
What this is for
Three decisions, all in Settings › Delivery: how far you'll go, what you charge to get there, and what you promise about timing.
Get them right and delivery quietly works. Get them wrong and you're either losing money on every distant order or turning away business two streets over.
Turning delivery on
Enable Delivery switches it on for the branch. Until it's on, delivery orders can't be placed from your ordering site.
You'll also need the branch's own position — Branch Latitude and Branch Longitude — because every distance is measured from there. Set them accurately; a pin dropped on the wrong side of the building doesn't matter, one dropped on the wrong street does.
A Google Maps API key powers address search and distance calculation.
How far you'll go
Maximum Delivery Radius, in your chosen Distance Unit — kilometres or miles.
Anything beyond it can't be ordered for delivery. That's the setting doing its job: better a customer sees "we don't deliver there" than gets a driver who takes fifty minutes.
Set it to a real driving reality, not a map circle. Twelve kilometres across a city at 7 pm is not the same as twelve kilometres down a dual carriageway.
What you charge
Pick a Fee Calculation Method:
Fixed Rate
One fee for every delivery, anywhere inside your radius.
Simple to explain, simple for staff, and fine when your radius is small enough that near and far cost you about the same. Most restaurants should start here.
Per Distance Rate
A fee per kilometre or mile. A customer 2 km away pays half what one 4 km away pays.
Fair, and it scales with your actual cost. It also means nobody can predict their fee before entering an address, which is a small friction on a first order.
Distance Tiers
Bands, each with its own fee:
| Min distance | Max distance | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 3 | 2.00 |
| 3.1 | 6 | 3.50 |
| 6.1 | 10 | 5.00 |
The compromise most restaurants land on: it reflects distance without being unpredictable, and "under 3 km is £2" is something a customer can remember.
Tiers must not overlap, and each band's maximum must be greater than its minimum — Restodesk checks this and won't save a set that contradicts itself. Your maximum radius follows the largest tier.
Free delivery
Two independent levers:
- Free Delivery Over Amount — spend this much and delivery is free. A basket-size nudge; set it slightly above your current average order and watch what happens.
- Free Delivery Within Radius — free inside a set distance. Good for a tight local area you'd rather not charge for at all.
Leave either empty to switch it off.
When you'll deliver
Delivery Hours Start and Delivery Hours End bound the delivery window, which doesn't have to match your opening hours — plenty of kitchens stop delivering an hour before they close.
Leave both empty, or set both to 00:00, for 24/7 delivery.
What you promise about timing
Restodesk estimates delivery time from two numbers:
- Average Preparation Time — minutes in the kitchen.
- Average Speed of Delivery Rider — how fast your drivers actually travel, including traffic and parking.
Together with the distance, that produces the estimate a customer sees.
Be honest with both. Estimates that are consistently optimistic generate calls, complaints and bad reviews; a slightly pessimistic estimate that's beaten every time does the opposite. Measure your real prep time for a week before typing a number.
Getting the fee right
Work out what a delivery actually costs you — driver time, fuel, packaging, the order you couldn't take because the driver was out — then decide how much of that the customer carries.
Common approaches:
- Charge the full cost. Honest, and safe on margin.
- Charge part of it and treat the rest as the cost of the sale.
- Free over a threshold, so bigger baskets absorb it.
What doesn't work is a fee set by copying the restaurant next door without knowing whether they're making money on it.
Good to know
- Delivery settings are per branch. Each location sets its own radius, fees and hours.
- Fees are calculated from the customer's map location, which is why the pin on a saved address matters. See Customer accounts and addresses.
- A delivery-type order type can also carry its own default price — useful for third-party platforms. See Third-party delivery apps.
- Changing fees affects new orders only. Orders already placed keep the fee they were quoted.