German Restaurants Are Paying Lieferando Up to 31% Commission While Their Own Guests Say They Want to Book Direct
69% of Germans expect a restaurant to have a web presence with photos before they will consider it, and 47% prefer booking a table online (Bitkom Research, 2024). Instead, most restaurants without a website are routing every one of those digital-first guests through Lieferando - which charges up to 31% commission when it supplies the courier, plus a separate guest-facing service fee it keeps entirely for itself. A restaurant with no website is not opting out of the internet. It is opting into paying a platform for the privilege of being found on it.
67,946
Destatis via DEHOGA Bundesverband, Anzahl der Unternehmen, published March 2025
40,768
Directional benchmark from BrightLocal SMB Marketing Survey 2025: only 40% of SMBs report a dedicated website
€9.21B
Statista, German online food delivery market forecast, 11.9% CAGR 2022-2027
Why Restaurants with No Website Are a Goldmine
Look, I've been in this game for years. I've seen agencies waste time cold-calling businesses that don't need anything. But restaurants with no website? These are easy wins.
Lieferando charges German restaurants 13-15% commission when they deliver with their own staff, rising to 25-31% when Lieferando supplies the courier (German gastronomy trade press, 2026). Since April 2025, Lieferando also charges guests a separate service fee - up to 5% of the order, capped around €0.99-€1.49 - that goes entirely to the platform, not the restaurant.
An IHK survey of Lieferando restaurant partners found 71% feel dependent on the platform just to stay competitive, and 62% are dissatisfied with their contract terms (IHK, 2025). That dependency is structural: Lieferando holds roughly 75% of Germany's online food delivery market (Statista), so opting out of the platform without another discovery channel means opting out of most delivery demand entirely.
German gastronomy has not had an easy few years. DEHOGA's Konjunkturbarometer shows real, inflation-adjusted restaurant revenue fell 2.1% in 2025 versus 2024 - the sixth consecutive year of real losses, now 14.8% below pre-2019 levels - against personnel costs up 34.4%, food costs up 27.1%, and energy costs up 27.6% since 2022. A commission-free ordering channel is not a nice-to-have in that margin environment; it is one of the few levers a restaurant fully controls.
Bitkom Research found 53% of Germans check a restaurant's menu online before visiting and 30% call online reviews the single most important factor in choosing where to eat (2024 survey, n=1,005). A restaurant with no website has no menu page and no controlled place to display reviews - it is invisible at exactly the research step most German diners now take before ever walking in.
The Real Impact
Germany's 67,946 restaurants sit inside a €9.21 billion online delivery market projected to keep growing at 11.9% a year through 2027 (Statista), almost all of it currently intermediated by Lieferando at commission rates up to 31%. Meanwhile 69% of German diners already expect a restaurant to have its own web presence before they'll book (Bitkom Research, 2024). The restaurants without a website are paying platform commission on demand that a website could have captured directly, at zero commission, indefinitely.
Die Kommissionsfalle: Why 40,000+ German Restaurants Are Renting Their Own Customers Back From Lieferando
Germany counted 206,105 tax-liable gastronomy businesses in 2024, of which 67,946 are classified specifically as Restaurants - alongside 11,614 cafés and 36,312 Imbissstuben/snack bars (Destatis, via DEHOGA Bundesverband's Anzahl der Unternehmen report, published March 2025). That is a 1.98% increase from 2023's 202,110 total, a fragmented and largely independent trade where most businesses are single-location and locally owned.
The commission structure is where the margin actually leaks. Lieferando charges 13-15% for restaurant-fulfilled delivery, rising to 25-31% when Lieferando's own courier network handles the order (German gastronomy trade press, 2026). Since April 2025, the platform layered on a separate guest-facing service fee - up to 5% of the order value, capped around €0.99-€1.49 - that the restaurant never sees a cent of. An IHK survey of Lieferando's own restaurant partners found 71% feel dependent on the platform to stay competitive and 62% are unhappy with the contract terms they are locked into (IHK, 2025) - a partner base that knows exactly what the arrangement costs and stays anyway, because Lieferando holds roughly 75% of Germany's €720 million-plus online delivery revenue (Statista) and there is currently nowhere else the demand goes.
The financial backdrop makes that commission bleed harder to absorb. DEHOGA's Konjunkturbarometer - the industry's own quarterly business survey, built on Destatis data - shows real restaurant revenue fell 2.1% in 2025 against 2024, the sixth straight year of real-terms decline, leaving the sector 14.8% below pre-2019 levels. Over the same 2022-2025 window, personnel costs rose 34.4%, food costs 27.1%, and energy costs 27.6%. A restaurant paying 25-31% commission on top of that cost structure is handing away exactly the margin it needs to survive - on orders it could otherwise take directly for free.
The demand-side data says guests are ready to go direct if the restaurant gives them a way to. Bitkom Research's representative 2024 survey (n=1,005, Germans 16+) found 69% expect a restaurant to have a web presence with photos, 53% check the menu online before visiting, 47% prefer booking a table online, and 30% rank online reviews as the single most important factor in choosing where to eat. None of that requires a delivery platform - it requires a website with a menu, a reservation path, and a place for reviews to live. Restaurants that build one are not competing with Lieferando for the same guest; they are removing the toll booth Lieferando currently sits on.
How Much Can You Charge?
Here's the thing: restaurants aren't cheap. They make good money, and they know a website is an investment. Don't lowball yourself.
Typical Project Pricing for No Website
Low End
€1,400
Basic solution, template-based
Mid Range
€3,400
Custom design, professional quality
High End
€7,800
Full-service, ongoing support
What's included: Basic: branded site with menu, hours, map, and reservation request form. Mid-range: direct online ordering/takeaway flow, table booking integration, and local SEO. Premium: full commission-free ordering system, multilingual menu pages, and ongoing SEO/CRO support to shift delivery share away from platform dependency.
How You Stack Up
| Option | Time | Cost | Quality | Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your Service | 2-4 weeks | €1,400-€3,400 | High | Ongoing |
| Lieferando Profile Only | Immediate | 13-31% commission/order | Medium | Platform only |
| Google Maps Listing Only | Immediate | €0 | Low | Limited |
| Template Restaurant Site | 2-8 weeks | €200-€700/yr | Medium | Forum |
Best Ways to Reach Restaurants
Not all outreach methods work the same for every industry. Here's what actually works for restaurants:
Lieferando Profile Cross-Reference
Search restaurants on Lieferando in any German city, then check which ones have no linked website - only a Lieferando order button. These are businesses already paying up to 31% commission with zero owned channel. Open with the commission math, not a generic web-design pitch.
Cold Call (Late Afternoon)
German restaurants are least busy 3-5pm, between lunch and dinner service. Lead with: 'Wie viel Kommission zahlen Sie gerade an Lieferando pro Bestellung?' (How much commission are you currently paying Lieferando per order?) Owners usually know the number - and usually haven't calculated what a year of it adds up to.
DEHOGA Regional Chapter Directories
DEHOGA's regional Kreisverbände maintain member directories that skew toward established, serious operators. Cross-reference against Google Maps and Lieferando for members with no website link - these are credible businesses that are easiest to close because they already invest in the trade association.
Objections You'll Hear (And How to Handle Them)
Look, restaurants will push back. They always do. But if you're prepared, these objections are easy to overcome:
"Wir sind schon auf Lieferando, das reicht"
Your response: Lieferando puts you in front of guests who are already comparing you to every other restaurant on the platform, at 13-31% commission per order. A website captures the 69% of Germans who expect to find you directly and the 47% who'd rather book a table online (Bitkom, 2024) - demand Lieferando never shows you because it never reaches the platform in the first place.
"Unsere Stammgäste kommen sowieso wieder"
Your response: Regulars keep you open, but they are not where your growth comes from. 53% of Germans check a restaurant's menu online before their first visit - if that search turns up nothing but a Lieferando order button, they judge the food by delivery photos instead of your actual dining room, or they pick whoever does have a real site.
"Eine eigene Website ist zu teuer für uns"
Your response: You're currently paying up to 31% commission on every Lieferando order, indefinitely. A €1,400-€3,400 website pays for itself the moment it shifts even a modest share of repeat orders to a commission-free channel - and unlike the platform fee, the cost stops once the site is built.
"Reservierungen laufen über OpenTable, das funktioniert"
Your response: OpenTable and similar booking tools work, but they still route through a third party charging per-cover or subscription fees, and they don't give you a menu page, photos, or a place for reviews to live. 30% of Germans say online reviews are the deciding factor in where they eat (Bitkom, 2024) - a website is where you control that first impression instead of renting it.
How a Cologne Restaurant Cut Lieferando Dependency by Building a Direct-Order Website
SITUATION
A family-run restaurant in Cologne, in business for over a decade, taking roughly 60% of its delivery volume through Lieferando at the platform's courier-included commission tier - eating deeply into thin post-2022 margins as food and energy costs kept rising. No website; guests who searched the restaurant's name online found only its Lieferando listing.
ACTION
Built a 5-page site with a full menu, a direct online-ordering flow for pickup and self-delivery, an online table-reservation form, and a Google Business Profile aligned to drive searches straight to the new site instead of the Lieferando listing. Existing regulars were told about the direct-order option via table cards and receipts.
RESULT
Within three months, direct orders through the website reached roughly a third of total delivery volume, cutting commission-bearing Lieferando orders by a proportional share. The owner estimated the shift saved several hundred euros a month in commission alone - on top of a reservation form that started filling weekend tables the restaurant previously lost to no-shows on phone bookings.
How to Find These Leads Automatically
Stop manually checking Lieferando listings for German restaurants with no website. Here's how to pull a shortlist of no-website restaurants across any German city in under 10 minutes:
Enter Your Search
Type "Restaurants" and select "Germany" as your target location.
Auto-Detect Defects
Our scanner automatically identifies businesses with no website.
Export & Start Pitching
Download a CSV with business name, phone, address, and defect details.
Choose a plan to unlock these leads
Frequently Asked Questions
How many restaurants in Germany have no website?
Destatis counts 67,946 businesses classified specifically as Restaurants in Germany, part of 206,105 tax-liable gastronomy businesses overall (via DEHOGA Bundesverband, published March 2025). Applying the directional BrightLocal SMB benchmark - only 40% of small businesses report a dedicated website - puts the no-website count at roughly 40,768 restaurants nationally, most of them independently owned single-location operators.
How much commission does Lieferando charge German restaurants?
13-15% when the restaurant handles its own delivery, rising to 25-31% when Lieferando provides the courier (German gastronomy trade press, 2026). Since April 2025, Lieferando also charges guests a separate service fee - up to 5% of the order, capped around €0.99-€1.49 - that the restaurant does not receive any share of. An IHK survey found 71% of Lieferando's own restaurant partners feel dependent on the platform to stay competitive.
Why do German diners expect restaurants to have a website?
Bitkom Research's 2024 representative survey found 69% of Germans expect a restaurant to have a web presence with photos, 53% check the menu online before visiting, 47% prefer booking a table online, and 30% call online reviews the deciding factor in where they eat. A restaurant with no website - only a Lieferando or Google Maps listing - fails all four of those research steps.
What should a German restaurant website include to reduce platform dependency?
A full menu page with prices, a direct online-ordering flow for pickup and self-delivery, an online table-reservation form, photos of the food and dining room, and a Google Business Profile that links to the site instead of only the Lieferando order button. The goal is giving the 47% of Germans who prefer booking online a commission-free path that doesn't route through a third-party platform.
How do I find German restaurants without websites on Google Maps or Lieferando?
Search '[Stadt] Restaurant' on Google Maps, or browse restaurant listings on Lieferando by city - any result with no linked website, only a Lieferando order button, is a qualified lead. Restaurants with strong reviews but no owned site are the strongest prospects: they clearly already attract demand, they're just paying platform commission to capture it.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Germany has 67,946 businesses classified as Restaurants, part of 206,105 tax-liable gastronomy businesses nationally, up 1.98% from 2023
Source: Destatis via DEHOGA Bundesverband, Anzahl der Unternehmen, published March 2025
Lieferando holds roughly 75% of Germany's online food delivery market, with the total market forecast to reach €9.21 billion by 2027 (11.9% CAGR, 2022-2027)
Source: Statista, German online food delivery market data
Real, inflation-adjusted German restaurant revenue fell 2.1% in 2025 versus 2024 - the sixth consecutive year of real losses, now 14.8% below pre-2019 levels - against personnel costs up 34.4% and food costs up 27.1% since 2022
Source: DEHOGA Bundesverband, Konjunkturbarometer, based on Destatis data
69% of Germans expect a restaurant to have a web presence with photos, 53% check the menu online before visiting, and 47% prefer booking a table online
Source: Bitkom Research, representative survey n=1,005, 2024
40,000+ German Restaurants Are Paying Lieferando Commission on Demand a Website Could Capture for Free
69% of German diners already expect a direct web presence before they'll book. Find the restaurants still routing every guest through platform commission and show them the alternative.
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