There’s nothing new in platform fees so far as the Indian food delivery story goes. Some 18 months and an over seven-fold surge later, what’s new is it’s time to look inside the blueprint more critically to comprehend if the monetisation gameplan would play out even in the long run or not.

Food delivery giants have tried out various diversification strategies over the years. Some bets paid off, while some failed. The quick commerce ventures – Swiggy’s Instamart and Zomato’s Blinkit – turned out to be the biggest game-changers for the two listed Goliaths – Swiggy, commanding a market valuation of around INR 1 Lakh Cr, and Zomato parent Eternal, which is hovering on INR 3 Lakh Cr.

The 10-minute delivery format helped the companies bump up their revenues, but what improved the unit economics for their core food delivery business was platform fees.

First introduced in 2023 at a nominal INR 2, the platform fee has climbed steadily to INR 15. Swiggy took the freedom of raising it to INR 14 on orders placed on the Independence Day to cash in on the surge and later raised it further to INR 15. Zomato too increased its platform fee to INR 12 during Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai and made it pan-India later on.

This was not the first time. Both the companies had raised platform fees ahead of the festive season last year as well. Analysts believe such hikes would continue to return.

What about the longer term? Will it be a sustainable revenue strategy?

Food Delivery’s Flat Trajectory

Despite more than seven times hike in platform fees, order volumes continued to grow, suggesting that urban Indian consumers have tolerated the incremental costs so far.

In Q1 of FY26, Zomato reported an adjusted revenue of INR 2,657 Cr, compared to Swiggy’s INR 2,080 Cr, while the gross order value stood at INR 10,769 Cr and INR 8,086 Cr. Zomato had 2.3 Cr average monthly transacting users, as against 1.6 Cr for Swiggy.

Since last year, though, the growth in the food delivery business seems to have slowed down, with sequential revenues staying largely flat.

“There has been a slight slowdown in the number of transacting customers and the number of app downloads that we’re seeing. Year-on-year, some of that growth has been impacted, and we’ve talked about it over the last couple of quarters,” Zomato said in a post-earnings conference call after the June quarter of FY26.

Similar voices echoed in Swiggy, too, though Rohit Kapoor, the chief executive of the food delivery business, played it down, citing seasonality. “This happens every Q1. If you look at last Q1 also, it had a similar impact,” he said. “We expect this to correct back and we’ll continue to stay on our guidance for a 5% EBITDA margin in the medium-term.”

Both giants went into a major course correction recently by calling off their non-core ventures. Their margins took a hit as the companies battled with a steadily growing order volume and the mounting cost of matching pace with India’s $5.38 Bn quick commerce market that’s zooming at 15.54% to reach $11.08 Bn by 2030.

“Quick commerce has definitely been a headwind to some extent for the food........

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