Beneath MarketingSeason 2Episode 5
Delivery isn’t extra sales. It’s an ad with a commission
In short: Jahez’s 2025 results: commissions and ads up, delivery fees down. Cost each HungerStation, Jahez or Keeta order like an ad; review your contracts.
An after-isha conversation between a group owner and his CFO, about platforms earning more and more from restaurants
Abstract
In Jahez’s 2025 results, the commissions and advertising restaurants pay grew, while the delivery fees customers pay fell. So cost a delivery order the way you’d cost an ad: what does it leave after commission, visibility fees and discounts, and after the orders that would have come to you anyway?
Before you sign or renew a platform contract, count the delivery order the way you count an ad: what it leaves after commission, visibility and discount, and after what would have come to you anyway.
When to come back to this episode: Before you accept a platform’s offer or renew its contract, and when Jahez publishes its quarterly results.
The majlis
Composite dialogue. Neither character is a real person
A Tuesday night, after isha prayer, in Abu Khalid’s majlis in north Riyadh. The dallah on the table, a plate of dates, and a red folder Nasser brought with him. Nasser has been the group’s CFO for six years. Abu Khalid owns 18 branches and built half of them with his own hands. Nasser doesn’t bring folders to the house unless he has something that can’t be said in a meeting.
The dialogue
Abu Khalid: Pour, Nasser. What’s in the folder? Don’t tell me delivery’s down. I’ve seen the numbers. Delivery’s up.
Nasser: It’s up, Abu Khalid. That’s what worries me. Delivery revenue is up, and I don’t know how much of it is profit.
Abu Khalid: An order is an order. The customer paid, the kitchen cooked, the money came in.
Nasser: Let me show you something that isn’t from our books. Jahez’s 2025 results, published. The value of orders on their platform grew 10.8%. Their commissions from restaurants grew 16.3%, and advertising revenue grew 17.5%. The delivery fees customers pay fell 13.1%.1
Abu Khalid: What have their numbers got to do with me?
Nasser: You’re paying for the two columns that went up. Customers pay less for delivery; restaurants pay more in commission and visibility. That’s not a fault on their side. It’s a smart business model, and they said themselves the whole market saw heavy promotions in 2025. But we need to know exactly what we’re buying from them.
Abu Khalid: We’re buying customers who’d never have reached us.
Nasser: Some of them, for sure. And some are customers who would have come to the branch or pulled up at the window, and now order in the app because it’s easier. We didn’t win those. We moved them from one door to another and paid commission on them.
Abu Khalid: How many out of ten?
Nasser: We don’t know. That’s the problem.
Abu Khalid: (laughs) Then don’t tell me they’d all have come anyway. I know customers in Al Narjis who’ve never set foot in our Olaya branch. The app is what got us to them.
Nasser: True, and that one’s yours. Cannibalization isn’t assumed, it’s measured. I won’t assume it’s all moved, and you don’t assume it’s all new. Let me put it in a picture: remember the billboard we rented on King Fahd Road a few years back?
Abu Khalid: I remember. We paid a full year’s rent on it.
Nasser: The app is the same billboard. Except you don’t pay the rent by the year. You pay it on every customer who drives under it and orders, including the customer who was coming from home anyway and knows the way.
Abu Khalid: (pauses) And the visibility fees we pay on top of commission?
Nasser: An ad on top of the ad. Marketing fees are commission by another name.2
Abu Khalid: Fine, but the market’s moving. Keeta came in and spent.
Nasser: Keeta announced a SAR 1 billion commitment to Saudi Arabia,3 and according to Redseer it took about a tenth of order volume within four to five months of entry, mostly from smaller players.4 And in July, Uber announced an offer to acquire Delivery Hero, HungerStation’s parent, for about $14.8 billion.5 Delivery Hero’s board backed the offer, but the deal hasn’t closed: completion is expected in the second half of 2027, and the General Authority for Competition is investigating it.6
Abu Khalid: So it might not happen.
Nasser: It might not. And nobody knows what happens to terms afterwards, not me, not you. What I do know is that we know our current contracts today, and we can review them today. I don’t want to review them while we wait.
Abu Khalid: And if I told you we should pull out of the platforms and rely on our own app?
Nasser: I wouldn’t advise it. Our app isn’t free: delivery at our own cost, fixed costs, and the cost of winning each customer the first time. Below a certain volume it works out more expensive than the platform.7
Abu Khalid: So you agree with me. We need the platforms.
Nasser: We need them to win customers. But a customer who’s ordered from us five times, why are we paying commission on the sixth?
Abu Khalid: (holds out his cup) That I understand. A customer we know, we give a direct road to us. Within the platform’s rules; we don’t play games.
Nasser: Within their rules. And I want three things from you tonight. A number for every delivery order: what’s left after commission, visibility and the discount we carry, and after we take out the orders that would have come anyway. A target for our owned channels’ share. And a contract review before year end.
Abu Khalid: The first and third, agreed. The second, no. I don’t want a target that falls from the sky. Build it from our numbers, and we don’t fix it until the first number is proven.
Nasser: (closes the folder) Agreed. That one’s yours too.
Beneath the dialogue
What Nasser said about Jahez is a reading, not an accusation. The numbers come from the company’s own disclosure; it’s a listed platform that publishes its revenue breakdown, which is why we can read it. And what it says is simple: in 2025, what restaurants pay, in commission and advertising, grew faster than order value, while what customers pay for delivery fell. A platform that earns from you as an advertiser treats you as an advertiser. So return the favour: an order’s cost is commission, visibility and discount, and its real return is only the orders that wouldn’t have come without it.
Chart
The two columns that went up are yours to pay
- reference
- paid by restaurants: Faster than order growth
- paid by customers: Customers pay less
Source: Jahez, FY2025 results (company release via Zawya).
Data as a table
| Item | Growth in 2025 | Who pays |
|---|---|---|
| Order value (GMV) | +10.8% | reference |
| Commissions from restaurants | +16.3% | paid by restaurants |
| Advertising revenue | +17.5% | paid by restaurants |
| Delivery fees paid by customers | −13.1% | paid by customers |
Abu Khalid won two points. First, cannibalization is measured, not assumed, in both directions; the platform really does reach neighbourhoods your branch doesn’t. Second, the owned-channel target is built from the group’s own numbers after measuring order contribution, not before. The Channel Ledger says the same thing: it sets no target number for the demand ownership ratio, only a direction rule.8
I don’t know of a published Saudi figure for how many delivery orders would have reached the branch or the window anyway. So I won’t give you a percentage. I’ll give you a way to measure yours.
SimulatorIllustrative
What does a delivery order really leave?
One order as a waterfall: from gross margin to what's left after commission, visibility, discount and capacity, then after removing the orders that would have come anyway. That's how you cost an ad.
Result at the default values (turn on JavaScript to move the numbers).
- Fully loaded contribution per order
- 16 · 20%
- Per genuinely new order
- 10
- Paid to the platform per new order
- 32
- Channel floor test
- passes · headroom +34 pts
Stop Below the group floor: reprice, renegotiate or reduce exposure. Don't grow it. Capacity charge between 80% and 100%: the Ledger’s estimate, a straight line from 80 to 100.
Rule source: Revenue Engineering Doctrine: channel contribution and the floor test
Every default is the Channel Ledger’s illustrative basket; the default commission is no platform’s rate, and the 25% floor is the Ledger’s example, not a Doctrine value.
Data as a table
| Line | SAR per order | Running |
|---|---|---|
| Gross margin | +52 | 52 |
| Commission | −20 | 32 |
| Visibility | −2.4 | 29.6 |
| Discount | 0 | 29.6 |
| Payment & packaging | −4.8 | 24.8 |
| Refunds | −0.8 | 24 |
| Labour | −2 | 22 |
| Capacity charge | −6 | 16 |
| Loaded contribution | 16 | 16 |
| Per genuinely new order | 10 |
How it’s calculated
- Deductions = commission + visibility + discount + payment & packaging + refunds
- Capacity charge = platform share at peak × peak pressure × a dine-in order’s contribution, pressure 0 at 80% and 1 at 100%, linear between
- Loaded contribution = value × margin − value × deductions − labour − capacity charge
- Floor test: commission + visibility + discount + payment & packaging ≤ margin − group floor
- Per 100 orders: group effect = 100 × contribution − moved orders × dine-in contribution; per new order = effect ÷ new orders
- Paid to the platform per new customer = value × (commission + visibility + discount) × 100 ÷ new orders
The Sunday-morning question
The question: what does a single delivery order leave after everything we paid on it, and after what would have come to us anyway?
Three delivery measures
| Measure | How to calculate | Decision rule |
|---|---|---|
| Fully loaded contribution per delivery order | Order gross margin minus commission, visibility fees, brand-funded discount, payment and packaging, and refunds; then the capacity charge if the kitchen runs above 80% at peak. Every rate from your own contract and settlement statements9 | A platform or item below the group’s floor gets repriced, renegotiated or its exposure reduced. It doesn’t get grown |
| Contribution after cannibalization | Incremental orders only × fully loaded contribution, measured with matched branch pairs, after removing dine-in and takeaway orders that moved into the app10 | No extra riyal on visibility until incrementality is measured against a control group |
| Demand ownership ratio | Repeat orders through owned channels ÷ all repeat orders, last 90 days11 | Set your target from your own numbers. If the ratio falls two quarters in a row while platforms rise, the group is growing on rent |
And the timing rule: before 31 December 2026, every platform contract goes through the Ledger’s eight questions,12 and the remaining headroom is written down for each platform, before the market’s order changes, whether or not the deal closes.
This week
- Pull the last three months’ settlement statements for each platform, and split the visibility and advertising line from the commission line.
- Pick two pairs of similar branches and design one control test for a promotion or paid visibility.
- Work out your demand ownership ratio today, even as an estimate, and put it on the first page for the board.
Credit, and next episode
The numbers belong to their owners: Jahez in its results disclosure, Redseer in its measurement, Uber in its announcement. The reading that delivery has become an ad with a commission is mine, and the tools for it are in the Channel Ledger. And if the platforms feel it’s unfair, the calculation I’m proposing is fair to them too: a genuinely new order gets full credit.
Next episode: before your customer visits, before they even open the app… they ask an AI.
Sources and notes
Jahez, FY2025 results (company release via Zawya): GMV SAR 7.2bn (+10.8%), commission revenue SAR 1,113.8m (+16.3%), advertising revenue +17.5%, delivery-fee revenue −13.1%, with the company citing heightened industry-wide promotional activity in Saudi Arabia. zawya.com/en/press-release/companies-news/jahez-reports-fy2025-results-with-108-gmv-growth-while-maintaining-profitability-in-a-highly-competitive-market-q73hrml4 (opens in a new tab)
The Channel Ledger: the formula, “marketing fees are commission by another name”.
Argaam, 2 November 2024, Keeta CEO interview. argaam.com/en/article/articledetail/id/1765501 (opens in a new tab) . See also Arab News: arabnews.com/node/2574628/corporate-news (opens in a new tab)
Redseer, 24 February 2025: about 10% of order volume within 4–5 months, with gains mostly from smaller players. redseer.com/articles/keeta-has-gained-10-market-share-in-ksa-whats-next/ (opens in a new tab) . Same measure (order volume, January 2025): Rest of World. restofworld.org/2025/delivery-app-keeta-hungerstation-saudi-arabia/ (opens in a new tab) . This is order-volume share as of February 2025, not a current market share.
Uber press release, 16 July 2026: cash offer of €41.50 per share, equity value about $14.8bn, HungerStation among the markets covered, closing expected in H2 2027. investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2026/Uber-Announces-Acquisition-Offer-for-Delivery-Hero/default.aspx (opens in a new tab)
TechCrunch, 2 September 2026 (Delivery Hero board backs the offer). techcrunch.com/2026/09/02/delivery-hero-board-backs-ubers-15b-takeover-bid/ (opens in a new tab) . Global Competition Review, 24 September 2026: Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Competition is investigating the deal. globalcompetitionreview.com/article/uberdelivery-hero-under-review-in-saudi-arabia (opens in a new tab) . The deal is pending at the time of writing, and the review’s outcome is unknown.
The Channel Ledger: direct delivery and the same basket through two doors.
The Channel Ledger: demand ownership ratio. See also demand ownership ratio in the lexicon.
Channel P&L builder, commission headroom tool and delivery-within-capacity check.
Promotion incrementality calculator and failure mode: transferred growth. The control-group idea, with the Friday-queue example, is in Season 1, Episode 2.
Direct-delivery migration payback calculator and Revenue Engineering Doctrine: channel rules.
Cite this
English
Alhajj, S. (2026, September 29). Delivery isn’t extra sales. It’s an ad with a commission. Beneath Marketing, season 2, episode 5 (BM S2.E5). seiflden.com. https://seiflden.com/insights/delivery-ad-with-commission/
Arabic
الحاج، سيف الدين (29 سبتمبر 2026). «التوصيل مو مبيعات إضافية… إعلان بعمولة». «تحت التسويق»، الموسم 2، الحلقة 5 (BM S2.E5). seiflden.com. https://seiflden.com/ar/insights/delivery-ad-with-commission/