In 2021, the COVID-19 outbreak transformed the restaurant industry. Delivery services emerged, take-away became the norm, and even establishments that previously didn’t offer delivery had to find ways to reach customers online.

After the situation gradually normalized, one might have expected people to return to restaurants. But a portion of customers stayed with delivery: convenience, speed, safety, the ability to order favorite dishes without leaving home. Delivery became a habit.

In response, delivery management software experienced breakthroughs. Artificial intelligence and machine learning predict order volumes, automate courier routes; cloud-based POS systems and ERP integrations allow for timely inventory tracking, minimizing losses; cloud/ghost kitchens enable restaurants to scale, have virtual brands without spending resources on front-of-house; autonomous deliveries, robots and drones… This cyberpunk world isn’t from a CD Projekt Red game — it’s in the same room with us.

Modern delivery software for restaurants gives owners control, saves money, and makes customers happier. In this article, we’ll explore the main advantages of such systems, what new tools have emerged, and which companies you can learn from to improve your business in 2026.

What is Restaurant Delivery Management Software (Using Delivety as an Example)

Restaurant Delivery Management Software is specialized software that unifies all key stages of food delivery operations into a single system: order acceptance, preparation, assembly, logistics, analytics, menu management, and more. Its main goal is to make the delivery process faster, more accurate, less costly, and more convenient for both the restaurant and the customer.

Let’s explore the benefits of using them.

Goodbye, Commissions

The first and most obvious advantage is the money that stays in your pocket. When you work through major aggregators, they take up to 30% from each order. You sell a burger for $15, and $4.50 goes simply for someone clicking a button on someone else’s website.

Your own delivery management system flips this scheme. Yes, you need to pay for the software itself, but it’s either a fixed cost or a small monthly subscription (pricing starts from a few dollars). But the savings on commissions grow exponentially.

Let’s calculate. An average restaurant with delivery processes about 500 orders per month with an average check of $25. Under the traditional scheme with a 25% commission, that’s $3,125 lost monthly. And over a year, that’s over $37,000. For that money, you could hire another chef or open a second location.

Modern delivery software for restaurants solutions include everything necessary for as little as $9 per month: POS system, kitchen display screen, menu builder, and optimized ordering website. All this works together, without unnecessary integrations and headaches.

But the savings aren’t just in commissions. Automation reduces errors in orders. Each error means additional costs: re-delivery, refunds, wasted team time. According to various estimates, automation reduces errors by 40-60%, which also directly impacts profitability.

Control Over Data

When working with aggregators, you don’t own your customer data. Someone has ordered from you 50 times, but you don’t even know their email. How will you build loyalty? How will you offer a special deal to a regular customer?

Your own delivery management system helps fix this. Every order through your website or app gives you valuable information: what people like, when they order, how much they typically spend. This is gold for marketing.

You see that a certain customer orders every Friday evening, always takes vegetarian dishes, and spends an average of $20. A few weeks later, you launch a new vegetarian menu item. Wouldn’t it be logical to send them a personalized offer with a discount to add it to their check? If you didn’t have this data, they might not even find out about the new item.

Benefits of delivery management software also include understanding peak hours, popular dish combinations, seasonal trends. This allows you to optimize inventory, plan work shifts, create relevant promotions.

A separate topic is loyalty programs. When you have your own customer base, you can build real relationships. Bonus points, personalized discounts, early access to new dishes — all this works much better than faceless “for everyone” discounts.

Speed and Accuracy

Time in food delivery is arguably the most important leverage point. Food must arrive hot, fresh, and on time. The more manual work in the process, the more room for errors and delays.

The traditional scenario looks like this: an order comes in, someone manually enters it into the system or to the kitchen, then calls someone for delivery, passes along the address and food, and hopes the dish reaches the customer. At each stage, delays are possible.

A modern delivery management solution automates the entire chain. An order from the website instantly goes to the kitchen display screen (KDS), is automatically distributed among couriers with optimal routes, and the customer receives notifications at each stage. The human factor is minimized.

Integration with the POS system is especially useful. When everything works in one ecosystem, information syncs automatically: ingredient inventory, menu, prices, promo codes. You don’t need to manually update 5 different platforms when you run out of shrimp or decide to change the price of a burger.

As a result, order fulfillment speed increases by 20-30%. And satisfied customers return and recommend you to friends.

Easy Scaling

If you can manage 50 orders a day with paper stickers and phone calls, 200 orders become chaos.

Delivery management software grows with you. Opening a second location? Add it to the system with a few clicks. Hiring more couriers? They all work in a unified ecosystem. Launching a franchise? Centralized management allows you to control all points from one place.

Benefits of delivery management software are especially noticeable when you have multiple operating formats. For example, a main restaurant with a dining room + delivery + dark kitchen for separate concepts. All this can work in one system, but with different menus, delivery zones, and settings.

The ability to work on any device is also important. The owner can control the business from a phone, the manager works from a tablet, there’s a large screen in the kitchen. Everything syncs in real time, and it doesn’t matter where you physically are.

Reporting and analytics become more powerful as the business grows. You see which location brings more profit, which courier is fastest, which marketing campaign worked best. This allows you to make strategic expansion decisions based on data, not intuition.

Benefits of Delivery Management Software That Transform Business

The market is consolidating, customers are becoming more demanding, and restaurant business margins remain thin. In such conditions, every percentage of savings and every minute of saved time matters.

The main advantages: savings on commissions, control over customer data, order fulfillment speed, and the ability to scale painlessly.

The market moves quickly, and those who transition to the right technologies now gain a tangible advantage over competitors. Start small: choose a reliable solution, train your team, launch a pilot project. Then just watch as your business transforms before your eyes.