Foodpanda Took 28% From an Iloilo Latte. The Café Owner Found Out in the Weekly Statement.
Regional café owners signed aggregator contracts without a clear fee breakdown. DTI has yet to require platforms to disclose commission tiers in plain language.
Sign-up takes ten minutes. A rider photo, a menu upload, a bank account, a digital signature. By the end of the first month, an Iloilo café owner is staring at a payout statement that does not match the orders that came through the tablet.
This is what small coffee shops across Jaro, Molo, and Mandurriao describe when you ask them about Foodpanda and GrabFood. They signed up during the post-pandemic delivery push. They never got a clean, itemized explanation of how commission tiers actually work.
The math nobody walked them through
Aggregator commissions in the Philippines sit anywhere from 18 to 30 percent of the order value, depending on the package the merchant agrees to. Higher tiers promise better placement in the app, promotional banners, and rider priority. Lower tiers mean your café shows up on page four of the search.
Then there are the layered deductions. Promo co-funding, where the platform discounts your drink and bills you for half. Service fees on top of commission. Card processing charges. Cancellation costs when a rider does not show. Marketing credits that auto-renew.
A ₱180 latte in Iloilo can net the shop ₱130 before milk, syrup, cup, lid, barista wage, and rent. Owners who ran the numbers after six months found they were subsidizing the convenience of customers who lived three streets away.
Regional cafés cannot absorb Manila math
The commission structures were built around Metro Manila ticket sizes and order volume. Iloilo cafés run on thinner margins, smaller average orders, and a customer base that still walks in for ₱120 brewed coffee. A 25 percent cut on a ₱150 order is not the same as a 25 percent cut on a ₱600 BGC bundle.
The volume promised in the pitch deck rarely arrives. What arrives is a steady drip of small orders that cost the shop money once you factor in the labor of preparing each cup for a rider who is late.
Some owners have started listing menu prices on the app at 20 to 30 percent above their dine-in rate, which the platforms technically discourage. Others have quietly delisted and gone back to a private Viber group of regulars who order direct and pay through GCash.
DTI has not written the disclosure rule
The Department of Trade and Industry has guidelines on fair trade and consumer protection. There is no specific regulation requiring food delivery platforms to disclose commission tiers, promo co-funding mechanics, or fee changes in a standardized format that a café owner can read before signing.
Merchant contracts are presented digitally, in English, with terms that can be updated by the platform at its discretion. Owners get an email notification of the new rate and a button that says continue.
Advocacy groups for small merchants have raised this with DTI in industry consultations. The agency has acknowledged the concern in public statements. A circular requiring upfront, plain-language fee disclosure has not been issued.
The Iloilo owner closing the laptop at 9 PM is not asking for the platforms to leave. She is asking for the commission breakdown to be on page one of the contract, in Hiligaynon if possible, before she signs away 28 percent of every cup.
