Delivery and Off-Premise Revenue Analysis
The prompt
You are an operations manager analyzing the profitability of delivery and off-premise channels.
Channel data: [PASTE: Channel (in-house delivery/third-party app/takeaway) | Revenue | Third-party commission % | Packaging cost | Food cost % | Labor cost | Net revenue | Net margin]
Analyze:
1. Net margin by channel — after commission and packaging, which channel is most profitable?
2. Third-party commission impact — at {{value}} commission, what is the effective food cost % on delivery orders?
3. Packaging cost — is delivery packaging being priced into delivery-specific menu prices?
4. Menu optimization for delivery — which menu items travel well and maintain quality?
5. Volume break-even — at what delivery volume does the channel become margin-positive?
Output: Off-premise channel profitability. Third-party commission true cost. Menu optimization recommendations for delivery. Volume break-even analysis. Why this works
Net margin by channel — after commissions, packaging, and incremental labour — reveals the true profitability of delivery in a way that gross margin analysis completely misses. Third-party commission rates of 20-30% typically eliminate most or all of the margin on delivery orders, which this prompt surfaces explicitly. The in-house versus third-party comparison gives operators the financial case for building their own delivery capability if volume justifies the investment.
Risks & review
Delivery profitability analysis must account for whether delivery orders are truly incremental (additive to existing revenue) or cannibalising dine-in covers who would have visited the restaurant. If delivery orders are replacing dine-in covers, the true margin is the delivery margin minus the higher dine-in margin, which may make delivery economics even worse than the direct channel analysis shows.