Rapido is doing to Zomato and Swiggy what it already did to Uber and Ola. I compared the checkout prices for the same items across different price bands on Zomato and Rapido's Ownly from three restaurants, with no coupons on either side.
The cheaper the food, the more Zomato's fee structure punishes you. A ₹115 dosa carries ₹92 in added fees on Zomato. That's an 80% fee burden on a budget item. On a ₹699 pizza, the same fees work out to 17%. Zomato's economics are regressive. The people ordering the cheapest food pay the highest markup.
Ownly charges one thing - a flat ₹25 delivery fee. It disproportionately benefits budget-conscious consumers ordering from small local restaurants. Babai Tiffins actually priced the dosa lower on Ownly. Without a 25-30% commission to cover, the restaurant passed the savings on. Pizza Hut and Salad Days kept standardized pricing across both apps.
Users won't compare Ownly prices to offline/dine-in prices. They'll compare to Zomato/Swiggy prices (their reference point). Even without restaurants passing on commission savings (Salad Days, Pizza Hut case), Ownly wins on the eliminated fees alone.
The playbook is the same. Enter from the bottom. Eliminate the commission. Let the savings reach the consumer. Grow where the incumbent's fee structure makes them weakest.
None of this works without scale. A ₹25 delivery fee alone cannot sustain a food delivery business, and Rapido knows that. It already charges its cab drivers a subscription fee instead of a commission. You could expect something similar here eventually. But that is a fundamentally different model from charging restaurants 30% on every order. The underlying economics stay in the consumer's favor.
Zomato and Swiggy haven't responded yet because Ownly's scale is still negligible. But look at what's happening in quick commerce. The moment new entrants like Amazon Now started applying pricing pressure, the incumbents moved. The difference is that quick commerce discount wars are temporary. New entrants will eventually have to raise prices to justify unit economics. Ownly's zero-commission model is not a discount. It is a permanent structural change. And in Bengaluru, their restaurant catalogue has been growing every day since launch. The speed is there.
The real question is not whether Ownly will scale. It is what Zomato and Swiggy will do when it does.