What is the biggest cost in running delivery?
Riders, in almost every case. It is the cost that grows with the number of orders, and the one where how you pay people decides whether they stay. Everything else is smaller or fixed.
For shops and restaurants
What does it cost to run your own delivery?
The important part is not the amount, it is the shape. Platform commission is a percentage, so it grows with every rupee of the order. Running your own delivery costs roughly the same whether the basket is ₹400 or ₹2,000, because it is one rider making one trip. That is why own delivery pays off first on high value orders and on regulars, and why groceries make the case faster than food. Your real costs are riders, the platform, and someone answering the phone.
- ~5
- riders on the road at a time
- 10 km
- radius covered
- ₹600+
- typical grocery basket
Where the money actually goes
| Cost | How it behaves | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Riders | The largest cost, and the one that scales with the number of orders rather than their value. | How many you keep on the road, how you pay them, and how spread out your deliveries are. |
| The platform | A fixed cost. It does not go up when an order is bigger. | Whether you take an existing platform or have one built, and how many stores you run on it. |
| Someone on the phone | Steady, and always underestimated. Late orders and wrong items need a person. | Order volume, and how good your catalogue and zones are. |
| Packaging and fuel | Per order, small individually, real in aggregate. | Distance, order type and whether you charge delivery separately. |
| Platform commission, if you also list | A percentage of every order. Grows with order value. | Your agreement, and how many of your orders come through the app rather than direct. |
Why grocery makes the case faster than food
A grocery basket in Thodupuzha runs ₹600 and up, and food orders average around ₹400. The rider trip costs the same either way. So on the grocery side, more of the order value survives the delivery, and a commission on the same basket would take proportionally more. If you run a supermarket rather than a restaurant, the arithmetic reaches your side sooner.
Fewer riders than people expect
We cover Thodupuzha with about five riders on the road at a time, in a radius of roughly 10 km, getting food out in 30 to 45 minutes and everything else within a few hours. We keep the number deliberately low so the people working earn properly rather than splitting the same work more ways. A retailer with a concentrated customer base often needs fewer than they budgeted for.
The cost nobody budgets for
Someone has to answer when an order is late, an item is out of stock, or an address is wrong. That is a person, and it is a steady cost from the first week. It is also the cost most likely to be forgotten in a plan and most likely to decide whether customers order a second time.
What we will and will not tell you
We will go through real numbers for your city with you before you commit to anything, including whether it does not add up. We are not going to publish a price range on this page, because it would be a guess dressed as a figure, and the number that matters is yours rather than ours.
Costs here are shaped by Thodupuzha: a mid-sized Kerala town, a 10 km radius, a concentrated customer base. A larger city with longer distances and more scattered orders behaves differently, and the rider count is the first thing that changes.
Questions
Common questions
Does a bigger order cost more to deliver?
Barely. It is one rider making one trip whether the basket is ₹400 or ₹2,000. That is the main structural difference from platform commission, which takes a share of every rupee.
Do we need to charge customers a delivery fee?
Many businesses do, some absorb it above a basket value, and both work. What matters is that the choice is deliberate and that you know which orders are actually profitable after delivery.
How much does the software cost?
It depends on whether you take our platform under your own brand or have something built for your business, and on how many stores run on it. It is a fixed cost either way, so it does not grow with order value. We quote after understanding your setup.
What does Boxall charge?
It depends on your city, your scale and which route you take, so we will not put a figure here that we would have to walk back in the conversation. Message us and we will go through real numbers before you commit to anything.
Also worth reading
Talk it through
Tell us your city and what you run
Or see the numbers first in the Thodupuzha case study.