The monthly settlement from Swiggy or Zomato rarely matches the orders you remember taking. Ads you did not switch on, discounts you never agreed to fund, cancellation adjustments, a clutch of small percentage deductions - each line looks minor, but together they can halve what reaches your bank.
You do not have to accept the statement as final. Much of this spend is adjustable, auditable and - when it was charged without your consent - disputable. This guide walks through how to read the settlement, cap the ad spend, switch off what you did not approve, and reclaim charges you should never have paid, while you stay listed on the platforms.
Key takeaways
- Your ad spend is a dial, not a fixed cost. Both apps let you set a daily budget and pause campaigns from the partner dashboard - most owners never open that screen.
- Charges without consent are now being refunded. After the Bengaluru boycott pressure, Swiggy "agreed to refund promotional charges, which were allegedly levied on restaurant partners without prior consent" (Inc42, 2026) - a precedent you can cite when you dispute.
- Reconcile every settlement line by line. Commission ranges widely - "8 per cent to 28 per cent" on independents (The Week, 2026) - with 18% GST, TDS and a gateway fee stacked on top. Each is a place money leaks.
- A regulator is already looking. A CCI Director-General probe found the platforms breached competition law, though no final order has been passed (Inc42, 2024).
- Cut what rides on the aggregators by auditing spend, disputing wrong charges, and building a cheaper third channel such as ONDC or your own ordering page.
Why are Swiggy and Zomato charges so hard to control?
Because your payout is not one price - it is whatever is left after a stack of deductions, and several of those lines are set in a dashboard you were never walked through.
The headline deduction is commission. The restaurant association's own filing with the Competition Commission said platforms were "charging a commission in the range of 25 to 35 per cent of the order value in 2020-21" (Moneylife, 2025). More recent reporting on the Bengaluru dispute put the working range at "8 per cent to 28 per cent", with a typical breakdown of "commission costs ranging from 24 per cent to 25 per cent, an 18 per cent GST, 0.1 per cent TDS and a payment gateway fee of around 2 per cent" (The Week, 2026).
On top of commission sit ad spend and restaurant-funded discounts - and those are exactly the lines owners say appear without their sign-off. The good news: because they are set in your account, they are also the lines you can take back control of fastest. For the full rupee-by-rupee picture of what Swiggy and Zomato actually cost, start there; this guide is about managing and reclaiming that spend.
Step 1: Read your settlement statement line by line
Download the latest settlement or payout report from the partner app - not the summary, the itemised version - and put each deduction into its own row. You are looking for anything you cannot explain.
A useful discipline is to rebuild one order from scratch. Here is an illustrative teardown of a ₹1,000 item total, using the component rates reported in the Bengaluru coverage (your own contract sets the exact figures):
| Line item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Customer item total | ₹1,000 |
| Commission (24%) | −₹240 |
| GST on commission (18%) | −₹43 |
| Payment gateway (~2%) | −₹20 |
| TDS (0.1%) | −₹1 |
| Restaurant-funded discount (~15%) | −₹150 |
| Ad spend (apportioned per order) | −₹50 |
| Left for the restaurant | ≈ ₹496 |
That ~₹496 is before a single rupee of food cost, gas, rent or wages. The point of the exercise is not the exact number - it is to see which lines you actually control. Commission and GST are contractual. The discount and the ad spend are not - those are the two rows this guide helps you take back.
Step 2: Find your ad spend and cap it
Ad spend is usually the single largest discretionary line - and the easiest to leave running by accident.
In the Swiggy partner app, ad campaigns sit under the ads or growth section; in Zomato's partner app they sit under the ads or promotions menu. Open it and check three things:
- Is a campaign live right now, and what is its daily budget? If you did not set it this month, that is your first flag.
- Is any budget set to auto-renew or run continuously? A campaign with no end date keeps spending until you stop it.
- What return is it actually producing? The dashboard shows spend against orders attributed to ads. If the ad cost per order is eating your whole margin on that order, the campaign is losing you money.
Set a daily cap you are comfortable with - treat it like a wage line, a fixed weekly figure, not an open tap. Then review the attributed-orders number weekly. Capping ad spend is the fastest lever you have, because it takes effect immediately and needs no one's approval but yours.
Step 3: Turn off discounts you did not approve
Not every "50% OFF" banner is the platform's generosity. Many promotional discounts are funded by the restaurant and deducted from your payout - and owners say some were switched on without consent.
This is the heart of the 2026 dispute. In the Bengaluru action, restaurants objected to "deep discounts without prior approval" and to being charged "for advertising without explicit consent", and demanded "a detailed breakdown of commissions and payouts" (The Week, 2026). The association's president put the pressure plainly: "rising delivery orders are now claiming a significantly larger share of restaurants' revenues" (Inc42, 2026).
Go into the offers or promotions section of each partner app and list every active discount. For each one, confirm who funds it. Switch off any restaurant-funded discount you did not deliberately choose, and keep only the ones that pay for themselves in extra covers. Screenshot the before-and-after - you will want it if a deduction for a cancelled promo still appears on the next statement.
Step 4: Dispute wrong or unauthorised charges - and claim a refund
If the settlement shows ad spend or a discount you never approved, raise it as a formal dispute. The precedent is now firmly on your side: after the boycott pressure, Swiggy "agreed to refund promotional charges, which were allegedly levied on restaurant partners without prior consent" (Inc42, 2026). That is the outcome you are asking for.
Work the dispute in order:
- Reconcile first. Identify the exact line, date, order ID and rupee amount from the itemised settlement.
- Gather proof. Screenshots of your ad and promotions settings showing you did not switch the item on, plus the settlement line.
- Raise a partner-support ticket. Use the in-app partner support or your account manager. State it is a charge levied without consent and that you want it reversed.
- Escalate if ignored. If support stalls, escalate to your account manager and reference the published refund commitment above in writing.
- Keep a paper trail. Log every ticket number, reply and date in one sheet - it is your evidence if you escalate further.
A reusable dispute message template
Subject: Dispute - promotional/ad charge levied without consent (Outlet: [name], Partner ID: [ID])
On [date], my settlement statement shows a deduction of ₹[amount] for [ad campaign / discount], order IDs [list]. I did not authorise this charge, and my partner-app settings do not show it being switched on by my team (screenshots attached).
Swiggy has publicly agreed to refund promotional charges levied on restaurant partners without prior consent. On that basis I am requesting a full reversal of ₹[amount] to my next settlement, and written confirmation that no further unapproved promotional or ad charges will be applied without my explicit consent.
Please share the ticket reference and expected resolution date. Regards, [name], [outlet], [phone].
Keep the tone factual and specific. A dated amount, an order ID and a screenshot resolve disputes far faster than a general complaint.
Step 5: Know what you can recover on cancelled orders
One recurring grievance is orders cancelled after the kitchen has cooked them - you have paid for ingredients and labour, but the order vanishes. Among the Bengaluru demands were "fairer policies for customer complaints and order cancellations" (The Week, 2026).
Your recovery depends on the cancellation reason and the stage at cancellation, so the practical move is to track every cancelled-after-prep order: the order ID, the time it was accepted, the time it was cancelled, and whether any compensation was credited. Raise the ones with no credit as support tickets using the same method as Step 4. A pattern of uncompensated post-preparation cancellations is also exactly the evidence the associations are collecting - so your log has value beyond your own payout.
Step 6: Build a third channel so less rides on the aggregators
Capping and disputing claws back spend, but the structural fix is to stop every order flowing through a 24-28% pipe.
The clearest low-cost alternative is the government-backed ONDC network, where restaurant commissions have been reported at "10-11 per cent" against "18-25 per cent per order" on the majors - though the same reporting is candid that for restaurants it "has not seen any meaningful success" yet (Outlook Business, 2026). Commission there varies by the buyer app you list on, so treat it as a cheaper third channel, not a wholesale replacement. The fuller landscape of Swiggy and Zomato alternatives is worth a proper look.
The channel you fully own is your own ordering page - the one place no platform takes a commission and no one can switch on an ad or a discount without you. A direct ordering page keeps the commission you would otherwise lose on roughly one delivery order a day, which is how commission-free online ordering earns its place. Tools such as DineHere build one from a photo of your menu; the point is simply that the channel exists and the margin stays with you.
What the CCI probe and the Bengaluru boycott mean for your leverage
You are negotiating from a stronger position than owners were two years ago. A Competition Commission Director-General probe - first triggered by a 2021 restaurant-association complaint - found the platforms had breached competition law (Inc42, 2024), including a finding that Swiggy "threatened partner restaurants that 'their rankings will be pushed down if they do not maintain price parity'" (Outlook Business, 2024). Both companies maintain they comply, and no final CCI order has been passed - this is still an investigation, not a verdict, so do not describe it as a decided penalty when you raise it.
Alongside it, the Bengaluru action saw "more than 250 Bengaluru restaurants" threaten to delist over "inflated commissions, arbitrary extra charges and shrinking profit margins", with a deadline first set for 15 August and later extended (Inc42, 2026). That pressure is what produced Swiggy's refund commitment. The practical lesson for a single outlet: document everything, ask for the refund in writing, and know the sector-wide context that makes "charged without consent" a losing position for the platform to defend.
Frequently asked questions
Can I really turn off Swiggy and Zomato ads myself?
Yes. Ad campaigns are set in the partner app under the ads/growth (Swiggy) or ads/promotions (Zomato) section, where you can pause a campaign and set a daily budget cap at any time.
How do I know if a discount was funded by me or the platform?
Check the offers/promotions section of the partner app - each active offer shows the funding split. Any discount flagged as restaurant-funded is deducted from your payout.
Were restaurants actually charged for ads without consent?
Owners and the Bengaluru association say yes, and after that pressure Swiggy agreed to refund promotional charges "levied on restaurant partners without prior consent" (Inc42, 2026).
What commission do Swiggy and Zomato charge?
It varies by contract. A restaurant-association filing cited "25 to 35 per cent of the order value in 2020-21" (Moneylife, 2025), while 2026 reporting put the independent range at "8 per cent to 28 per cent" (The Week, 2026).
Is GST charged on the commission?
Yes. The platform's commission is a service, so 18% GST applies to it, on top of the commission itself (The Week, 2026).
How do I dispute a wrong charge?
Identify the exact line and order IDs from the itemised settlement, attach screenshots of your settings, raise a partner-support ticket stating it was charged without consent, and request a reversal - escalating to your account manager if it stalls.
How long do I have to raise a dispute?
There is no single published window, so raise it as soon as it appears on a settlement. The sooner you flag a charge with the order ID and date, the easier it is for support to trace and reverse.
What can I recover when an order is cancelled after I have cooked it?
It depends on the cancellation reason and stage, so log every post-preparation cancellation and raise the uncompensated ones as tickets; a documented pattern is also useful evidence.
Is ONDC really cheaper than Swiggy and Zomato?
Reported ONDC restaurant commissions of "10-11 per cent" are lower than the majors' "18-25 per cent per order", but it varies by buyer app and has not yet seen meaningful restaurant traction (Outlook Business, 2026).
Has the CCI penalised Swiggy and Zomato?
Not yet. A Director-General probe found competition-law breaches, but no final CCI order has been passed and the companies say they comply (Inc42, 2024).
