Why is my Zomato/Swiggy payout smaller than expected?

Usually one or more of: GST on the platform's commission, promotional discount co-funding, ad charges, refund adjustments, or income tax withheld by the platform. Retained breaks down every deduction on every order so you can see exactly which one.

Does my restaurant have to pay GST on Zomato/Swiggy orders?

No — since January 2022, the platform is liable for GST on the order itself under Section 9(5) of the CGST Act. You only pay GST on the commission fee the platform charges you. Retained applies this correctly by default.

Can Zomato or Swiggy deduct ad spend or discounts without my approval?

It happens more than most owners realise, and it is often only visible after the fact in the settlement statement. This is exactly what Retained's reconciliation flags.

Is this an accounting tool?

No. We show you where your money went so you can make better decisions about pricing, channels and the menu. We're not a substitute for your accountant, and we don't file anything for you.

For restaurants and cloud kitchens in India and the UAE

You sold ₹1,86,191 last month. How much did you actually keep?

Zomato and Swiggy show you sales. Your bank shows you a settlement. Nobody shows you what happened in between — commission, GST on that commission, ad spend, discounts you didn't approve, packaging, food cost. Retained does.

Show me what I kept

No credit card. Uses your own settlement file — nothing invented, nothing estimated without telling you.

A real month from the demo kitchenDemo

You sold

₹1,86,191

You kept

₹25,696

13.8% of sales stayed with the kitchen

Sample data built for this prototype, not live platform data.

The number on your dashboard was never the number in your bank

Every restaurant owner selling on Zomato or Swiggy knows this feeling: the app says you did great this month. The bank account disagrees. Somewhere between gross sales and settlement received is a pile of PDFs nobody has time to read line by line.

Commission: 15–30% depending on your plan, city and category.
GST on that commission: 18%, charged on top of the commission itself.
Payment gateway and platform fees: A few percent, on every order.
Ad spend: Sometimes approved, sometimes not.
Discounts: Funded by the platform, or funded by you — and it is not always clear which.
TDS: 0.1% of order value withheld before you are paid, but yours to claim back at filing. Not a real cost.

Most owners just watch the total and hope it is roughly right. It usually isn't.

Not a POS. Not accounting software. Not another AI dashboard.

Retained reads your actual Zomato and Swiggy settlement file and shows you, order by order, exactly where every rupee went — and whether any of it shouldn't have.

01
Money before activity
Every screen leads with what you kept, not how many orders you got. Order count doesn't pay your rent.
02
Every number opens up
Click any figure and see exactly what it is built from — no black box, no trust us.
03
We never say Net Profit
Rent, salaries and utilities aren't in this calculation, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. We call it Estimated Contribution, and we tell you when a figure is imported straight from your statement versus estimated.

Upload one settlement file. See what matched — and what didn't.

Demo

Within minutes of uploading a real Zomato or Swiggy settlement report, Retained shows what your payout should have been, what the platform actually paid, and any gap — down to the line item. If a deduction can't be explained, it is flagged on your dashboard in plain language, not buried in a PDF.

What your payout should have been

₹1,09,222

What the platform actually paid

₹1,07,685

Unexplained deductions, flagged

− ₹1,537

A portion of ad charges with no matching campaign on record in the demo month.

Where the money actually went₹1,86,191

App commission19.5%: − ₹36,277
Fixed platform fee per order1.3%: − ₹2,382
GST on that commission3.5%: − ₹6,487
Payment charges2.0%: − ₹3,717
Packaging deducted back4.3%: − ₹7,940
Membership discount you funded0.8%: − ₹1,531
Ads charged to you1.5%: − ₹2,854
Ads with no matching campaign ⚠0.8%: − ₹1,537
Discounts you funded6.8%: − ₹12,614
Food and packing44.2%: − ₹82,225
What you kept13.8%: ₹25,696

Income-tax withheld (0.1%) — a tax credit, not a platform cost0.1%₹152

One month, 431 orders of sample data. This is money kept before rent, salaries and electricity — we never call it net profit.

From what happened to what to do about it

Five screens, one question each.

Overview

One screen, your real numbers: money kept, channel-by-channel keep-rate, and what changed since last period.

Order-level drill-down

Pick any order. See its full economics — commission, fees, discounts, food cost — traced from gross sale to what actually landed in your account.

Menu profitability

Not every popular dish is a good dish. See which items are quietly losing you money on every plate, and which ones deserve more attention than they're getting.

Channel comparison

Zomato or Swiggy — which one is actually worth pushing this month? Not by sales volume. By what you keep.

One recommendation, not a hundred metrics

Every period, Retained gives you one clear, actionable call — a channel to push, a dish to reprice, a deduction to dispute.

Who this is for

Four owners, four questions, one dataset.

Single-outlet owner“Which app is actually worth pushing this month?”
Cloud-kitchen operator“Which of my dishes is quietly bleeding money?”
Multi-outlet owner“Which outlet's channel mix is wrong?”
Manager or accountant“Did the platform actually pay what it said it would?”

Retained answers all four from the same data.

Built for your market

India

Built for Indian restaurant accounting — GST on commission handled correctly, income tax withheld by the apps tracked separately as the tax credit it is, not folded into your losses.

UAE

Built for the UAE market — AED, VAT-aware, and Talabat, Careem, Deliveroo and Noon in one view.

Questions restaurant owners ask us

Short, honest answers.

Headline commission (15–30%) is only part of it. After GST on commission, payment gateway fees, ad spend and discount funding, the real deduction is often 8–12 percentage points higher than the number in your contract. Retained calculates your actual rate from your own settlement data, not an industry average.

Fifteen minutes. One settlement file. A real answer.

You don't need to guess anymore. Upload one file, and see exactly what you kept — and what you didn't.