Are Zomato, Swiggy charging you extra for online food orders?

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Indians love ordering food online. The market for online food deliveries has grown leaps and bounces in the last few years and has given birth to indigenously grown only food delivery merchants like Swiggy and Zomato. While it is easier to order food from these merchants, one can also find all the food items in one place. But have you ever wondered, are Swiggy and Zomato charging you more for the food items you order from them? Can you get these food items for a lower cost directly from the maker?

Let's try and order a pizza and see if there is a difference in price

Ordering Pizza Hut's 'Farmers Pick' pizza from Zomato

The above screenshot is of the Zomato application where we tried ordering the 'Farmers Pick' pizza from Pizza Hut. We found out that the pizza would cost us ₹ 299 (before taxes). The pizza selected by us was a personal pan size pizza without any customisations or toppings. Then we checked the price of the same pizza on the Pizza Hut application. In the image below you can see that the same pizza can be purchased for ₹ 282 from Pizza Hut application. 

And the same pizza from Pizza Hut official app

At first, we thought that this difference in price can be due to the addition of taxes on the Zomato app and at the time of checkout the price difference won't exist. But what is even more astonishing is that during checkout the final costing of the same pizza from the two different applications increases further. While Zomato's price for the same pizza at the time of checkout increases to ₹ 329, Pizza Hut's final price for the pizza remains 282. That is a difference of ₹ 47 on a pizza worth ₹ 269 before tax. Which means Zomato is charging almost 18 per cent more than the price of the pizza. 

Comparison of prices at the time of checkout from Zomato App and Pizza Hut official app

The same pizza on Swiggy would cost ₹ 336 at the time of checkout. Similar trends were noted on other restaurants delivering via Zomato and Swiggy. The amount charged extra was however not constant and varied from restaurant to restaurant.