How much margin does a restaurant actually have for software, and what do delivery platforms and POS vendors take out of it?
EU food service keeps 11.28% of net turnover as gross operating surplus and pays 57.38% of its value added out in labour costs (Eurostat, 2023) — software is bought out of a very thin margin. A global delivery marketplace takes 13.4% of order value as revenue and keeps 4.7% of it as contribution profit worldwide (DoorDash, 2024 and 2025), while 48.01% of EU accommodation and food service firms with 10 or more staff already take orders on their own website and only 11.98% use any AI (Eurostat, 2025).
Eurostat structural business statistics (sbs_sc_ovw, NACE I56 food and beverage service, 2022-2023) and Eurostat ICT usage surveys (NACE I accommodation and food service, enterprises with 10 or more persons employed, EU27, 2021-2025); DoorDash and Toast annual reports filed with the SEC for fiscal year 2025 · verified as of
What is left in the operator's P&L (EU food and beverage service, NACE I56)
This is the budget a restaurant product has to fit inside. Gross operating rate is gross operating surplus over net turnover: the cents left on a euro of sales before interest, depreciation and tax. Size class TOTAL unless stated.
| Metric | Value | Segment | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross operating rate, food and beverage service | 11.28% | share of net turnover · all NACE I56 enterprises, EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Gross operating rate, food and beverage service | 10.8% | share of net turnover · all NACE I56 enterprises, EU27 · prior year of the same 2022-2023 pull | 2022 | ec.europa.eu |
| Labour costs as share of value added | 57.38% | share of value added · all NACE I56 enterprises, EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Labour costs as share of value added | 58.39% | share of value added · all NACE I56 enterprises, EU27 · prior year of the same 2022-2023 pull | 2022 | ec.europa.eu |
| Net turnover per person employed | EUR 59.28k | per person employed · all NACE I56 enterprises, EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Net turnover per person employed | EUR 53.82k | per person employed · all NACE I56 enterprises, EU27 · prior year of the same 2022-2023 pull | 2022 | ec.europa.eu |
| Net turnover, micro enterprises (0-9 employees) | EUR 204,666 million | NACE I56, size class 0-9 persons employed, EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Persons employed, micro enterprises (0-9 employees) | 3,730,249 | NACE I56, size class 0-9 persons employed, EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
How digital the EU buyer already is (NACE I, firms with 10+ staff)
Eurostat ICT usage surveys cover accommodation and food service together (NACE I) and only enterprises with 10 or more persons employed — the larger, more digital end of the market. Treat these as a ceiling, not an average for the whole sector.
| Metric | Value | Segment | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website offers online ordering, reservation or booking | 48.01% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Website offers online ordering, reservation or booking | 48.31% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 · earlier survey round | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Website offers online ordering, reservation or booking | 47.26% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 · earliest survey round held | 2021 | ec.europa.eu |
| Website carries at least three of eight functionalities | 42.09% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Website available in at least two languages | 38.03% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Website available in at least two languages | 32.54% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 · earlier survey round | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Web sales via e-commerce marketplaces | 27.73% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Web sales via e-commerce marketplaces — Hungary | 32.15% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, HU · single-country reading | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Sell online ONLY via marketplaces (no own-website sales) | 7.82% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Buy paid cloud computing services | 39.52% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use finance or accounting software as a paid cloud service | 23.05% | of enterprises, NACE I, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
What a delivery marketplace takes, and what it keeps
DoorDash reports the whole chain on one base: gross order value, then revenue, then gross profit, then contribution profit, all as a share of GOV. The gap between what the platform charges and what it keeps is the room a competing channel has to work in. Marketplaces include grocery and retail orders, not restaurants only.
| Metric | Value | Segment | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketplace gross order value | $102,018 million | DoorDash Marketplaces worldwide, all categories | 2025 | sec.gov |
| Total orders completed | 3,172 million | DoorDash Marketplaces worldwide, all categories | 2025 | sec.gov |
| Order growth, year over year | 23% | DoorDash Marketplaces · 20% in 2024, 24% in 2023 | 2025 | sec.gov |
| Net revenue margin (revenue as share of GOV) | 13.4% | share of marketplace GOV · the platform's effective take | 2024 | sec.gov |
| Net revenue margin (revenue as share of GOV) | 12.9% | share of marketplace GOV · earlier year | 2023 | sec.gov |
| GAAP gross profit as share of GOV | 6.6% | share of marketplace GOV | 2025 | sec.gov |
| GAAP gross profit as share of GOV | 6.2% | share of marketplace GOV | 2024 | sec.gov |
| GAAP gross profit as share of GOV | 5.8% | share of marketplace GOV | 2023 | sec.gov |
| Contribution profit as share of GOV | 4.7% | share of marketplace GOV · what the platform keeps per order | 2025 | sec.gov |
| Contribution profit as share of GOV | 4.3% | share of marketplace GOV | 2024 | sec.gov |
| Contribution profit as share of GOV | 3.7% | share of marketplace GOV | 2023 | sec.gov |
| Monthly active users | 56M | DoorDash Marketplaces, December 2025 | 2025-12 | sec.gov |
| Paid membership subscribers (DashPass, Wolt+, Deliveroo Plus) | 35M | as of 31 December 2025 | 2025-12 | sec.gov |
What a restaurant software vendor's book looks like
Toast is the one restaurant-only platform that files its numbers in full, so it is the cleanest public read on a POS and payments book. Gross payment volume per location is an average across the whole installed base, not a typical single restaurant.
| Metric | Value | Segment | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurant locations on the platform | 164,000 | Toast installed base, US | 2025 | sec.gov |
| Gross payment volume processed per location | $1.19M per year | proxy: total GPV across the US installed base divided by locations | 2025 | sec.gov |
| Gross margin on subscription software revenue | 71.8% | share of subscription segment revenue, US · payments revenue carries a much thinner margin | 2025 | sec.gov |
AI in food service: adoption, and why it stalls
The same Eurostat question asked of three populations shows where food service sits. Accommodation (I55) is pulled out separately because it runs far ahead of the combined sector, which means the combined NACE I number understates how far behind restaurants are.
| Metric | Value | Segment | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Use at least one AI technology — accommodation and food service (NACE I) | 11.98% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use at least one AI technology — accommodation and food service (NACE I) | 6.09% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2024 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use at least one AI technology — accommodation and food service (NACE I) | 3.81% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use at least one AI technology — accommodation and food service (NACE I) | 3.27% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, EU27 · earliest round held | 2021 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use no AI technology at all — accommodation and food service (NACE I) | 86.15% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use at least one AI technology — accommodation only (NACE I55) | 21.31% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, EU27 · hotels run ahead of the sector | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use at least one AI technology — accommodation only (NACE I55) | 6.32% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use at least one AI technology — whole economy benchmark | 19.95% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, all activities EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use at least one AI technology — whole economy benchmark | 8.06% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, all activities EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Use AI for marketing or sales — accommodation and food service (NACE I) | 5.76% | of enterprises, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Barrier to adoption: lack of relevant expertise | 69.01% | of NACE I enterprises that considered AI, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Barrier to adoption: lack of relevant expertise | 71.48% | of NACE I enterprises that considered AI, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
| Reason for not using AI: not useful for the enterprise | 22.92% | of NACE I enterprises that considered AI, 10+ staff, EU27 · falling | 2025 | ec.europa.eu |
| Reason for not using AI: not useful for the enterprise | 27.7% | of NACE I enterprises that considered AI, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2024 | ec.europa.eu |
| Reason for not using AI: not useful for the enterprise | 30.28% | of NACE I enterprises that considered AI, 10+ staff, EU27 | 2023 | ec.europa.eu |
Why these numbers do not line up into one market
Four different perimeters sit on this page and mixing them produces a wrong answer. First, the industry code: Eurostat structural business statistics are read here for NACE I56, food and beverage service only, while every ICT and AI percentage is read for NACE I, accommodation and food service together. Hotels digitise far ahead of restaurants — 21.31% of EU27 accommodation enterprises use AI against 11.98% for the combined EU27 sector in 2025 — so the combined figure flatters restaurants, and a restaurant-only reading of the ICT survey does not exist. Second, the size threshold: the ICT and AI surveys only cover enterprises with 10 or more persons employed, but 3,730,249 people in EU food service work in firms with nine or fewer, so the adoption rates describe the larger end and not the sector a founder usually sells into. Third, the base behind the platform numbers: DoorDash reports gross order value for all its marketplaces, including grocery and retail, so its 13.4% net revenue margin is the economics of an order, not of a restaurant order specifically. Fourth, averages across an installed base: Toast's $1.19M of payment volume per US location is total volume divided by 164,000 locations, so it mixes quick-service and full-service restaurants of very different sizes. The margin side and the adoption side also differ in time — the P&L numbers are 2022 and 2023, the digital numbers 2021 to 2025 — so read the margin as the budget constraint and the adoption numbers as the current state, not as two halves of one year.
Eurostat — Enterprise statistics by size class and NACE Rev. 2 activity (sbs_sc_ovw) · Eurostat — Websites and functionalities by NACE Rev. 2 activity (isoc_ciwebn2) · Eurostat — Artificial intelligence by NACE Rev. 2 activity (isoc_eb_ain2) · Eurostat — E-commerce sales by NACE Rev. 2 activity (isoc_ec_eseln2) · DoorDash — Annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2025 · Toast — Annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2025
Methodology
Every number on this page is a fact node in the God of Startups Atlas — a knowledge graph where each metric carries its source URL, reporting period, evidence tier, the population it was measured on and the verbatim quote it was taken from. Tier 1 here means official statistics (Eurostat) and statutory filings (annual reports on Form 10-K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission). Values are shown in the currency and unit the source reports; nothing is converted, estimated or modelled. One row — payment volume per restaurant location — is an average the filing does not print directly and is labelled as a proxy in the segment column.
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