Short answer: Zomato runs a three-sided marketplace that connects customers, restaurants and delivery partners. It makes money mainly from restaurant service fees (commissions), customer delivery and platform fees, and advertising, with subscriptions like Gold adding repeat usage. Since 2025, Zomato is the food-delivery business of Eternal Limited, which also owns Blinkit, District and Hyperpure.
Zomato at a Glance
| Metric | Value |
| Founded | 2008 as Foodiebay, by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah; renamed Zomato in 2010 |
| Business type | Food-delivery marketplace (customers, restaurants, delivery partners) |
| Parent company | Eternal Limited (formerly Zomato Limited) |
| Net order value (Q1 FY27) | ₹10,769 crore, up 20.1% year on year |
| Adjusted EBITDA (Q1 FY27) | ₹606 crore, about 5.6% of NOV |
| Average monthly transacting customers (Q1 FY27) | 27.2 million |
| Active restaurant partners (Q1 FY27) | About 3.28 lakh (328,000) |
Source: Eternal Q1 FY27 shareholder disclosures as reported by YourStory, Business Standard and Inc42. See the sources list at the end.
What Is Zomato and How Did It Start?
Zomato is an Indian restaurant-discovery and food-delivery platform. Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, both IIT graduates, started it in July 2008 as Foodiebay. The idea came from a simple problem: colleagues struggled with paper menus when ordering food, so the founders put restaurant menus online.
The company renamed itself Zomato in 2010, partly to avoid confusion with eBay. It became Delhi’s leading dining directory within months and then expanded to other Indian cities and, from 2012, to international markets.
Zomato timeline
| Year | Milestone |
| 2008 | Foodiebay launched as an online restaurant menu directory |
| 2010 | Renamed Zomato |
| 2012 onward | Expanded into international markets such as the UAE, UK, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Brazil |
| 2015 | Acquired Urbanspoon and pushed deeper into food delivery |
| 2020 | Acquired Uber Eats India |
| 2021 | Listed on NSE and BSE through an IPO of about ₹9,375 crore (roughly $1.26 billion) |
| 2022 | Acquired Blinkit (formerly Grofers) in an all-stock deal |
| 2025 | Parent company renamed Eternal Limited |
| 2026 | Albinder Dhindsa, formerly Blinkit’s CEO, took over as Eternal’s Group CEO |
Zomato also tested ultra-fast food concepts such as Zomato Instant and Zomato Everyday. These were wound down or scaled back as the company focused on sustainable unit economics in food delivery and on quick commerce through Blinkit.
Funding and Growth Milestones
| Date | Event |
| November 2013 | About $37 million from Sequoia Capital and Info Edge |
| November 2014 | About $60 million from Vy Capital, Info Edge and Sequoia Capital |
| September 2015 | $60 million from Temasek and Vy Capital |
| 2018 | About $210 million from Ant Financial, an Alibaba affiliate |
| July 2021 | IPO on NSE and BSE |
| August 2022 | Blinkit acquisition completed in an all-stock deal |
Info Edge was the earliest major backer, with Ant Financial, Vy Capital, Temasek and others joining over time. For the latest filings, see Eternal’s investor relations page.
How Zomato Works
Zomato’s food-delivery platform follows one repeatable flow:
- Discovery: A customer searches by location, cuisine, price, ratings or reviews.
- Ordering: The customer picks dishes from a restaurant menu and checks out in the app.
- Payment: The platform processes the payment for the whole order.
- Preparation: The restaurant receives the order and prepares it.
- Delivery: The platform assigns a delivery partner, who picks up the food and delivers it, with live tracking for the customer.
- Support and feedback: The customer can contact support and rate the restaurant and delivery.
Delivery partners are best understood as a network of independent, third-party service providers, not a company-owned fleet. Zomato reports a network of roughly 500,000 or more delivery partners. If you are planning a similar flow for your own business, our food delivery app development team builds the customer, restaurant and delivery apps together with the admin panel.
How Does Zomato Make Money? (Revenue Model)
Zomato does not rely on one income source. Its food-delivery marketplace earns money from both sides of the transaction, plus advertising.
| # | Revenue stream | Who pays | How it works |
| 1 | Restaurant service fees (commissions) | Restaurants | A percentage of order value for demand generation, ordering technology and logistics facilitation. Rates vary by contract. |
| 2 | Customer delivery fees | Customers | Depends on order value, distance, demand, promotions and membership benefits. |
| 3 | Platform / convenience fees | Customers | A small per-order charge. Amounts change over time, so treat any fixed figure with caution. |
| 4 | Advertising and sponsored listings | Restaurants and brands | Paid visibility through sponsored listings, promoted placements and campaigns. |
| 5 | Subscriptions and loyalty (Gold) | Customers | A recurring fee for delivery and discount benefits that raises order frequency. |
| 6 | Restaurant services and tools | Restaurants | Marketing, analytics and operations tools built around restaurant partners. |
Eternal reports food-delivery revenue, NOV and adjusted EBITDA as headline numbers rather than a clean split by stream, so exact percentages for each stream are not public. For a deeper look at how fees and ads fit together, see Inc42’s analysis of Zomato’s commissions, platform fees and ad revenue.
1. Restaurant service fees (commissions)
This is the core of the marketplace. Restaurants pay for access to demand, digital ordering and delivery facilitation. Zomato’s restaurant-partner terms call it a service fee, formerly known as commission.
2. Customer delivery fees and platform fees
Customers pay for convenience. Delivery charges help offset last-mile costs, while platform fees monetize each transaction beyond the restaurant-side fee.
3. Advertising and sponsored listings
Millions of users search Zomato before deciding what to order. Restaurants pay to rank higher or appear in promoted slots. Advertising is attractive because it monetizes existing traffic without needing a matching rise in delivery costs per order.
4. Subscriptions and loyalty
Programs such as Zomato Gold give customers delivery and discount benefits. For Zomato, they improve retention, order frequency and customer lifetime value.
GOV vs NOV vs Revenue: What’s the Difference?
Three terms are often mixed up when people analyze Zomato:
- GOV (gross order value): The total value of orders placed on the platform before discounts.
- NOV (net order value): Eternal’s headline metric. It is GOV minus discounts at the MRP level.
- Revenue: What the company recognizes under its accounting model, such as fees, advertising and subscriptions.
Example: If customers place ₹1 crore of food orders, Zomato does not earn ₹1 crore. It earns only its fees and other income on those orders. This difference matters when comparing Zomato’s marketplace model with inventory-led businesses such as Blinkit, where reported revenue can include the value of goods sold.
Zomato’s Unit Economics and Profitability
Food delivery is a scale business. Profit per order depends on five things working together: order volume, take rate, delivery efficiency, customer retention and operating costs.
Zomato’s food-delivery profitability has improved steadily:
| Period | Adjusted EBITDA as % of NOV |
| Q1 FY26 | About 5.0% |
| Q3 FY26 | 5.4% (then an all-time high) |
| Q1 FY27 | 5.6% (₹606 crore) |
In simple terms, Zomato earned about ₹5.60 of adjusted EBITDA for every ₹100 of net order value in Q1 FY27. Eternal’s overall Q1 FY27 results are covered in detail by YourStory.
Key levers behind the improvement:
- Better monetization of restaurant fees
- Growing advertising revenue
- Less blanket discounting
- Higher delivery-partner utilization
- More orders per customer and higher average order value
- Lower technology and support cost per order
Zomato’s food delivery is the group’s biggest profit generator: in Q1 FY27 it contributed more adjusted EBITDA (₹606 crore) than Blinkit (₹102 crore), even though Blinkit is now larger by revenue.
Zomato vs Swiggy
Zomato and Swiggy are India’s two largest food-delivery platforms. Business Standard reported that Eternal held more than 58% of food-delivery gross order value in Q1 FY27.
| Q1 FY27 | Zomato (Eternal) | Swiggy food delivery |
| Order value reported | ₹10,769 crore (NOV) | ₹9,490 crore (GOV) |
| Adjusted EBITDA | ₹606 crore | ₹292 crore |
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | 5.6% of NOV | 3.1% |
Note: Each company uses its own base metric (NOV vs GOV), so the numbers are not perfectly like-for-like. The absolute adjusted EBITDA figures give the clearest comparison.
Zomato and Eternal: Who Owns What?
In 2025, Zomato Limited became Eternal Limited. Zomato is now the name of the food-delivery business inside it. Each business has a different model:
| Business | What it does | Model | Q1 FY27 adjusted EBITDA |
| Zomato | Food delivery | Marketplace (fees, ads, subscriptions) | ₹606 crore |
| Blinkit | Quick commerce (groceries and essentials) | Largely inventory-led through dark stores | ₹102 crore |
| District | Going-out (dining, movies, events) | Bookings and ticketing | Loss of ₹65 crore |
| Hyperpure | B2B supplies for restaurants | Margin on supplies sold | ₹6 crore |
Blinkit became Eternal’s largest business by revenue in Q1 FY27, while Zomato’s food delivery remained its biggest profit contributor. Zomato’s own revenue model should therefore not be mixed up with Blinkit’s. If you want to understand the quick-commerce side, see our guide to quick commerce app development.
Zomato Business Model Canvas
The Zomato Business Model Canvas provides a one-page view of how the food-delivery platform creates, delivers, and captures value.
Unlike the broader Eternal business model, this canvas focuses specifically on Zomato’s food-delivery business.
Important distinction
This BMC intentionally does not put Blinkit, Hyperpure, or District inside Zomato’s food-delivery revenue streams.
They are separate businesses within the broader Eternal ecosystem.
How Zomato Attracts and Retains Customers
Repeat orders improve the economics of every delivery, so retention matters as much as acquisition. Zomato focuses on:
- Personalized recommendations: Helps customers find relevant restaurants and dishes faster.
- Deals and promotions: Targeted offers that encourage more frequent ordering.
- Reviews and ratings: Customer feedback that builds trust before ordering.
- Loyalty programs: Subscription benefits that raise order frequency and lifetime value.
- Simple user experience: One smooth path from search to discovery, ordering, payment, tracking and support.
Zomato SWOT Analysis
| Strengths | Strong brand; 27.2 million monthly transacting customers; large restaurant network; improving profitability (5.6% of NOV); high-margin advertising |
| Weaknesses | Thin per-order margins; dependence on restaurant supply and delivery-partner availability; delivery cost sensitivity |
| Opportunities | Restaurant technology and analytics; retail and restaurant advertising; AI-powered personalization; cross-selling across the Eternal ecosystem |
| Threats | Competition from Swiggy and quick-commerce players; regulatory change on fees, data and gig-worker rules; rising delivery costs |
Challenges Faced by Zomato
- Intense competition: Swiggy competes directly in food delivery, and quick commerce adds new rivals for the same customer wallet. Restaurants also list on several platforms at once, which is why many look at food aggregator vs multi-delivery apps.
- Delivery and logistics complexity: Preparation time, traffic, weather and order density all affect cost and experience.
- Restaurant consistency: Food quality, packaging and hygiene depend on each restaurant, not on Zomato.
- Delivery-partner management: Earnings, incentives, safety and retention have to be balanced across a large, decentralized network.
- Regulation: Food safety, tax, consumer protection, data protection and gig-worker rules can all change operating costs.
- Growth vs profitability: Scaling without going back to heavy discounting is a constant balancing act.
- Data privacy and security: Customer, restaurant and payment data must be protected to maintain trust.
Future Opportunities for Zomato
These are opportunities based on the business model, not confirmed company plans:
- AI-powered personalization for better recommendations, conversion and order value
- Restaurant technology such as analytics, marketing and demand-insight tools. Restaurants and cloud kitchens can already digitize ordering, delivery and operations with tailored food and beverage software solutions
- Advertising and retail media as customer traffic grows
- Ecosystem cross-selling across food, quick commerce, going-out and restaurant supply within Eternal
Key Lessons From the Zomato Business Model
- Solve a real customer problem. Zomato started by making restaurant menus easy to find.
- Build a multi-sided network. A marketplace gets stronger when customers, businesses and service providers all gain value.
- Monetize demand after you build it. Advertising, subscriptions and services followed once the customer base was large.
- Focus on unit economics. Growth alone is not enough; know what each order earns and costs. If you are budgeting your own platform, start with how much it costs to build an app like Zomato.
- Expand carefully. Eternal keeps each business with its own operating model rather than blending them together.
Want to Build an App Like Zomato?
A Zomato-style platform usually needs four connected parts: a customer app, a restaurant app or dashboard, a delivery partner app and a powerful admin panel for orders, commissions, payouts and analytics.
Ready to start? Contact iCoderz Solutions to discuss your idea, technology needs and development plan.
Conclusion
The Zomato business model shows how a digital marketplace creates value by connecting customers, restaurants and delivery partners through technology. Its food-delivery model combines restaurant service fees, customer charges, advertising and loyalty programs, and its profitability has improved from about 5.0% to 5.6% of NOV over the last year.
The key lesson is not just that Zomato makes money from food delivery. It is that customer demand, restaurant partnerships, delivery infrastructure, data and advertising work together as one system. For entrepreneurs, the takeaway is to build around a real customer problem, create value for every side of the marketplace and improve unit economics alongside growth. See how we build such platforms in our on-demand project portfolio.
Want to Create a Zomato-Style App?
Our team helps you turn your idea into a fast, feature-rich, and profitable food delivery product.
FAQs About the Zomato Business Model
What is Zomato’s business model?
Zomato primarily operates a food-delivery marketplace that connects customers, restaurants, and delivery partners. It monetizes the platform through restaurant service fees, customer fees, advertising, loyalty/subscription products, and other services.
How does Zomato make money?
Zomato generates revenue through restaurant service fees, delivery and platform fees, advertising, loyalty/subscription programs, and other restaurant-related services.
Is Zomato a marketplace?
Yes. Zomato’s food-delivery business operates primarily as a multi-sided marketplace connecting customers, restaurants, and delivery partners.
What is Zomato’s Business Model Canvas?
The Zomato Business Model Canvas explains the company’s customer segments, value propositions, channels, customer relationships, key activities, resources, partners, revenue streams, and cost structure.
Is Blinkit part of Zomato?
Blinkit is part of the broader Eternal Limited ecosystem but operates as a separate business from Zomato’s food-delivery business. Eternal currently identifies Zomato, Blinkit, District, and Hyperpure as its four major businesses.
What is the difference between Zomato and Blinkit?
Zomato primarily operates a food-delivery marketplace connecting customers with restaurants, while Blinkit operates a quick-commerce model focused on delivering groceries and everyday essentials through a network of fulfillment locations.
What is Eternal Limited?
Eternal Limited is the corporate company formerly known as Zomato Limited. Its current business portfolio includes Zomato, Blinkit, District, and Hyperpure.
How does Zomato work?
A customer discovers a restaurant, selects food, places an order, and pays through the platform. The restaurant prepares the order, and a delivery partner facilitates last-mile delivery.
What are Zomato’s key revenue streams?
The major revenue streams include restaurant service fees, customer delivery/platform fees, advertising, loyalty/subscription programs, and other restaurant-related services.
How much does it cost to build an app like Zomato?
The development cost depends on features, platforms, UI/UX complexity, backend architecture, integrations, real-time tracking, payment systems, and the scale of the planned platform.
