Keeta vs Noon Food: commissions and growth for restaurants in the UAE
Two challengers to Talabat and Deliveroo. What they really take per order, where their customers come from, and how to decide if one is worth opening.
Talabat and Deliveroo are the apps every restaurant in Dubai already knows. Keeta and Noon Food are the two that owners now ask us about.
Should you open on one of them? Both? Neither? Here is what we know, from public sources and from the invoices we read for our clients.
Two very different apps
Keeta is the international delivery app of Meituan, the Chinese delivery giant. It launched in Dubai on 27 September 2025 with strong offers for customers: half price on the first meal and no delivery fee. It reached all seven emirates within 90 days. One year later, Keeta says it works with more than 10,000 restaurant and merchant brands, across more than 40,000 locations.
Noon Food lives inside the noon app, next to shopping and groceries. Its customers are often already in the app for something else. That is a different kind of traffic: people who did not plan to order food, and who decide on what they see.
What they really take per order
Public figures for both apps vary a lot from one article to the next. Contracts differ by restaurant, by size, by exclusivity and by period. So we prefer to start from invoices.
On the invoices of one restaurant group we work with, three sites in Dubai, October 2026, commission included VAT:
| Commission per order | |
|---|---|
| Keeta | about 27% |
| Noon Food | about 28% |
| Talabat | about 31% |
| Careem | about 32% |
| Deliveroo | about 35% |
Read this table carefully. It is one group, with its own contracts. Your numbers will be different. But it shows two things we see often: the challengers are not dramatically cheaper than the leaders, and the gap between the apps is a few points, not half.
Noon Food also runs special programmes. In April 2026, noon Food and Dubai SME announced a programme for eligible Emirati businesses nominated by Dubai SME: commission of 10% in the first year, rising gradually to 20% by year five, with onboarding fees waived. If you qualify, it changes the maths completely.
Commission is only half of the cost
Two restaurants with the same commission can keep very different amounts. Check three things on your invoices, for each app.
What the commission is calculated on. On some invoices we have read, the commission was taken on the menu price, before your discount. On others, it was taken on the amount after the discount. The difference is large when you run offers. We show the maths in The real cost of a 50% discount on delivery apps.
Who pays for the offers. Launch campaigns on a new app often come with offers. Ask who funds them: the app, you, or both.
The other lines. Payment fees, packaging, marketing fees, ads. Add every line, then compare what you keep on AED 100 of orders, app by app.
Growth: where the new orders come from
Commission tells you what you keep. It does not tell you how many orders you will get.
Keeta is young and growing fast. On a young app, a complete storefront, with a photo and a description on every dish, stands out faster than on a crowded one. The risk is the other side: a new app's traffic in your area can be smaller, and strong customer offers do not last forever.
Noon Food brings customers who already trust the noon app. Your storefront has to convince someone who came for something else, in a few seconds. Clear photos and simple names matter even more there.
In both cases, the real question is local: how many customers order your cuisine in your delivery area on that app? Your account manager can tell you. Ask for numbers, not adjectives.
How to decide
Open on a new app if three things are true:
- Your kitchen can absorb more orders without becoming late on the apps you already have. Lateness hurts your ranking everywhere.
- Your menu is ready. Same names, same photos, same offers logic as your other apps. Opening with a half-finished menu wastes the attention a new storefront gets.
- The numbers work. You know what you keep per AED 100 of orders, offers included.
If one of the three is missing, fix it first. A new app does not fix a weak storefront. It multiplies it.
Questions to ask before you sign
- What is my commission, and is it calculated before or after my discount?
- Is VAT included in that rate?
- Which launch offers will run on my storefront, and who pays for them?
- How many restaurants of my cuisine are already live in my delivery area?
- What is the payment cycle?
- Can I leave, and with what notice?
Write the answers down. Compare them side by side before you decide.
Where we come in
We manage storefronts on Talabat, Deliveroo, Keeta, Noon Food and Careem. When a client opens a new app, we bring the same menu and the same images, adapted to that app's rules, and we track what they keep per order on each one.
Thinking about Keeta or Noon Food? Send us your current storefront. Your score out of 100 lands in your inbox in minutes, then we tell you honestly whether a new app is worth it now, with no upfront investment.
Sources: Gulf News (Keeta one-year anniversary, 28 September 2026; noon Food and Dubai SME programme, 21 April 2026); Keeta launch announcement, September 2025; DelivUp client invoices, October 2026.
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