Swiggy Partner Program: Should Your Restaurant Take the Plunge?

The Swiggy Partner Program is a must for any restaurant owner who wishes to build a sizeable audience for his business. Swiggy’s reach in India has really amplified in the last few years and with a listing, you could piggyback off its reach. In this article, we will be answering these key questions:

  • Why you should be partnering with Swiggy?
  • What are the benefits of a Swiggy partner program?
  • What are the drawbacks of partnering with Swiggy?
  • Why is it important to have your own order online platform?

Why should you opt for the Swiggy Partner Program?

Over the last couple of years, the words ‘Swiggy’ and ‘food delivery’ have practically become synonymous. Swiggy is an app that everyone in the country seems to know about, ranging from young students and working professionals to even children. We’ve all spent a considerable amount of time checking out the plethora of restaurant listings available on the app.

As of today, Swiggy is one of the 18 Indian unicorns (firms valued at $1 billion or more) and it is still growing rapidly.

Swiggy growth

Swiggy has shown top-notch efforts to adapt to customer tastes and preferences. Its design is user-friendly and attractive. Of course, it doesn’t make things easier only for customers. There are many perks offered to restaurants too. The Swiggy app takes away the burden of food delivery and handles all orders efficiently. Its superb marketing schemes on multiple platforms help restaurants thrive immensely as well as increase customer engagement. It also offers options to customers for feedback and reviews, which can help restaurants tailor customer experiences according to their needs. And of course, the various payment options that are offered on the Swiggy app make the whole experience of ordering food extremely simple and accessible.

Access all the steps of partnering with Swiggy here. Tying up with Swiggy – The complete guide.

Swiggy Partner sign up link

Advantages of the Swiggy Partner Program

If you choose to partner with Swiggy, it makes running a restaurant much easier. You don’t have to worry about food delivery every single day and instead have a team of experts handling it for you. But there are also many other benefits offered by listing your restaurant on Swiggy. 

Here are the topmost perks:


Delivery applications like Swiggy allow their users to rate as well as review restaurants. These reviews include multiple aspects of the food such as the taste, its packaging, and even portion size. The customer is also free to leave feedback for the restaurant and the delivery service. In this way, customers can voice their opinions and be heard. For a restaurant, this constructive review mechanism can do wonders. It helps in knowing exactly what to tackle in order to make the best possible service available to your customers. You’re also free to read restaurant reviews and know what you might be missing out on. Subsequently, you can make the necessary changes to meet with your competition!

Customer Service is Top Priority

Swiggy has made a name in the food industry primarily because of its remarkable aspects that are customer friendly. These include timely delivery, detailed tracking features, quick and efficient customer service, and hassle-free communication with the restaurant and delivery personnel. If there is ever a case of a delivery being delayed, Swiggy’s customer service is usually warm and considerate enough to offer credits for the next order as compensation. So, you don’t have to worry at all about the quality of service that is being offered to your customers. Your food is in safe hands and reaches the customer on time, making the whole process rapid and seamless.

Traffic Generation

An app like Swiggy receives an enormous amount of traffic every day. Because of their intense advertising and promotion strategies through billboards, social media platforms, and weekly e-mails, your restaurant can benefit too. Given that a large number of people are constantly scrolling on the app looking for just the right thing to meet their cravings, it is highly possible that your restaurant will receive an order.

Easy Delivery

If you have experience of handling food delivery in the past, we’re sure you know about how much of an inconvenience it can sometimes be. All the way from taking orders from customers, preparing food, packaging it, and then setting out to deliver it in a stipulated amount of time can be a bit of challenge. And you also have to ensure that operations take place smoothly back at the restaurant. With Swiggy, you can let go of any worries about food delivery and focus solely on in-house issues. You don’t have to deal with agitated customers wanting to know where their order is, once it has left your door.

More popularity

If your business is relatively new and budding, you might be aware of how difficult it can be to spread the word about your restaurant. For one, there’s a lot of competition around. Two, there’s also an overwhelmingly large number of advertising options to choose from- ranging from print media, social media platforms, TV commercials, billboards, and whatnot. But Swiggy already works extremely hard to market their app. So, your mere presence on this highly popular app can contribute immensely to make people hear about your restaurant as well!

Disadvantages of the Swiggy Partner Program

 Although it might seem like the Swiggy Partner Program is a great way to get your restaurant up and running, not everything is ideal. There are some disadvantages that come up when you choose to work with the company. 

Here are some major drawbacks: 

Limited Advertising

If you decide to work with Swiggy, there isn’t a lot of scope available for advertising your restaurant. The app offers only a certain amount of space for you to advertise in or promote yourself. So, introducing weekly specials, running fun campaigns and other promotion methods might not be possible at all. You will have to strictly adhere to Swiggy’s guidelines in terms of marketing. If you already have a different or innovative promotion strategy in mind, you might have to let it go entirely.

Commission Rates

As mentioned above, people are constantly scrolling on Swiggy every single minute of the day. So, there is a huge amount of traffic generated. While this might be a good thing for your business, Swiggy does charge an extremely high rate of commission for restaurants. When the delivery market was still at a nascent stage, the rate was a mere single-digit number. However, with time and growing popularity, this number can now range anywhere between 17-30%, which is an exorbitantly high rate. Although restaurant owners in multiple states are already in the process of challenging these high rates, there doesn’t seem to be much of a limit that can be imposed on online food aggregators.

Lower Profits

The heavy costs of partnering with Swiggy can be responsible for taking away a huge chunk of the profits generated by a restaurant. Customers and their increasing preferences for easy food delivery definitely do make restaurants feel obliged to partner with Swiggy, but at the end of the day, this can drastically reduce your profits and be quite difficult to deal with. The net revenue per order is significantly lowered and this can be a major blow to your business. Lower profits can have a huge negative impact on your restaurant’s operations. 

More Competition

Anyone who has used Swiggy has come across the tons of restaurant and café listings that are present on the app. Even if you search for a simple food item like a doughnut, the results that pop up can seem never-ending! A customer may get overwhelmed and ultimately choose to go for the option available at the lowest price. When there are so many choices offered to customers, there is a high probability that your restaurant can be overlooked entirely. Unless you have something to offer that is out of the ordinary and has never been seen before, you might just remain undiscovered unless your ratings improve.

Swiggy is great! But, should you invest in your own Online Ordering Platform?

Now that you’re aware of all the pros and cons that come with being a Swiggy partner, you’re probably wondering if there are any other alternatives to pick from. Well, the best option is to hedge your risk by having an additional channel of orders. That is where your online ordering platforms comes in. And there are multiple reasons why you should have one.

One. Your brand. if you have a restaurant already or plan to open up a restaurant, chances are that there’s a certain concept that you have in mind – something that is novel and out of the blue. Whether it is exotic food that you offer or ambiance that is one of a kind, we’re sure that you try to make your business stand out. With these factors in mind, you must market your brand exactly the way you want to. It is not only a good name or a catchy logo that matters- there is so much more.

Two. Customer data. Swiggy gives you access to an audience. However they don’t give you the data splits, the kind of people that come onto the platform. With your website, you can link it up with tools that would give you a 360 degree view onto just the ones who order, but the ones who visit your platform. heck, you can even start a remarketing campaign basis the page they visited, their online behaviour, time on site and more!

The best way to promote your restaurant and reach customers is to build your own online ordering platform. Now, this can be done in two ways – you can either create a website or an online food ordering application.

Online Food Ordering App of Biryani By Kilo
                                                     Biryani By Kilo’s Online Food Ordering App

Three. Your storyline. Remember, your primary goal is to stand out and make sure that customers remember you. Your app or website should help in making customers feel more connected with you. Feel free to tell them in detail about how you opened up your restaurant and the kind of experience that you strive to create. A good storyline can go a long way! You want to get across the crux of the concept that you started with in the first place.

Four. Marketing Space.The best part is that on your own restaurant website, you have a lot of space to market yourself. When it comes to room for advertising, Swiggy provides you with little to almost none. But on your own website or app, you can do whatever you like in terms of promotion. You could create weekly specials, discount codes for certain holidays or occasions, build bundles or meals and so on. You could also have a designated section or questionnaire where customers can talk about their experience with your restaurant, highlighting what they liked or didn’t like.

Five. No commissions. You’d be dealing with orders that come directly to you. So, you wouldn’t have to worry about any commissions towards third parties. This way, you get to receive way more profit per order you get.

Six. Loyalty Programs. Customers could be awarded points for orders that would lead to more discounts for them, consequently encouraging them to order more from you.

Once you know what exactly your goals related to your restaurant are, you can try your hand at working out an efficient system for food delivery. While this may take time and commitment, it can go a long way. Choosing the best design for your restaurant app or website, ensuring that it is customer-friendly, putting into place an easy customer care service are just some of the factors you will have to keep in mind. 

Summing up

All in all, having a website or an application is one of the best methods to invest in to create a solid brand image. This way, it is much more likely that you will be remembered by your target audience. There is a lot of room for creativity and innovation in order to build an identity that ultimately helps you connect with your customers.


Swiggy Partner Program: Should Your Restaurant Take the Plunge?
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Saket Sharma

Saket Sharma

Torn between finding a unicorn and building growth models for his team, Saket enjoys penning down his thoughts on how innovative technologies impact businesses.