Zomato Platform Fee Hiked again! Zomato Intercity Closed Now

Zomato has hiked the platform fee yet again. Last year, the food delivery app had set it to Rs.2 in August 2023. This later on was changed to Rs.3, then again to Rs.4 in January and now the Zomato platform fee hike is once again hiked to ₹5. This means from now onwards, on your every order, customers will have to bear an additional ₹5 cost. Interestingly, the share market-listed company, Zomato has also closed its Zomato Intercity Legends service. Though it seems like a temporary closure for now. There’s no official announcement on when the Intercity Legends by Zomato will be back on the app.

Swiggy, one of the biggest rivals of the food delivery app Zomato also has a platform fee of ₹5 which now matches with Zomato’s platform fee. Soon after Zomato hiked its platform fee in August last year, Swiggy followed in the same footsteps and increased its platform fee to Rs.3 from ₹2 which now has been set to ₹5. Within a year, Zomato increased its platform fee by almost 2X while its competitor Swiggy was also seen to be “experimenting” with a ₹10 platform fee in certain markets earlier this year.

Zomato posted its first-ever net profit of INR 2 crore in Q1 FY24. The platform fee may be in alignment with the company’s goal to achieve a profitability streak in the coming quarters.

On the other hand, Swiggy is also eyeing its billion-dollar IPO launch soon.

There’s no hard and fast method to avoid Zomato delivery charges or Zomato platform fee. However, users can make some handsome savings by using Zomato coupon codes or using Zomato Gold Membership (available for the special price of ₹99 currently (usual price ₹999) for 3 months. You get free deliveries on orders above Rs.199 as well as some exclusive discounts.

Moreover, one more effective way to save on Zomato or to avoid Zomato delivery charges is to use Zomato gift voucher discounts or payment offers on credit cards and UPI apps

One of the features of using Zomato Gold membership was that users would get “unlimited access to Zomato Legends.” However, this benefit now seems to have been taken away as Zomato has closed the Zomato Intercity service for now. There’s no official announcement on when the service will be back.

So, this was all about sharing the news of the Zomato platform fee hike and a few simple ways to save on Zomato or avoid Zomato delivery charges & platform fees (indirectly). Do share with us below your thoughts on the platform fee charged by two duopoly apps, Zomato & Swiggy.