ChowNow's core pitch, commission-free direct ordering, is real and worth taking seriously. What is easy to miss reading only the headline plan price is everything that sits underneath it: a setup fee, per-transaction card processing, capped marketing contact credits by tier, and a separate per-order charge for ChowNow's own delivery product. This piece adds up the complete stack.

What ChowNow Actually Offers

ChowNow's three plans, Launch, Grow, and Elevate, all include the same core set:

• A direct online ordering tool
• An SEO-optimized website built on Squarespace templates
• A branded mobile app
• A commission-free marketplace listing
• Discovery Network placement across Google, Apple Maps, Yelp, and more
• Full fraud and chargeback protection with no limits
• 24 hour phone and chat support

Marketing Tools Scale by Tier

Automated email and SMS marketing is included starting on the Grow plan, with 2,000 contacts and 2,000 message credits. Elevate raises that to 5,000 contacts and 5,000 credits. Launch, the cheapest plan, includes none of this.

What ChowNow Actually Costs

Listed monthly pricing on an annual commitment runs from $229 for Launch to $409 for Elevate, with monthly-billing versions priced $20 to $40 higher on each tier.

On top of the plan price, ChowNow adds a one-time setup fee ranging from $119 to $499 depending on tier, a card processing charge of 2.95% plus $0.29 per transaction, and, if a restaurant uses ChowNow's own Flex Delivery product, a flat $7.98 charge per delivery order.

A branded mobile app also carries a separate $99 annual Apple developer fee, and print marketing hardware like a receipt printer runs $250 to $420 if a restaurant needs one.

What AUANI Offers Instead

AUANI's Free tier costs nothing and carries no setup fee, at a 10% marketplace fee, and includes:

• Pickup, dine-in, and real courier delivery through Uber
• Loyalty and POS sync
• An exportable guest list

The Monthly tier is $300 flat, drops the marketplace fee to 5%, and adds:

• A fully hosted website
• A 0% direct ordering widget
• A full Google visibility suite
• Menu analytics

There is no separate setup fee, no per-transaction processing charge layered on top of the plan price, and no capped contact or credit system gating how many guests a restaurant can message.

Side by Side

Running the Same First Month Through Both

A restaurant signing up for ChowNow's Grow plan on annual billing pays roughly $319 for the first month, plus a setup fee in the neighborhood of $249, before a single order is processed. Card processing then adds roughly 3% of every dollar of sales on top.

• ChowNow Grow, month one: $319 plan cost plus a one-time $249 setup fee, plus 2.95% processing on all card sales that month.
• AUANI Free, month one: $0 plan cost, no setup fee, 10% marketplace fee on orders that came through AUANI's own discovery.
• AUANI Monthly, month one: $300 plan cost, no setup fee, 5% marketplace fee on discovery orders, 0% on the restaurant's own direct widget.

The setup fee alone means ChowNow's actual first-month cost is meaningfully higher than its advertised monthly price, a cost that does not recur but that AUANI does not charge at all, on any tier.

The Real Trade-Off

What ChowNow's Fee Stack Buys

ChowNow's setup fee and processing costs fund a genuinely mature product: 20-plus POS integrations, unlimited fraud and chargeback protection, and a Discovery Network that lists a restaurant across Google, Apple Maps, and Yelp automatically. For a restaurant that wants that breadth from day one, the itemized costs are buying something real.

What AUANI's Flatter Structure Buys

AUANI's structure buys predictability. A restaurant knows its exact monthly cost and marketplace fee rate without needing to add up a setup fee, a processing rate, and a delivery-per-order charge separately to find the real number.

Who ChowNow's Model Doesn't Fit At All

A restaurant that wants to test online ordering with zero upfront cost will not find that on ChowNow. Every plan carries a setup fee, and there is no free tier to try the product first.

An Honest Case for Choosing ChowNow Anyway

ChowNow's unlimited fraud and chargeback protection is a genuine, uncapped guarantee, and its Discovery Network distribution across major listing sites is broad and automatic. A higher-volume restaurant that values that breadth and can absorb the setup fee as a one-time cost may find the total package worth the itemized charges.

Best For

ChowNow suits a restaurant that wants broad listing distribution and unlimited fraud protection from day one, and can absorb a one-time setup fee as part of getting there. AUANI suits a restaurant that wants to know its exact cost upfront, with no setup fee and no separate processing line to track down.

The full nine-way breakdown, including ChowNow, is in the master fee comparison table. For how AUANI's own sliding marketplace fee works, see AUANI vs. Menufy, another flat-fee model worth comparing directly. For the full picture beyond fees, see the Restaurant & Bar online ordering guide.

Owner.com built its reputation on getting independent restaurants off third-party delivery apps and onto their own website, and it does that well. What its own pricing page does not lead with is that guests pay a fee on every order regardless of plan, and the cheaper plan adds a second fee on top of that for the restaurant. This piece counts every real line item on both platforms, not just the headline number.

What Owner.com Actually Offers

Owner.com sells a full package: an AI-optimized restaurant website, online ordering, a branded mobile app, automated SEO pages, a loyalty and rewards program, AI-powered email and text marketing, direct catering orders, and 24/7 support. Both of its plans include the entire feature set. There is no stripped-down starter tier missing half the product.

Owner also handles setup and migration for you. A dedicated specialist builds the website, connects the menu, and gets a restaurant live, typically within a week if the domain and Google Business Profile details are on hand.

Included on Every Plan

• AI-optimized website with automated SEO pages
• Online ordering and a branded iOS and Android app
• Loyalty and rewards program
• AI-powered email and text marketing campaigns
• Direct catering order pages
• Setup and migration handled by a dedicated specialist
• Chargeback protection and 24/7 support

The Signup Process

Even though Owner's pricing is public, there is no self-serve checkout. Every signup route leads to booking a free demo call before an account is created.

What Owner.com Actually Costs

Owner runs two plans. Flex is $249 per month plus a 5% restaurant fee charged on every order. Flat is $499 per month with no restaurant-side fee at all.

The detail that is easy to miss on a first read: on both plans, the guest also pays a 5% order support fee at checkout, described as covering fulfillment and customer service. That fee exists whether a restaurant is on Flex or Flat.

So Flat removes the restaurant's own per-order fee, but a guest checking out on either plan still sees an added charge on their receipt. Owner's own FAQ frames this as the reason a restaurant should compare Owner's numbers to third-party apps charging 15% or more, and on that comparison it holds up. It is a different comparison against a platform with no per-order fee on either side.

What AUANI Offers Instead

AUANI starts at $0 a month with no setup fee. The Free tier carries a 10% marketplace fee and includes:

• Pickup, dine-in, and real courier delivery through Uber
• A punch-card loyalty program
• POS sync
• A guest list you can export at any time
• Reviews tied only to verified completed orders

The Monthly plan is $300 a month, drops the marketplace fee to 5%, and adds:

• A fully hosted WordPress website
• Your own ordering widget at 0% marketplace fee
• A full Google visibility suite: live ranking data, named competitor comparison, a geogrid map, and one-click profile fixes
• Menu analytics

Add a second location and the whole account's marketplace fee drops to 3%, with an extra location costing $100 a month. There is no guest-paid fee on any AUANI tier, on the marketplace or through the direct widget.

Side by Side

Running the Same $1,200 Month Through Both

Take a small operation doing $1,200 in online orders a month, split between marketplace discovery orders and repeat direct orders, and run it through both platforms at their entry tier.

• Owner Flex: $249 plan cost, plus a 5% restaurant fee ($60) on the month's orders, and every guest also pays 5% ($60 total) at checkout on top of their order total.
• AUANI Free: $0 plan cost, a 10% marketplace fee ($120) on orders that came through AUANI's own discovery, and 0% on anything a guest orders through a direct channel once that guest already knows the restaurant.
• AUANI Monthly: $300 plan cost, a 5% marketplace fee on discovery orders, and 0% on anything routed through the restaurant's own 0% widget, with no added line on the guest's receipt either way.

At this volume, Owner's Flex plan and AUANI's Free tier land close in total dollars moved, but the shape of who pays what is different: Owner's fee sits partly on the restaurant and partly on the guest at checkout, while AUANI's marketplace fee sits entirely on the restaurant's side of the ledger.

The Real Trade-Off

What Owner's Managed Model Buys

Owner's model is genuinely full-service. A dedicated specialist builds the site, and the company has real case studies showing large, sustained sales growth for restaurants that stick with it. For an owner who wants the entire online presence handled by someone else, that hands-off setup has real value, and the $120 million Series C behind Owner means the roadmap is well-funded.

What AUANI's Model Buys Instead

AUANI's model buys the ability to try the platform for free, with no call required, before deciding whether the paid tier's website and Google visibility suite are worth $300 a month. A restaurant that would rather not touch the setup at all can also have AUANI's team build the website, connect the menu, and get the account live, the same hands-off path Owner sells, without needing to learn WordPress. Either way, no guest ever sees an extra fee tacked onto their receipt, on the marketplace or off it.

Who Owner.com's Model Doesn't Fit At All

A restaurant that wants to test an online ordering platform before committing to a monthly bill will not find that option here. There is no free tier, and no signup path skips the demo call. A restaurant sensitive to guests seeing an extra fee at checkout, even a modest one, is also working against Owner's built-in order support fee rather than with it.

An Honest Case for Choosing Owner Anyway

If a restaurant genuinely does not want to touch any of the setup work, the case for Owner is straightforward: pay the flat rate, hand the whole project to a specialist, and get a polished, professionally built website and app without learning WordPress or reviewing a Google Business Profile personally. That same hands-off path is available on AUANI's paid tier too, so the real decision usually comes down to the guest-facing fee and the case-study track record Owner has built, not whether someone else can build the site.

Best For

Owner.com suits a restaurant that wants a fully managed website and marketing system handled by someone else, and does not mind a guest-facing fee on every order in exchange for that hands-off setup. AUANI suits a restaurant that wants to test the platform for free first, keep a guest's receipt free of any added fee, and decide for itself when the paid website and Google visibility tools are worth paying for, whether it configures things directly or has AUANI's team set it up instead.

For the full picture of how AUANI stacks up against every platform in this comparison at once, see the master fee comparison table. For the delivery marketplace side of this question, AUANI vs. DoorDash covers commission math specifically. For the full picture beyond fees, see the Restaurant & Bar online ordering guide.