Is Building a Platform Worth the Money? Unless It Scales Big
Take Meituan as an example. People often complain about its high commission, saying it takes over 20%, but in reality only about 15% goes to the delivery riders, and the platform keeps merely around 6%.
For most platforms, losses are typical until they reach sufficient scale; without that volume, the 6% profit margin simply can’t cover customer acquisition and labor costs.
(Yes, you could try to squeeze out more profit—but once the market becomes that competitive, does your product still hold a pricing advantage?)
Platforms typically make money from merchants through at least three channels:
1. Fixed rental fees
2. Transaction commissions (also known as deduction rent or revenue-share rent)
3. Advertising sales—for instance, running your own promotions where merchants pay to receive traffic boosts
In practice, most platforms combine multiple models rather than relying on just one.