Restaurant owner exposes Zomato’s misleading ad and payout policies after earning only Rs 1,100 from Rs 4,300 in sales.
A restaurant owner’s recent post on social media platform X has once again brought to light Zomato’s allegedly misleading payout and advertising policies. Interestingly, this is not the first time that the food delivery giant has been in the limelight for similar reasons. Soon after the tweet was made public, Zomato responded.
Restaurant owner took to social media platform X and exposed Zomato’s advertising policy
The controversy began when a restaurant owner named Saurabh Gupta took to X to share his frustration with Zomato’s business practices. In his post, he wrote,
“This is what #Zomato is doing, they assign an account manager who fools you out in the name of ads and run them to suck your profit. #pmoindia #pmo. Should there be any limitation on #Zomato? Out of Rs 4,353 rupees, I am only getting Rs 1,100 after 2X sale promise by Account Manager.”
To corroborate his claims, Gupta attached a screenshot of his payout summary, revealing how drastically the deductions affected his earnings. The image showed that while his total order value stood at Rs 4,353.72 from 26 orders, his final estimated payout was only Rs 1,165.87. The detailed breakdown included order-level deductions, tax deductions, and a significant amount labeled “Investments in Growth” (Rs 1,518.66), a section believed to represent advertising or promotional charges.
The tweet alleged that Zomato’s account manager had promised him “2X sales growth” through paid promotions, but instead of profits, the restaurant was left with only about one-fourth of its total earnings.
For many small restaurant partners, these “Investments in Growth” often turn out to be losses, as the ads rarely generate the promised increase in orders. While Zomato advertises these campaigns as tools for greater visibility, they turn out to be exploitative.
Have a look at the whole tweet
Here is how Zomato responded
Soon after the tweet was made public, Zomato issued a standard customer-service style response. The company replied under the post, saying,
“Hi Saurabh, we understand your concern and would like to take a look at this. Please send us a DM with your restaurant ID so we can assist you further.”
Despite this, Zomato followed up with another message,