Restaurants pay the price for Swiggy’s ad revenue push

In 2023, a Uttar Pradesh-based restaurateur resorted to advertising on Swiggy to boost one of his restaurants’ performance on the online food delivery platform. At the time, Zomato drove 80% of online sales for the outlet, with Swiggy a distant second. He spoke to his point-of-contact (POC) at the Bengaluru-based foodtech, and requested 100 clicks for the eatery, with the option to increase this later. 

“Instead, Swiggy applied this to all three of my restaurants—something we never agreed to,” the restaurateur recalled. While he’d authorised an ad spend of Rs 5,000 for the first month, he ended up shelling out Rs 8,200 as a result.

A year later, even though he’d authorised an ad spend of Rs 6,700, the platform had billed him for Rs 27,500, he told The CapTable. “I didn’t notice it at first. It was flagged by my accounts team.”