A GP fee (Gross Profit sharing) is the commission or revenue share that sales channels — such as department stores, food delivery apps, or online marketplaces — deduct from a seller on every completed sale, in exchange for bringing customers to them. The rate varies significantly by channel and product category, ranging from around 7% to nearly 40% of sales revenue.

What is GrabFood's GP rate?

According to Grab's own merchant terms for 2026, GrabFood charges 30% GP on revenue before VAT. On a ฿1,000 sale, that means ฿300 in GP plus ฿21 in VAT, totalling ฿321 deducted — approximately 32.1% of the sale amount.

What is LINE MAN's GP rate?

As reported by MGR Online citing market data through 2026, LINE MAN charges 30% GP on revenue before VAT — the same rate as GrabFood. Together, LINE MAN and GrabFood control close to 90% of Thailand's food delivery market as of early 2026.

What is the average GP rate for restaurants on food delivery apps?

GP rates on Thai food delivery platforms range from 28–32% of revenue before VAT, depending on the platform (Robinhood 28%, LINE MAN and GrabFood 30%, ShopeeFood 30–32%). Restaurants in highly competitive areas may also pay in-app advertising fees on top — up to ฿70 per order — making the real cost per order significantly higher than the stated GP percentage alone.

Do I have to stop selling on platforms to avoid paying GP?

No. The more sustainable approach is to gradually build your own channel alongside the platforms you already use — starting with a website and LINE Official Account that capture returning customer data directly. Dr.PONG itself still uses modern trade and export as supplementary channels at 10% of revenue. The goal is not to quit platforms entirely, but to grow the share of sales that comes through your own channel over time.

How Much Does GP Really Cost Your Business? The Dr.PONG Case Study: A Billion-Baht Brand That Built Its Own Channel Instead

Imagine a broker walks into your shop. He tells you that hundreds of thousands of customers pass by his storefront every day. If you want those people to see your products, he'll sell them for you — no upfront fee. But in exchange, he takes a cut every time a sale goes through. Sometimes 7%. Sometimes nearly 40%. It depends on which door you walk through.

That sounds like a story, but it's something nearly every Thai business owner deals with every single day. We just don't call this broker a broker. We call him by a two-letter acronym: GP.

GP, or Gross Profit sharing, is the commission that sales channels — whether a department store, a food delivery app, or an online marketplace — deduct from every sale you make, in exchange for bringing customers to your door. This article walks through the real numbers for each channel type, then closes with the Dr.PONG case study: a Thai skincare brand generating over ฿2.4 billion in annual sales that chose a very different path from most brands in the same market.

GP is not a one-time rental fee. It is a percentage deducted from every single order, regardless of how long you have been on the platform.

Take Three Minutes to Run Your Own Numbers

Before looking at anyone else's figures, pull up last month's sales summary for your own business. If you sell through a food delivery app or an online marketplace, the commission or platform fee line item is already there in your payout report.

What was your total revenue from each channel last month?
What percentage was deducted per order? (Check the actual payout statement, not an estimate from memory.)
Multiply those two figures together to get the actual baht amount that left your pocket in a single month.

The number you land on might sting a little. But that's exactly the starting point of this article.

What Each Channel Actually Charges

Modern Trade — The Widest and Highest Range

Modern trade GP is the revenue share that department stores and hypermarkets charge brands for placing products on their shelves. The figure varies significantly by product category and the negotiating power of the brand. No government body publishes a standard rate, but multiple industry sources consistently report that mainstream retailers charge around 30–40% of sales revenue. The beauty and skincare category — which is highly competitive — typically sees rates at the higher end of that range.

That 40% figure is precisely the reason Dr.PONG's founder gave in interviews for why the brand chose not to make modern trade its primary channel. The full story is at the end of this article.

Food Delivery Apps — Around 30% Before VAT

Food delivery platforms are more transparent than modern trade, because each company publishes its rates in its merchant terms. Data compiled by MGR Online from 14 years of Thailand's food delivery market shows that as of 2026, LINE MAN and GrabFood both charge 30% GP, ShopeeFood charges 30–32%, and Robinhood charges 28%. All of these are pre-VAT figures. Grab itself confirms this in its 2026 merchant terms: on a ฿1,000 sale, the GP deduction is ฿300, plus ฿21 in VAT, totalling ฿321 — or 32.1% of revenue.

These aren't theoretical numbers. BBC Thai spoke directly with restaurant owners in mid-2026 and found a shop selling a ฿69 stir-fried basil rice box receiving only ฿46 after a 32% commission cut. Some restaurants in highly competitive areas also pay in-app advertising fees on top of that — up to ฿70 per order. Combined, one order worth ฿249 left the restaurant with just ฿99.57 in their account.

Worth noting: this market is becoming more concentrated, not less. Data from February 2026 estimates that Grab and LINE MAN together control nearly 90% of Thailand's food delivery market, up from around 86% in 2024. That means restaurant owners have fewer alternative channels available, not more.

Online Marketplaces — The Lowest of the Three, But Still Significant

Compared to the two categories above, marketplaces like Shopee and Lazada charge lower rates. Shopee's combined commission, transaction fee, and infrastructure fee comes to roughly 7–19% of sales depending on product category. Lazada is in a similar range — around 7–17% for standard sellers and up to 19% for LazMall participants — before adding a payment processing fee of around 3% per order. Both platforms raised their rates twice in 2026 alone.

If your business is starting to think about building its own e-commerce website alongside your current marketplace presence, there's a detailed breakdown of which features you actually need from day one at First-Time E-Commerce Website: Which Features Are Essential, and Which Are a Waste of Budget.

The Dr.PONG Case Study: A Billion-Baht Brand That Chose a Different Door

Dr.PONG is a Thai skincare brand generating over ฿2.4 billion in annual sales. What is more interesting than the headline figure is the revenue structure behind it: 90% of revenue comes from the brand's own online channels and its network of over 40 company-owned retail locations. Modern trade and export together account for just 10% of total revenue. (Thairath Money, 14 Nov 2025)

The founder explained in interviews that the reason for this structure was the GP rate that modern trade charges — up to 40%. Instead of paying that percentage month after month, the brand reinvested into scientific research and active ingredients, building Dr.PONG SRL, the brand's own dermatological research center, with an annual R&D budget exceeding ฿100 million.

At Techsauce Global Summit, the management team elaborated: owning their own channels removed the middleman cost, which allowed the brand to price products accessibly even though raw material costs were higher than competitors due to research investment. (MarketingOops, 31 Aug 2026)

To be clear: Dr.PONG has not abandoned modern trade entirely. That 10% is still there. The Thai skincare market is valued at ฿200,000–300,000 million and growing 4–5% annually — a genuinely competitive space. What this brand did was invert the default relationship: its own channels became the primary engine, and modern trade became the supplement. Most SMEs currently operate the reverse.

What Platforms Actually Give You — A Fair Assessment

Having said all that, it would be misleading to frame platforms as purely extractive. Department stores, food delivery apps, and marketplaces do deliver real value: they bring genuine traffic, provide ready-to-use payment infrastructure, and offer logistics that a small business cannot build independently in a short timeframe. Nearly every business — including Dr.PONG in its earliest days — depends on these channels to reach its first customers. This article is not a case for quitting platforms tomorrow.

The simpler question worth asking is: does your business currently have any channel of its own at all, or is everything routed through a third party?

Why the Money Saved From GP Compounds Over Time

The most instructive part of the Dr.PONG story is not the brand's scale — it's where the saved GP went. It was redirected into something that builds value over time: research that deepens with every year and raises the barrier for competitors. GP paid out is gone permanently. It does not accumulate anything for your business, no matter how long you have been on the platform.

SMEs do not need a ฿100 million R&D budget to apply the same principle. Money that currently leaves as GP every month — if even a portion of it is redirected once into building your own channel — reduces your cost per order progressively. The more returning customers who buy directly through your own channel, the smaller the share of revenue flowing to platforms that take a percentage.

Your Own Channel Does Not Need to Start at Dr.PONG's Scale

At this point many readers assume this means a large, complex system. It does not. A starting own channel is simply a website with your own domain name, connected to a LINE Official Account for communicating with returning customers. That is enough for most businesses on day one. Hiring a team to build a business website does not require having every feature from launch. The goal is simply to have a place where customers can find you without going through an intermediary first.

If you are still unsure whether your business needs its own website at all, Selling Online: Do You Actually Need a Website? walks through the pros and cons. And if the risk of relying entirely on a Facebook Page is something you have not fully considered, the specifics are covered in Is a Facebook Page Enough? 5 Business Risks in 2026.

A 30-Day Plan Before Starting Your Own Channel

Week 1 — Count the real numbers: Pull the payout summaries for every channel you sell through, for the past three months. Add up the actual GP percentage deducted per month to get a clear annual figure for what is leaving your business.
Week 2 — Prioritise: Identify which channel charges the highest GP and also happens to be where your returning customers shop most frequently. That is where moving to your own channel will pay off fastest.
Week 3 — Gather customer data: Collect the names, phone numbers, or LINE contacts of your existing regular customers. Start communicating directly with this group alongside your current platform activity.
Week 4 — Start your own channel: Speak with a web development team about what scope makes sense for your business right now. You do not need to wait until everything is perfect before starting.

How to Know Whether It Is Working

Once you have a channel of your own, the number to track monthly is the proportion of total revenue that comes through it versus the total across all channels. If that proportion increases month over month, you are moving in the right direction. The companion metric is profit per order — compare orders from your own channel against orders from GP-charging platforms. The gap between those two numbers is what tells you concretely whether the investment is paying off.

Closing

GP is not the villain here. Platforms that charge it are providing a real service in exchange for a reasonable share — at least at certain stages of a business. The point is simply not to let every sale flow through a third party indefinitely. Start with one channel of your own, and let it grow alongside everything else you already have.

If you are thinking about taking that first step — no matter how small — tell us about your current setup. What channels is your business selling through right now? We will help you work out where it makes most sense to start.