Zomato Ads for Restaurants: CPC, Cost and the Fine Print

Zomato sells restaurant ads three main ways: per click (CPC), per visit in a fixed pack, or as a percentage of the sales its ads bring in. It publishes no rate card. Restaurant India put sponsored-listing clicks at roughly ₹5 to ₹15 each in May 2026, but the price you pay is whatever is written in your own service request form.

The fine print matters more than the rate. Zomato's own terms count a "click" when a guest opens your page within 24 hours of merely seeing your ad, guarantee no clicks or sales, and take the fee straight out of your weekly payout. Here is what the terms say, what an ad actually earns you, and how to tell whether it is working.

Key takeaways

• Zomato's ad terms define a click as a guest opening your page after tapping the ad, or within 24 hours of last viewing it.
• Zomato's sponsored listing terms say it does not guarantee a minimum number of clicks or sales, and so do the terms of the programme called "Guaranteed ROI".
• Zomato's "ROI" is ad-attributed order value divided by ad spend. It is a sales ratio, not profit.
• Ad fees are deducted from your weekly payout and shown as a separate line on your statement.
• The only test that tells you whether ads work is total orders with ads on versus ads off, not the dashboard's ad orders.

How Zomato charges for ads

Zomato publishes the terms for each ad product on its own policy pages. The pricing models fall into a few types.

For the CPC product, Zomato may discount the click price day to day "as per Zomato's sole discretion", and you will not be charged beyond the campaign budget agreed for the campaign dates. Zomato decides the size, placement and position of the ad.

What counts as a "click"

This one definition decides how you read every number on the ads dashboard.

Zomato's sponsored listing terms count a click when a guest reaches your restaurant page "by clicking on the Advertisement", or "within 24 hours from the last viewing Advertisement". The Visit Pack uses the same wording for a visit, and the Guaranteed ROI programme attributes an order to the ads if it comes within 24 hours of the guest last seeing your ad.

So a regular who scrolled past your banner at lunch and ordered from you that evening, as they do every Friday, can be counted as an ad click and an ad order. You may have paid for a customer you already had. That is not a trick; it is a common way ad platforms attribute. But it means the ad dashboard will always look better than the ads really performed.

What it costs

Zomato does not publish prices, and the click rate in your form depends on your city, cuisine and placement. The most specific public estimate is Restaurant India's 2026 breakdown:

Treat these as a sense of scale, not a quote. On top of the fee, ad services carry GST, and if you are a standalone restaurant on the 5 percent scheme without input tax credit, as most are, that GST is a cost you cannot claim back. It is the same problem as the 18 percent GST on Zomato's commission.

The "Guaranteed ROI" programme, decoded

Under this programme, Zomato invoices you a percentage of the "Advertisement CV", which its terms define as the order value from ad orders, including packaging charges and minus your discount. It defines ROI as that order value divided by your ad spend.

Put those two definitions together. If you pay 10 percent of ad-attributed order value, your ROI is 100 divided by 10, which is 10, every single time, whatever the ads do. The ROI is guaranteed because it is fixed by the formula. The same terms still say Zomato "does not guarantee any minimum or maximum number of impressions, clicks and Advertisement CV". What you are really buying is advertising priced like a second commission on the orders it gets credit for.

That can be a reasonable deal, because you only pay when attributed orders arrive. Just read the name as a description of the billing, not a promise about profit.

ROI is not profit

Here is why a healthy-looking ROI can still lose money. Take a month where ads are credited with ₹50,000 of orders at an ROI of 5, so ₹10,000 of ad spend. The other costs below are illustrative assumptions for a typical delivery order: 20 percent commission, 30 percent food cost, and a 2 percent payment fee.

Now apply the click definition. Suppose half of those orders came from guests who would have ordered anyway, and the ads only truly added ₹25,000. Those extra orders leave about ₹11,010 after commission, food and fees. Take off the ₹11,800 you spent on ads and the campaign lost about ₹790, while the dashboard showed an ROI of 5.

The half is an assumption, not a statistic. It might be a quarter for a new restaurant nobody knows, or most of the orders for a busy one with loyal regulars. That is exactly why you need to test it, not read it off the dashboard. To run the same numbers for your own dishes, our food cost and menu price calculator shows what one order settles for after commission and fees.

How the money leaves your account

You don't write a cheque for Zomato ads. For CPC and Guaranteed ROI campaigns, the terms say the fee "will be settled by way of reduction from the weekly payouts" and shown "separately and identifiable" on your statement of account. If a payout lands lower than your orders suggested, the ads line is one of the first places to look; our guide to Zomato payout deductions walks through the statement.

Two smaller clauses are worth knowing. If you deduct TDS on the ad fee, Zomato's terms ask you to send the TDS certificate within 90 days of the quarter's end to be reimbursed, or it may refuse. And unless your form says otherwise, Zomato is not obliged to refund ad fees already paid.

When Zomato ads make sense

Ads earn their keep when the people seeing them don't already know you:

• A new listing with no ratings and no orders, where nobody finds you organically.
• A new delivery area you have just opened up.
• Slow hours you are trying to fill, where an extra order costs you little more than its ingredients. We cover the other levers in how to fill slow days in a restaurant.

They earn least for an established restaurant whose regulars order anyway, because that is where the 24-hour view rule credits ads with orders you would have had.

How to tell whether your ads work

Ignore the ad dashboard's ROI for this. Run the ads for two weeks, pause them for two weeks, and compare your total Zomato orders and total payout across the two periods, same days of the week. If total orders barely move when the ads stop, most of what the dashboard credited to ads was coming anyway.

Repeat it once a quarter, because the answer changes as your ratings and repeat customers grow. And before you spend more on being found on the app, look at what happens to the guests who already found you, because a guest who orders direct pays no commission and costs no ad spend.

FAQ

How much do Zomato ads cost?

Zomato doesn't publish a rate card; the price is set in your service request form. Restaurant India estimated sponsored listing clicks at about ₹5 to ₹15 each in 2026, and small restaurant budgets at ₹15,000 to ₹75,000 a month. GST is charged on top.

What is CPC on Zomato?

CPC is cost per click, the fee you pay Zomato for each click on a sponsored listing. Zomato's terms count a click when a guest opens your restaurant page by tapping the ad, or within 24 hours of last seeing it. Zomato does not guarantee a minimum number of clicks.

What is Zomato's Guaranteed ROI programme?

It is an ad programme where you pay a percentage of the order value that the ads are credited with. Zomato defines ROI as that order value divided by ad spend, so the ROI is fixed by your percentage. The terms do not guarantee any clicks, impressions or sales.

How are Zomato ad charges paid?

For CPC and Guaranteed ROI campaigns, Zomato deducts the fee from your weekly payouts and lists it separately on your statement of account. Visit Pack fees are invoiced, may need an advance before the campaign starts, and exclude applicable taxes.

Are Zomato ads worth it for a restaurant?

They can be for a new listing or a new area, where the people seeing the ad don't know you yet. For an established restaurant, many ad-credited orders may come from regulars. Test it by comparing total orders with ads on and off, not by the dashboard's ROI.

What to do next

Before you renew a campaign, pull four weeks of payouts and run the on and off test above. Ask your Zomato contact for the click rate, the budget cap and the refund terms in writing, and read what Zomato and Swiggy commission really costs so you know the full take on each order.

Then look at the orders you don't have to pay to win. A guest sitting at your table who orders from a QR code costs no commission and no ad spend. If you want that order to grow as well, book a short dineomAI demo and see it suggest the second drink on your own menu.