Is commission-free ordering worth it for a Singapore restaurant?
For your regulars, usually yes. Delivery apps charge the commission written in your merchant agreement on every order, including orders from people who already know you and would happily order direct. A direct ordering page on your own restaurant website lets those customers pay you, with only your payment processing fees taken off.
The honest counterweight: a direct site does not find you new customers the way a delivery app's home screen can, and you must arrange delivery yourself, whether with your own riders or a courier. Many outlets therefore run both. New diners discover you in the app; the leaflet in the bag, the QR code at the table and your Google listing send repeat orders to your own page.
Do the maths with your own numbers before deciding. Take last month's app orders, the commission rate in your contract, and estimate what share of those customers had ordered before. That share is your realistic direct-ordering opportunity.
- Worth it: a loyal base, strong pick-up trade, catering orders, or a delivery radius you can cover yourself.
- Less worth it: a brand-new outlet with no regulars yet, or a menu that travels poorly without app-managed riders.
What should a restaurant website in Singapore show first?
Diners arrive with one of four questions: what is on the menu, is it open now, can I book, and can I order. Restaurant website design in Singapore should answer all four above the fold on a phone, before any hero video or brand story.
In practice that means a sticky bar with “Menu”, “Book” and “Order” buttons, today's opening hours pulled from one settings file, and the outlet address with a map link. Your story, chef profile and gallery belong further down, for the diners who want them.
Accessibility matters more than it looks. Menus published only as PDFs or photos are hard to read on small screens, invisible to screen readers and hard for Google to understand. We turn the menu into real text with headings, dietary tags and prices, and keep a downloadable version for those who prefer it.
- Menu as text, not only a photo or PDF.
- Opening hours for today shown automatically, with public-holiday changes.
- One-tap call, WhatsApp and directions.
- Book and Order buttons visible on every screen size.
How should a restaurant website in Singapore display prices with GST and service charge?
If you are GST-registered, the rule is that prices shown to the public include GST, and IRAS states this applies to websites as well as price tags and advertisements. There is one exception that matters to many F&B outlets: establishments that impose a service charge may show prices before GST, as long as a prominent statement such as “Prices are subject to GST and service charge” is displayed.
IRAS also notes that GST is charged on the service charge as well as the food, and that the exception does not cover outlets that levy a nominal service charge simply to avoid showing GST-inclusive prices. Its price display guidance sets this out, and warns that non-compliance can lead to a fine.
How we build it into restaurant website design: a single setting for your pricing mode. In “GST-inclusive” mode every price displays as the final amount. In “service charge” mode, the menu shows pre-GST prices and the statement appears beside every price list, in the cart and on the checkout page. If takeaway orders do not carry service charge, the ordering pages can show takeaway prices inclusive of GST. Your accountant confirms which mode applies; we make sure the site follows it everywhere.
How should a halal-certified restaurant show its status online?
Show it accurately and only for what the certificate covers. MUIS is the body that issues halal certificates in Singapore, and its Halal Certification Conditions for eating establishments say the certification mark may be used only while the certificate is valid and only for the premises covered.
The same conditions state that the original certificate is displayed within the certified premises, that copies must not be advertised in any misleading form online or offline, and that publicity must not suggest premises beyond the scope of certification are certified. Misuse of the mark may be treated as an offence under the Administration of Muslim Law Act. For a group with some certified and some non-certified outlets, that means the halal information belongs on each certified outlet's page, not in the site-wide header.
What we do: an outlet-level “halal status” field, the mark shown only on outlets you mark as certified with an expiry date you enter, and a reminder to you before that date. We do not reproduce the certificate itself. If your outlet is Muslim-owned but not certified, we avoid wording that could be read as a certification claim. Check the current MUIS conditions for your scheme before launch.
Which reservation setup suits your restaurant website?
If you already use a reservation platform, embed it; your staff know it and your floor plan lives there. If you take fewer than a few dozen bookings a night, a simple request form that confirms by WhatsApp or email may be all you need.
For restaurant website design in Singapore we look at three things before recommending anything: how many covers you seat, whether you need deposits for large groups or festive periods, and who confirms bookings. A form that no one checks is worse than no form at all.
Embedded platform
Best for busy dining rooms with table management. We place the widget on every page and on your Google Business Profile, and make sure it loads without slowing the page.
Built-in request form
Best for cafés and small bistros. The diner picks date, time and party size; staff confirm from a simple list. Deposits can be added through the same payment flow used for orders.
WhatsApp booking
Useful where regulars already message you. An automated flow collects details and passes the chat to staff to confirm. See our WhatsApp chatbot guide for how that works.
Google needs to read your menu, your location and your hours as structured facts. Restaurant website design that treats the menu as text, marks it up with Restaurant and Menu structured data, and gives each outlet its own page with address and opening hours gives Google exactly that.
Diners search dishes as often as they search restaurant names: “laksa near Katong”, “halal Korean BBQ”, “vegan brunch Tiong Bahru”. A menu with descriptive dish names and short descriptions can match those searches. A menu that is a single image cannot.
Your Google Business Profile does the rest of the local work. We connect its menu link, order link and booking link to your own pages, so the “Order online” button sends diners to your site rather than only to a delivery app. Reviews, photos and posts are yours to manage there. No one can promise a place in the map results, but a tidy profile pointing to a fast site is the right foundation.
For wider search and AI-answer visibility, see our AI SEO services for Singapore.
What goes into a direct ordering website for a restaurant?
A direct ordering site is a small online shop with food-specific rules. The cart has to understand modifiers such as spice level and add-ons, pick-up time slots tied to kitchen capacity, delivery zones with minimum order values, and items that sell out mid-service.
On the kitchen side, orders arrive on a tablet screen or a receipt printer with a clear ticket, and staff can mark items unavailable in seconds. Customers get a confirmation message and, if you want, a notification when the order is ready. Payment goes to your own merchant account with card, wallet and local QR options, chosen by you.
- Menu with modifiers, combos and sold-out switches.
- Pick-up slots and preparation-time buffers.
- Delivery zones by postal code, with fees and minimums you set.
- Kitchen tickets on screen or printer.
- Promo codes for regulars and QR codes for table cards or bag inserts.
- Order history and repeat-order button, with PDPA consent for marketing kept separate.
This build follows our ecommerce plan from US$750. The ecommerce website cost guide for Singapore explains what moves the price.
Does a hawker stall or small café need a full website?
Usually not a large one. A hawker brand or single café often needs a one-page site: menu, hours, location, a line about your story, and links to wherever customers order. That fits comfortably in the static plan from US$150 and takes about a week once you send photos.
What a small site buys you is a stable address that you control. Social media pages change their layouts and reach, and delivery-app listings disappear if you pause them. A simple site on your own domain gives Google, food bloggers and customers one reliable place to find your hours and menu.
If the stall is expanding to a second location, or starting to sell sauces, frozen dumplings or festive goodies online, that is the point to add ordering or a small shop, not before.
How to choose a restaurant website designer in Singapore
Ask to see a restaurant site open on your own phone, not a screenshot. Then check how long the menu takes to appear over mobile data, whether prices are readable, and how many taps it takes to book.
Next, ask about the parts that are specific to F&B: how they handle GST and service-charge wording, halal status per outlet, sold-out items and public-holiday hours. A designer who has not thought about these will need you to spot them.
- Who owns the domain, hosting and ordering data?
- Does any part of the build take a cut of your orders?
- Can your staff change prices and mark items sold out without calling anyone?
- What happens to online orders if the payment page fails?
- What does upkeep cost after launch, in writing?
Wondering how quotes differ between a solo designer, a local studio and a remote team? Our website design cost guide for Singapore covers what drives the spread.
How much does restaurant website design in Singapore cost?
With BtechWaleTech, a menu, hours and bookings site starts at US$150, a direct ordering site starts at US$750, and a custom multi-outlet system with loyalty or central kitchen tools starts at US$900. Monthly local SEO starts at US$150/mo.
Across the market, quotes vary widely. The differences usually come from how much of the site is a reused template, whether photography and copywriting are included, whether ordering is built or rented from a platform, and how much ongoing support is bundled. Compare quotes line by line rather than by the total.
Running costs to plan for, beyond the build: domain renewal, hosting, your payment processing fees on direct orders, any reservation platform subscription, and maintenance after the free months. We list each of those in the quote so the first-year cost is clear.
Can a remote team in India handle restaurant website design for Singapore?
Yes, because nothing in the build needs someone in your dining room. India is two and a half hours behind Singapore, so an 11 am call after your morning prep is 8:30 am for us, and a 3 pm call in your afternoon lull is 12:30 pm for us. WhatsApp replies come seven days a week, which suits F&B hours.
The first two weeks look like this. Days one and two: a video call, a walk-through of your current menu and ordering flow, and an itemised quote in USD. After your written approval: a page plan, the menu converted to structured text for you to check, and a first design on real dishes. By the end of week two, a menu site is usually live on staging for you to test on your own phone; ordering builds continue from there.
We do not do food photography or on-site visits. You supply photos (a local photographer is worth it for hero dishes), and we handle everything on screen. Invoices come from India, payable by Wise or bank wire, and the domain, hosting and code are in your name from the start.
Example: restaurant website design for a two-outlet noodle brand
Consider a hypothetical noodle brand with outlets in Tanjong Pagar and Tampines, one of which charges service charge and one of which runs as a counter-service shop. This is an illustration, not a client story.
The site would have one brand home page, two outlet pages with their own hours, maps and booking links, and a shared menu with outlet-specific prices. The Tanjong Pagar page shows pre-GST prices with the IRAS service-charge statement; the Tampines page shows GST-inclusive prices. Direct ordering is enabled for pick-up at both outlets, with delivery only from the outlet that has its own rider.
If the brand were halal-certified at one outlet only, that outlet page alone would carry the certification status and expiry reminder. Build time would be about five to six weeks for the ordering site, starting from US$750, followed by two months of free maintenance.
Common restaurant website design mistakes to avoid
Most restaurant site problems are small and repeated on every visit, which is why they cost so much. Here are the ones we see most often and fix in every build.
- Menu uploaded only as a photo, unreadable on a phone and invisible to Google.
- Opening hours that differ between the site, the Business Profile and the door.
- Prices shown without GST and without the service-charge statement.
- A halal logo in the site header of a group where not every outlet is certified.
- Autoplay videos that make the page slow on mobile data.
- A booking button that leads to a form nobody monitors.
- Old festive menus still live in January.
What personal data does a restaurant website collect?
Names, phone numbers, emails and sometimes addresses and dietary notes, all personal data under the PDPA. Diners should be told why you collect them, and marketing consent should be asked separately from the details needed to fulfil an order or booking.
We build unticked marketing checkboxes, a short privacy notice with your contact for data questions, and delivery addresses stored only as long as you decide. Analytics and advertising pixels are loaded in line with the cookie choice you set. This supports your obligations; your own adviser confirms the wording. Our PDPA website guide covers the details.
Should restaurant website design in Singapore include a Chinese or bilingual menu?
Include one if a real share of your diners reads the menu in another language, and only when you can supply or approve the translation. English works for most searches in Singapore, but a family-run zi char spot, a Teochew porridge shop or a Japanese izakaya may serve diners who look for dish names in Chinese or Japanese characters.
The build is straightforward: each dish carries its name in both languages, one menu page renders them side by side or through a language switch, and search engines receive the right language tags. What we will not do is machine-translate your menu and publish it unchecked. Dish names are where automatic translation goes most wrong, so you or a trusted staff member approve every line.
Speed deserves the same attention. Diners often open a restaurant site standing outside the door or waiting at a bus stop. We compress photos, avoid heavy video on first load, and keep the menu page light enough to appear within a couple of seconds on mobile data, checked with Google's PageSpeed and Core Web Vitals reports after launch.
Restaurant website launch checklist for Singapore outlets
Before switching on, walk through the site as a diner on your own phone and tick these off. It takes an hour and catches the problems diners would otherwise find first.
- Menu is text, with prices in the correct GST or service-charge mode.
- Service-charge statement visible wherever pre-GST prices appear.
- Halal status shown only on certified outlets, with expiry dates entered.
- Hours match your Google Business Profile, including public holidays.
- Test order placed, paid and printed in the kitchen.
- Test booking made and confirmed by staff.
- Marketing consent separate from order details.
- Domain, hosting, payment account and analytics in your name.