How much time does running GrabFood and GoFood yourself take?

Short answer: it is not "a couple of hours a week on analytics" but a full-time function — if you do the whole job rather than just read reports. But there is an earlier part of the question that usually gets skipped: before counting hours, you have to answer whether the knowledge is there. Setup and ads on these platforms cannot be done without specialist knowledge at all — not done worse, not done.

Part one: the initial setup

The most common owner assumption sounds like this: "I uploaded the menu, now it works by itself." It does not. Without optimization for in-app search, without the right structure and order of items, without the right photos, the listing simply is not shown to people searching your category. This is not a question of diligence or of time — it is a question of knowing how the ranking works. The initial setup cannot be done without that, no matter how many hours go into it.

Part two: why ads here do not work the way you expect

This is what almost nobody gets. Grab and Gojek are not ad networks. An ad network earns on impressions and clicks, and therefore auctions you a place in the results. Grab and Gojek earn a commission on orders, and their core asset is their own audience. Everything else follows from that: their ranking algorithm depends first of all on how well you monetise that audience.

The practical consequence: your cost per click amplifies your position but does not create it. A restaurant that turns an impression into an order and holds a high average check is worth more to the platform — so the platform lifts it on its own, because it earns more from it. Which is why the hard part here is not "setting up ads" but understanding how to attract that audience and sell to it with high conversion and a high check. That part is the work; bidding is only the amplifier.

Part three: what happens every day

Say the setup is done and ads are running. What begins then is what usually never makes it into the time estimate:

Stop-list and availability

Items switch off during the day — by the kitchen, the till, the platform itself. Every hour a bestseller is off is orders going to the restaurant next door and a signal to the algorithm that you are unreliable.

Reviews and negative handling

Replies must be fast and to the point. A separate skill is contesting an unfair review so the platform removes it: very few people know how, and on a young account one such star costs more than it looks.

Uptime and cancellations

Offline hours and cancellations hurt ranking most, and recovery is slow — the platform needs a new history.

Bids and budgets

Auto-bidding collects cheap irrelevant impressions. Manual management means adjusting to actual results, not configuring once.

Promos and their economics

What counts is not orders from the promo but what is left after the discount, the platform commission and the ad spend. A promo that does not pay back looks like growth.

Analytics — and acting on it

Opening a report is not the work. The work starts when something in the menu, the bids or the prices changes because of it this week.

The honest conclusion

Put it all together — not just setup and weekly analytics, but stop-list control, review replies, negative handling and contesting unfair reviews — and what you get is not an owner’s side task but a full-time employee working on delivery every day. So the real choice is not "do it myself or hand it over" but "hire and train my own person, or hand it to a team that already runs this".

Frequently asked

So how many hours a week is it?

We do not publish an hours figure, because the honest unit here is a role, not hours. A restaurant at 500 orders a month and one at 3,000 differ in volume, but the daily task set is the same — and it does not fit into "a couple of hours on Fridays". Done properly rather than as report-reading, it is a full-time function.

What if I just upload the menu and switch ads on?

That is what most owners do — and why most conclude that "delivery does not work". A menu uploaded as-is is not optimized for in-app search; ads on such a listing buy views without orders. What works is not what is switched on, but what is set up.

Can I hire my own person instead of an agency?

Yes, and for a large chain it makes sense. Just count honestly: that person’s salary, the time to train them, and the fact that they will learn on your accounts and your mistakes. An agency has already paid for those mistakes on other restaurants.

What gets lost when delivery is done with whatever time is left?

Not one-off revenue — position. Ranking is cumulative: switched-off items, slow replies and unanswered negatives accumulate into the account’s history. Regaining position costs more and takes longer than holding it.

Check your own restaurant

Send your restaurant’s Grab link — we’ll run a free audit of your listing and show where you lose orders.

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