Custom Orders aren't just for one type of business. We've watched restaurants, ghost kitchens, grocery dark stores, multi-brand chains, and white-label marketplaces all use them differently — same product, completely different revenue patterns. Seven plays that are working right now, organized by what kind of operation you run.
Most operators evaluating Custom Orders for the first time imagine one use case — usually a pharmacy run — and decide whether the whole feature is worth turning on based on that single example. They turn it down and miss six other plays that would have worked.
Custom Orders is a primitive, not a product. The same toggle in your admin dashboard unlocks completely different revenue streams depending on what kind of business you run.
Below are seven plays we've watched operators run successfully — organized by business type so you can find yours.
Each play below describes the operator type, what they're doing with Custom Orders, and the revenue pattern they're seeing.
A restaurant with a moto fleet runs three shifts a day: lunch rush, dinner rush, and dead air in between. Custom Orders fill the dead air. Forgotten keys, document drop-offs, pharmacy runs, parcel returns — all happen between lunch and dinner, when your drivers have nothing to do but wait for the next meal order.
Ghost kitchens run multiple brands out of the same physical space, all delivered by the same fleet. Custom Orders let customers request items from any nearby business — a bottle from the wine shop, a dessert from the bakery — that aren't on your menus but are on your route. You become the "anything we can carry, we'll bring" operator.
Customers who already trust you for groceries naturally want to use the same app for pharmacy refills, niche ingredients from the Asian grocer, or wine from the corner store. Your dark store doesn't need to stock those items — the customer pays for the goods, you charge the delivery fee. Pure operational margin.
Chains with multiple physical locations spend hours every week shuttling inventory between sites — a missing ingredient, a forgotten document, a piece of equipment one store needs and another has spare. Custom Orders give your own store managers an internal courier service that runs on your existing fleet during off-peak hours.
If you run a regional marketplace under your own brand, Custom Orders let you market yourself as the "anything you need" app for your city — not just the food app. That's a more defensible positioning against bigger competitors who are stuck doing one category well. It also gives you a wedge story when talking to new merchants who want broader audience access.
Small businesses around your operations need same-day delivery for documents, samples, parts, and signed contracts. National couriers are expensive and slow for local trips. Your fleet is already in the area. Custom Orders turn your delivery operation into a B2B same-day courier with no new sales team — local businesses find you the same way local customers do.
The universal play. Every customer base has people who left their wallet at the office, their charger at home, their gym bag at the apartment. They want a way to get it back without driving across town themselves. Whatever else you do with Custom Orders, this use case shows up everywhere — and the customer loyalty payoff is disproportionate. A driver bringing someone their keys at 9 PM is the kind of moment they remember.
Pick the one that maps to your fleet's biggest gap. If your drivers are idle between meal services, start with Play 01. If you're a chain shuttling inventory by hand, start with Play 04. If you're a marketplace looking for differentiation against bigger competitors, start with Play 05.
The same toggle in your admin dashboard enables all of them. You don't have to pick at setup — you'll see organically which use cases your customers gravitate toward in the first month, then double down on the ones that work.
If you're not sure which play fits, here's the most common starting setup we see:
After 30 days you'll have real data on which play is your dominant one. Then you tune the guardrails accordingly.
No. All seven plays use the same underlying feature. Customers organically discover the use cases they need. Your job is to set the guardrails (weight, distance, price) — the rest is the customer's request and your driver's trip.
How do I market a new use case to my existing customers? +Email and push notifications to your existing customer base are the cheapest channels — they already trust you. A single line in your post-order confirmation ("By the way, you can now request a pickup from anywhere — try Custom Orders") generates the first wave of trials at zero cost.
What if my fleet can't handle the volume during peak hours? +You control acceptance from the same Orders Dashboard. During lunch and dinner rushes, your dispatcher prioritizes food orders. Most operators see Custom Order volume cluster in the 2–6 PM and 10 PM–midnight windows naturally, exactly where food order volume drops.
Which use case has the highest revenue per order? +Typically B2B same-day courier (Play 06) — businesses are less price-sensitive than individuals on errands, and trips are often longer. But it's also the slowest use case to scale because acquisition is one-business-at-a-time rather than viral.
Toggle Custom Orders on, set your three guardrails, and watch your customers tell you which play is yours. No credit card, full platform access, cancel anytime.
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