Quick commerce unit economics: how an order makes or loses money
Updated October 2026
In quick commerce unit economics, the app keeps about 15–16% of each order as revenue, and most of it goes on delivery and the dark store. Instamart kept ₹108 on an average ₹691 order in April–June 2026.
Orders per store decide profit. Blinkit made an adjusted EBITDA profit of ₹184 crore in July–September 2026, while Instamart and Zepto were still losing money.
Each company figure carries its quarter. Figures with a ÷ sign are simple sums using those numbers. The worked example and calculator use assumptions, not any company’s real costs. None of it is investment advice.
Quick commerce terms: GOV, NOV, AOV, take rate and margins
- GOV (gross order value)
- The total customers pay for orders, including taxes and fees, before discounts are taken off.
- NOV (net order value)
- Order value after discounts and taxes. Blinkit uses NOV. Swiggy gives both.
- AOV (average order value)
- Order value divided by the number of orders.
- Take rate
- What the app keeps as revenue per order: commission or buying margin, delivery and handling fees, and ad income.
- Contribution margin
- Revenue per order minus the direct costs of that order: last-mile delivery, store rent and staff, packaging, wastage and discounts.
- Adjusted EBITDA
- Contribution minus company-wide costs (tech, marketing, head office), before interest, tax, depreciation and share-based pay.
Profit or loss on a ₹600 quick commerce order
Take a made-up dark store with round numbers close to the company figures. It is not any company’s actual cost structure.
| Per order | Amount (₹) | Assumption |
|---|---|---|
| Average order value | 600 | Between Blinkit’s ₹518 net and Instamart’s ₹691 gross AOV |
| Platform revenue (16%) | +96 | Close to Instamart’s ~15.6% |
| Last-mile delivery | −40 | Assumed rider cost per order |
| Store cost | −37 | 4,000 sq ft at ₹80 rent plus ₹9 lakh a month of staff and power, over 1,100 orders a day |
| Wastage and discounts (2%) | −12 | Near Blinkit’s 1.8% inventory write-off |
| Contribution | +7 | About 1.2% of order value |
| Company overheads | −15 | Tech, marketing, head office (assumed) |
| EBITDA per order | −8 | Loss-making until volume or take rate rises |
Raise orders to 1,600 a day and store cost falls to about ₹25 per order. The same store now makes a small profit.
How many orders a dark store needs to break even
Using the same made-up store, rent, staff and power come to about ₹12.2 lakh a month, or roughly ₹40,700 a day. Each order leaves ₹44 after delivery and wastage, and ₹29 once company overheads are taken off.
- About 925 orders a day to cover the store’s own costs (contribution break-even).
- About 1,400 orders a day to also cover its share of company overheads (EBITDA break-even).
- Payback on a ₹2.5 crore set-up takes about nine years at 1,100 orders a day, but about 28 months at 1,600.
Compare those thresholds with real stores: Instamart averaged about 1,089 orders per store per day in April–June 2026, Blinkit about 1,600, and Zepto about 2,140 in January–March 2026. Volume is why apps push for more orders per store and more ad income. It is also why dark store rent matters so much.
Dark store profit calculator
Change any number to see how your store would do. The sums run in your browser, and nothing is saved or sent.
| Platform revenue per order | ₹96 |
|---|---|
| Store cost per order | ₹37 |
| Contribution per order | ₹7 |
| Contribution margin (% of order value) | 1.2% |
| Store contribution per month | ₹2,32,000 |
| EBITDA per order (after overheads) | −₹8 |
| Months to recover set-up cost from contribution | 107.8 months |
Defaults are assumptions for illustration. A month is taken as 30 days.
Blinkit vs Instamart vs Zepto: unit economics compared
| Metric | Blinkit (Eternal) | Instamart (Swiggy) | Zepto |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average order value | ₹518 net AOV (Q1 FY27) | ₹691 gross AOV; ₹508 net AOV (Q1 FY27) | Not disclosed |
| Orders per store per day | About 1,600 (₹8.27 lakh NOV per store per day ÷ ₹518) | 1,089 (Q1 FY27) | 2,140 (Mar 2026 quarter) |
| Dark stores | 2,751 (30 Sep 2026) | 1,240 in 133 cities (30 Sep 2026) | 1,139 (31 Mar 2026) |
| Daily orders | 36 lakh+ (Q1 FY27) | About 14.2 lakh (130.3 million orders ÷ 92 days, Q2 FY27) | 23.3 lakh (Mar 2026 quarter) |
| Platform revenue per order | Not disclosed | ₹108 adjusted revenue per order, about 15.6% of AOV | Not disclosed |
| Contribution margin | Not disclosed for Q1 FY27 | −1.0% of GOV (Q2 FY27), after −0.2% in Q1 FY27, when 45%+ of stores were contribution-positive | Not disclosed |
| Adjusted EBITDA | +₹184 crore, about 0.9% of NOV (Q2 FY27) | −₹895 crore, −9.7% of GOV (Q2 FY27) | −₹1,248 crore (Mar 2026 quarter) |
| Advertising income | Not shown separately | Target of about ₹10 per order | ₹1,636 crore in FY26 |
| Set-up cost per store | About ₹2.5 crore at steady state, including warehousing (up from ₹1 crore) | About ₹2.5 crore | Not disclosed |
Blinkit and Instamart figures come from their quarterly results, each marked with its quarter: Q2 FY27 is July–September 2026 and Q1 FY27 is April–June 2026. Zepto’s are its latest, mostly January–March 2026, as it does not publish quarterly results. Blinkit’s net AOV and Instamart’s gross AOV are measured differently, so don’t compare them directly.
Blinkit has made an adjusted EBITDA profit every quarter since October–December 2025. Instamart’s contribution margin was −0.2% of GOV in April–June 2026, close to break-even, then slipped to −1.0% in July–September 2026.
What is moving the numbers at Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto
- Blinkit wrote off inventory worth 1.8% of NOV in Q1 FY27, about ₹308 crore. Much of it was perishables.
- Eternal raised its steady-state target to ₹11 lakh of NOV per store per day, from ₹7 lakh. It expects a 5–6% adjusted EBITDA margin at steady state.
- Instamart stores run at about 40% utilisation. A quarter of its stores earn a 3–5% contribution margin, and five of its top seven cities are contribution-positive (Q1 FY27).
- Instamart’s move to buying its own stock could add about ₹4–5 per order, roughly 80 basis points of contribution margin (August 2026 estimate).
- Delivery and handling fees lift revenue on small baskets, which do not earn enough on their own to pay for the rider and the store. A higher free-delivery minimum also gets people to buy more each time: Zepto raised its minimum to ₹199 in August 2026, in line with Blinkit.
- Zepto’s ad revenue rose to ₹1,636 crore in FY26 from ₹651 crore in FY25. Its FY26 net loss was ₹5,905 crore.
Renting out, running or selling through a dark store
The same sums decide whether a store near you pays its way. For a landlord, the line that matters is store cost, which turns on dark store rent per sq ft. A dark store franchise partner has to watch every line.
Sources
- Swiggy Ltd, 30 Jul 2026: Shareholders’ letter, Q1 FY27 (NSE filing)
- Inc42, 22 Jul 2026: Blinkit’s Q1 adjusted EBITDA rises to ₹102 crore
- Business Standard, 21 Oct 2026: Eternal Q2 FY27 results (Blinkit adjusted EBITDA ₹184 crore)
- Inc42, 22 Oct 2026: Swiggy Q2 FY27 results (Instamart GOV, losses, stores and cities)
- Motilal Oswal, 22 Jul 2026: Eternal 1QFY27 results update (Blinkit steady-state NOV and capex per store)
- Elara Securities, 23 Jul 2026: Eternal Q1 FY27 result update (Blinkit 5–6% margin guidance)
- Apparel Resources, 22 Jul 2026: Blinkit loses Rs 308 crore to inventory, earns Rs 102 crore profit
- Outlook Business, 20 Aug 2026: Swiggy bets on Instamart’s inventory shift, mirrors rival Blinkit’s move
- Outlook Business, 10 Jun 2026: IPO-bound Zepto doubles revenue in FY26 but losses reach ₹5,905 crore
- Business Standard, 4 Sep 2026: Blinkit, Instamart dark-store capex rises to about ₹2.5 crore (UBS)
- Outlook Business, 24 Jul 2026: How IPO-bound Zepto stacks up against Blinkit and Instamart (orders per store per day)