How to start a cloud kitchen in Hyderabad

What it costs to start

Running costs each month

Licences and registrations

• FSSAI State Licence

  Owned by: Supply & Money

  Required above ₹12 lakh annual turnover, which a cloud kitchen crosses in its first quarter. Apply on foscos.fssai.gov.in with the kitchen lease, a layout plan, a water test report and the partners' ID proofs. ₹2,000–5,000 a year depending on the term. Swiggy and Zomato will not activate a listing without the number, so start this before you sign the lease.

• GST registration

  Owned by: Supply & Money

  Mandatory in practice: the aggregators deduct TCS and require a GSTIN to settle payouts. Restaurant service is taxed at 5% without input credit. Register on gst.gov.in before your first payout cycle, or your money sits held.

• GHMC Trade Licence

  Owned by: Supply & Money

  A trade licence for the kitchen premises, applied for through the GHMC citizen portal for your circle. Most shared cloud-kitchen operators hold a building-level licence already — ask the landlord for a copy before you apply separately, since it can cover you.

• Fire safety NOC

  Owned by: Head Cook

  Required for commercial cooking premises. In a shared kitchen the operator normally holds it building-wide; get written confirmation, because the absence of one is what closes kitchens during inspection drives.

Who does what, and what they earn

Shares are of revenue after costs, agreed in writing before the work starts.

• Head Cook

  Owns the menu, the prep list, and whether order 200 tastes like order 2.

  54 hrs/week

  34%

• Kitchen & Dispatch

  Second pair of hands on the line, packs every order, and keeps the rider handover under two minutes.

  45 hrs/week

  24%

• Listings & Growth

  Runs the Swiggy and Zomato pages, the photography, the pricing and the ad spend.

  25 hrs/week

  24%

• Supply & Money

  Buys provisions, tracks cost per plate, and reconciles the aggregator payouts.

  20 hrs/week

  18%

The six-week plan

1. Week 1

   1. Pick two brands, not one

      A single kitchen should list as two or three separate brands on the aggregators — biryani under one name, rolls and wraps under another. It costs nothing extra, the same prep line serves both, and it doubles the surface area you occupy in search results. What it must not do is double your ingredient list: design the second brand from things the first one already stocks.

   2. Choose a locality before you choose a kitchen

      Aggregator reach is radial and brutal: past about 6 km your food arrives cold and your rating falls. Pick the delivery zone first — Gachibowli and Kondapur for office lunch volume, Madhapur for late-night — then find a kitchen inside it. Open the apps at 1 pm and at 9 pm in your target area and count how many kitchens already sell your dish. Twelve competitors is a functioning market; two is a warning.

   3. Cost the plate before you love the recipe

      Work out the landed cost of every dish: ingredients, packaging, gas, and the 18–25% aggregator commission that comes off the top. A ₹280 biryani with ₹128 of ingredients and ₹30 of packaging leaves roughly ₹55 after commission, which is your actual margin. If a dish cannot clear ₹40, it does not go on the menu however much you like cooking it.

2. Week 2

   1. Sign the kitchen and register the business

      Shared cloud-kitchen bays in Kondapur and Madhapur run ₹25,000–35,000 a month for 150–250 sq ft, typically two months deposit. Before signing, confirm in writing that the building's FSSAI, fire NOC and trade licence cover your bay. Start your own FSSAI State Licence and GST registration the same week — both take 2–3 weeks and both block your listings going live.

   2. Build a menu of fourteen dishes, maximum

      Every additional dish adds prep, stock and waste. Fourteen items that share a base — the same gravy, the same marinade, the same rice — will outsell thirty that do not, because a short menu is a fast kitchen. Aim for a 28-minute average prep time; the aggregators rank on it, and customers cancel over it.

3. Week 3

   1. Photograph the food properly

      Budget ₹20,000 and one full day. Every dish, natural light, real portions in the actual packaging you will use. This is the highest-return money in the whole build: on an aggregator, the photograph is the product. Kitchens with phone snaps taken under tube light lose to identical food shot well, every single time.

   2. Go live on both aggregators

      Onboarding needs the FSSAI number, the GSTIN, a cancelled cheque, the menu with prices and the photographs. Expect 5–10 days from submission to live. List on Swiggy and Zomato both — the overlap in customers is smaller than you would think, and depending on one platform hands it your pricing.

4. Week 4

   1. Run the first hundred orders at full attention

      Both partners on the line, no shortcuts, every order photographed before it is sealed. Your rating in the first fortnight sets your ranking for months, and a 4.6 that starts low is far harder to lift than one that starts high. Refund any complaint immediately and without argument for the first two weeks; it is the cheapest reputation you will ever buy.

   2. Instrument the two numbers that matter

      Average preparation time and order accuracy. Both are visible in the partner dashboards and both drive your ranking directly. If prep time drifts past 30 minutes, the menu is too long or the line is understaffed — fix that before you spend a rupee on ads.

5. Week 5

   1. Start advertising, but only on winners

      Once you have thirty ratings, put ₹15,000–25,000 a month behind the three dishes with the best rating and margin. Never advertise a dish you are unsure about: paid traffic to a weak dish buys you bad reviews at a premium. Track cost per order, not impressions — anything above ₹45 acquired is losing money.

   2. Watch the payout cycle, not the order count

      Aggregators settle weekly, net of commission, TCS and any promotional cost, usually 7–10 days in arrears. A kitchen can look busy and still run out of cash because provisions are paid daily and revenue arrives weekly. Keep one month of provisions as float and reconcile every payout against the order list — deductions are common and are not always right.

6. Week 6

   1. Add the third brand, or the second shift

      By now you know which of your two brands earns. The cheapest growth is a third brand on the same prep line, or extending into late-night when the kitchen is already staffed. Both add revenue without adding rent, which is the only reason this business model works at all.

   2. Close the month and pay the crew

      Log every rupee in and out, reconcile both aggregator statements, then split on the percentages in the signed agreement. The Head Cook carries 34% because they carry the hours and the consistency risk. Pay on a fixed date, including the months the number disappoints — that is when the discipline actually matters.

Questions people ask

How much does it cost to start a cloud kitchen in Hyderabad?

Around ₹2,35,000 for a four-person crew in a shared kitchen bay: roughly ₹90,000 for deposit and first month rent, ₹78,000 for commercial equipment, ₹22,000 for menu photography, ₹40,000 of opening stock and packaging, and ₹5,000 for FSSAI and GST registration. Buying second-hand equipment from a closed kitchen can cut the total by ₹25,000–30,000.

Do I need an FSSAI licence for a cloud kitchen?

Yes, and specifically a State Licence rather than basic registration, because a cloud kitchen crosses the ₹12 lakh turnover threshold quickly. Swiggy and Zomato will not activate your listing without the number. Apply through foscos.fssai.gov.in with your kitchen lease, layout plan, water test report and ID proofs; it takes about two to three weeks.

How much commission do Swiggy and Zomato take?

Typically 18–25% of order value, plus payment gateway charges and any promotional spend you opt into. Settlement is weekly and roughly 7–10 days in arrears. Price every dish against the post-commission number, not the menu price — a ₹280 dish with ₹158 of ingredients and packaging leaves about ₹55 once commission comes off.

How many orders a month does a cloud kitchen need?

Around 380–420 orders covers rent, provisions, packaging and utilities. A four-person crew earns properly at roughly 900 orders a month, which is about ₹3,40,000 in revenue and ₹21,000 each. Running two or three brands off one prep line is the usual way to reach that volume without adding rent.

Is a cloud kitchen better than a restaurant?

It is cheaper to start and far cheaper to be wrong in. There is no dining room, no front-of-house staff and no high-street rent, so the build is around ₹2.35 lakh rather than tens of lakhs. The trade-off is that you own no customer relationship: the aggregator does, it takes a fifth of every order, and it can change your ranking at will.