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Rank & Get FoundGuide6 min read

How the GrabFood Algorithm Works: What Grab Confirms, and What It Rewards

What Grab actually says about how restaurants are ranked on GrabFood, what it rewards with visibility, and which popular claims have no source.

A search bar above restaurant cards, one card rising with an arrow: how GrabFood ranks restaurants in search

Grab does not publish the GrabFood ranking formula; what it has confirmed is that results are personalised on each user's history, that search matches dish names, that paid placements sit beside organic results, and that its quality programs award a badge that brings more visibility.

Grab does not publish its ranking formula. Most advice about "the Grab algorithm" fills that gap with guesses, repeated until they sound like facts. This guide does the opposite: it separates what Grab has said publicly from what is only claimed, then turns the confirmed part into actions you can take on your listing this week.

What Grab has confirmed about search and ranking

Results are personal. Grab ranks results using each user's own history. Two customers searching "chicken rice" in the same street do not see the same list. The practical consequence: a customer who has ordered from you before is more likely to find you again, so repeat customers are not only cheaper to serve, they are also easier to reach.

Search matches dishes, not only restaurant names. Grab's engineering team explained in 2022 that its revamped search recognises when a user is looking for a dish, and prioritises matches on the dish name over the restaurant name. Grab also expands queries (a search for a brand can surface similar food) and uses semantic search, so wording close to what customers type still helps. What this means for you: name each dish the way a hungry customer would type it.

Paid placements sit next to organic results. The same 2022 post says ads are ranked alongside organic results. Grab sells visibility as separate products: rank boosters, search ads and banners, and Spotlight placements in reserved spaces. If a competitor appears above you every time, they may simply be paying for it.

Grab-led campaigns come with placement. Joining a campaign run by Grab, such as HOTDEALS in Malaysia or the deals sections in the Philippines, puts participating stores in dedicated deal spaces in the app. This is a feature of those campaigns, not of discounts in general.

Grab keeps the final say. Grab's Singapore merchant terms give it full discretion over how stores are shelved in the app, taking into account performance and special offers. That clause reserves the right; it does not describe a formula.

Ratings are on the front page of your store. Your rating and the number of ratings appear on your store thumbnail, before anyone opens your menu. Grab reported in 2023 that sessions where customers read reviews converted 7 percentage points higher.

What Grab rewards with visibility: the quality programs

Grab is most explicit about one route to visibility: its merchant quality programs. Meet the criteria and you earn a badge, and Grab states that the badge brings greater visibility.

In the Philippines, the published Quality Hero criteria were:

  • Store Completion Score of at least 70%, at least 10 ratings and a rating of at least 4.0 to be eligible
  • At least 20 orders in the month
  • Avoidable cancellations below 1%
  • Missing and incorrect orders below 1%
  • Store offline rate of 5% or less
  • Order Delay Rate below the market target

The higher tier, 5-Star Eats (Philippines, 2026), asks for a rating of 4.5 or more, at least 100 ratings and a Store Completion Score of at least 85% over 90 days, and grants a badge and increased visibility.

Two cautions. First, these programs changed in April 2026 into a tiered ladder, and targets differ by market: the Order Delay Rate target was below 27% in a Philippine guide and below 1% in a Singapore guide. Second, you do not need anyone's summary: the GrabMerchant app shows your own progress and your own targets on its Home section. Read them there.

This is where the familiar advice about accepting orders fast, avoiding cancellations and setting accurate prep times belongs. Grab has not said these are direct inputs to search ranking. It has said they decide whether you earn the badges that come with visibility.

Accepting orders fast, avoiding cancellations and accurate prep times lead to a quality badge, which brings more visibility on GrabFood
What Grab confirms: these decide the quality badge, and the badge brings visibility; Grab has not said they feed search ranking directly

What is often claimed but not confirmed

"Photos and a complete menu raise your ranking." No Grab source says so. Photos matter for conversion instead: a 2025 study of more than 500,000 food delivery orders found that better dish images raised sales, and DoorDash reports that merchants with photos on at least half their menu sell more. Grab Malaysia states that items with descriptions sell better. Treat photos and descriptions as conversion work, not ranking work.

"Running a promotion lifts your ranking, and the lift stays after it ends." No evidence was found for either part. Grab-led campaigns do give placement in deal sections while they run. Whether a promotion pays for itself is a separate question, covered in our campaign checklist: keep, adjust or stop.

"Grab hides stores on a smaller commission rate." In 2020, a Malaysian merchant said support had linked visibility to commission rate. Grab publicly denied turning off stores based on commission.

"Popularity, delivery time and driver availability decide the order of results." This was reported in 2021, from a briefing by Grab's engineering lead for deliveries, alongside browsing and order history. It is plausible and still useful context, but it is secondhand and five years old, so treat it as background rather than a current rule.

What to do this week

  1. Name dishes the way customers search. Plain dish name first, then what makes yours different. "Hainanese Chicken Rice, Roasted" beats a house nickname.
  2. Write a short description for every item. Ingredients, portion and spice level. It costs nothing and Grab itself says described items sell better.
  3. Put a clear photo on every best seller. Start with the dishes that already sell; that is where conversion matters most.
  4. Open the quality program screen in your app and note which metric is furthest from its target. Fix that one first.
  5. Keep the store online during your listed hours. Offline time counts against you in the quality programs, and pausing is capped in some markets.
  6. Read every review weekly and reply where your market allows it. Look for repeated complaints, not single bad days.
  7. Earn the second order. Because results are personalised, a returning customer is your most reliable visibility.
  8. Treat paid visibility as paid. Rank boosters and search ads can work, but judge them on orders and return, never on clicks.
A Kontimo screen reading a restaurant's cancelled orders and what to change first
In Kontimo's demo account, with invented figures: the cancellations that weigh on the quality badge, read for the owner

Questions people ask

Can I pay to rank higher on GrabFood?

Yes. Grab sells rank boosters, search ads, banners and campaign placements. They are separate from organic ranking and should be judged like any spend: on the orders they bring.

Does a promotion improve my ranking?

Joining a Grab-led campaign gives placement in deal sections while it runs. No source shows that a self-created discount improves organic ranking, or that any effect lasts after it ends.

Why do I appear higher on my phone than on my customer's?

Results are personalised on each user's history. Your own searches and orders shape what you see.

Does my rating affect how many orders I get?

Yes, at least through conversion: the rating is shown on your thumbnail, and Grab reports that customers who read reviews convert more. It is also a criterion for the quality badges that bring visibility.

Keep reading: Low Orders on Grab · Top 10 GrabFood Mistakes · Campaign checklist: keep, adjust or stop

Sources

17 sources, each claim traceable to one

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