# SOUS x Yoco — Partnership Proposal (South Africa, Q2 2026)

> Confidential partnership proposal · April 2026 · Prepared for Yoco leadership.
> Canonical page: https://yocopartnerproposal.poweredbysous.com
> This file is a plain-text/markdown mirror of that page for AI assistants and crawlers.

## Headline

Powering Yoco merchants to sell more. SOUS turns Yoco's F&B base into discoverable, orderable, returnable brands — a distribution partnership that adds visibility, direct orders, and better margin without Yoco building any of it.

- 700+ Yoco merchants have already signed up via an in-app banner (no pilot needed — straight to full commercial discussions).
- Live in NL, DE, BE. POS-partner proven. Built for F&B.
- Saves merchants ~20% vs aggregator fees.

### Why this matters to Yoco
- More guests: more foot traffic and online orders into Yoco merchant stores.
- More revenue: higher merchant top-line with lower fees vs aggregators (~20% savings).
- R10M+ Yoco annual revenue at just 1,500 merchants on Track A.
- R91M+ Yoco annual earnings potential at scale (10,000 merchants).

## The thesis

How does Yoco become the full-stack F&B platform in South Africa without building everything itself? Yoco owns the merchant, in-store ops and payments. SOUS owns the online entry point above the till: search, click, direct order.

- More visibility: 45+ platforms, AI-native discovery, review automation.
- More orders: direct ordering, merchant-branded, ~20% saved vs aggregators.
- Yoco-led: distributed by Yoco's salesforce, co-branded, shared upside.

### The modern restaurant stack in SA
| Layer | Owner |
| --- | --- |
| Online visibility | Yoco, powered by SOUS |
| In-store payments + POS | Yoco owned |
| Online ordering | Yoco, powered by SOUS |
| Loyalty & retention | Yoco owned |

In-store payments remain the core of transactions for most African businesses, but online ordering now drives 90%+ of online transaction value for F&B in SA.

## What SOUS provides

### SOUS Spotlight — ~R899/month retail to merchant
Be discovered everywhere: visibility plus AI review automation across 45+ platforms.
- Live health score across Google, Apple, ChatGPT, Siri, Tripadvisor.
- Syncs restaurant data to 45+ platforms.
- AI review manager learns tone of voice and auto-replies.
- 10-minute onboarding. ROI: break-even at 2–4 new covers per month.
- Status: live in product.

### SOUS Commerce — 1% per transaction
Turn intent into revenue: white-label direct ordering on the merchant's own brand.
- White-label ordering flow on the merchant's brand.
- SOUS Direct for delivery fulfilment.
- Menu scraping from existing platforms.
- Customer login: first-party data capture.
- Saves merchants ~20% vs aggregator fees.
- Direct checkout: every order on the merchant's own checkout — no aggregator margin lost, no customer redirected. Yoco keeps the payment, SOUS owns the storefront, the merchant owns the customer.

### SOUS Retention — roadmap Q4 2026
Every order, booking and review rolls into one customer profile with LTV, source and next-best message, built on first-party data Commerce captures from day one.

## Commercials — two ways to partner in SA

### Track A (recommended) — tiered wholesale + transaction fee share
Wholesale cost to Yoco falls from R600 to R180/month as the base grows; Yoco's share of the 1% SOUS Commerce fee grows from 15% to 30%. Merchants are always resold SOUS Spotlight at a flat R899/month.
- 4 marginal tiers from 0 to 10,000+ merchants.
- Year 2: R300,000/month minimum invoice (subscription + commerce combined) after 12 months. 3-year term.
- Wholesale denominated in ZAR with annual repricing against the prior 12-month average.
- Best for Yoco's actual scale ambitions.

Tier schedule (Yoco's wholesale cost per merchant; retail to merchant is R899/month):

| Tier | Active merchants | Wholesale / merchant / month | Yoco share of 1% Commerce fee | Yoco annual revenue at top of band |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Tier 1 | 0 – 1,000 | R600 | 15% | R5.4M at 1,000 merchants |
| Tier 2 | 1,001 – 5,000 | R450 | 20% | R37.1M at 5,000 merchants |
| Tier 3 | 5,001 – 10,000 | R300 | 25% | R91.1M at 10,000 merchants |
| Tier 4 | 10,000+ | R180 | 30% | R158.2M at 15,000 merchants |

Marginal pricing: each merchant is billed at the wholesale rate of the band that merchant falls into, based on position in the active base. Crossing a threshold prices new merchants lower without repricing merchants already live, so Yoco's blended cost per merchant falls steadily as the base grows.

### Track B — flat wholesale
- Yoco pays SOUS R799 per merchant per month.
- Yoco sells SOUS Spotlight to merchants at R899/month (R100 markup).
- SOUS retains the full Commerce fee (no share to Yoco).
- Best for a simple wholesale relationship.

## Year 1 economics

Modelled at 1,000 active merchants by end of Year 1, assuming R100,000 average monthly GTV per merchant, with R899/month flat retail to the merchant under both tracks.

| Scenario (1,000 merchants, Y1) | Yoco markup / merchant | Subscription fee (Y1) | Commerce fee (Y1) | Yoco Y1 total |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Track A · Tier 1 (0–1,000) | R600 wholesale → R899 retail | R3,588,000 | R1,800,000 | R5,388,000 |
| Track B · flat wholesale | R799 wholesale → R899 retail | R1,200,000 | — | R1,200,000 |

Track A delivers roughly 4.5× Yoco's Year 1 earnings at the same R899 retail price to the merchant, and unlocks transaction-fee participation Track B does not offer.

Revenue simulator (Track A, avg GMV held at R100,000/merchant/month) — at 1,000 merchants: blended wholesale R600/merchant (R600,000 total), subscription margin R299,000/month, commerce share R150,000/month, R449,000/month or R5,388,000/year. Each Yoco merchant on SOUS keeps roughly R20,000/month vs aggregator fees.

## Proven on the ground (live SOUS merchants in NL, DE, BE)
- POKE PERFECT — 3× revenue in 1 year: "Doubled sales, cut workload in half, expanded nationwide."
- NENI — +46% monthly revenue: "Scaled nationwide while keeping operations simple."
- SCHMIDT ZEEVIS — +39% direction clicks: "Winning the new era of AI search; +25% map impressions."

## Merchant simulation — "Stoep Pizza Co." (fictional template merchant)

Today: single-site Joburg pizza shop, ~R220k/month card volume. Google 4.2 with no owner replies in 8 months, wrong hours on Apple Maps, unclaimed TripAdvisor and Zomato, no direct ordering, ~R42k/month leaking to aggregators at 30%, 7h/week on listings and review admin.

With SOUS Spotlight (day 30): visibility score 34 → 73/100, AI replies to all 312 historical reviews then every new one within 90 minutes, listings auto-synced across 47 platforms, surfaced in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, weekly health-check email.

With SOUS Commerce (day 14): stoeppizza.shop live in 72 hours, Uber Direct delivery at 1% fee vs 30% on aggregators, WhatsApp ordering printed on every Yoco receipt, POS-integrated ledger.

90-day merchant view: from effectively invisible to ~R53k/month net new revenue, including ~R34k/month direct online orders.

## The ask
1. Greenlight the rollout — approve commercial terms and a launch plan across Cape Town and Johannesburg. 700+ merchants have already raised their hand, so we go straight to onboarding.
2. Assign a sponsor — one Yoco F&B sales lead as joint project sponsor, weekly ops and fortnightly review.
3. Onboard first merchants — first 10 merchants live in week 1, scaling weekly. SOUS handles onboarding end to end.

South Africa's F&B merchants deserve better than paying 30% to aggregators and hoping Google finds them. Yoco already has the trust, SOUS has the stack, and 700+ merchants are already waiting.

## Appendix A — SOUS ICP fit by merchant profile

| Merchant profile | Profile & pain | How SOUS maps |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Independent café / single-site QSR | Morning rush, busy lunch peak; no time to keep Google/Apple Maps synced; review admin eats evenings. | SOLID SELL — Spotlight auto-syncs listings across 45+ platforms; AI review engine replies in the merchant's voice; Commerce captures takeaway orders leaking to Uber Eats. |
| Multi-site QSR / takeaway group (2–100 sites) | Delivery and click-and-collect create duplicate admin; no cross-site visibility; aggregator commissions eat margin. | SOLID SELL — Commerce on the merchant's own brand with Uber Direct last mile at 1% vs 30%+; multi-site Spotlight dashboard. |
| Independent bar / single-site FSR | In-venue focused, weak online channel, cares about pre-visit discovery and footfall. | SOLID FIT — Spotlight drives pre-visit discovery and review score; Commerce secondary for takeaway or events. |
| Multi-site FSR group | Fragmented tools across sites; manual multi-site reviews and listings. | SOLID FIT — group-level Spotlight dashboard unifies health scores and review queues. |
| Food truck / market stall | Seasonal, margin-sensitive, no budget for enterprise tools. | STRETCH — not a launch priority; potential Spotlight-lite tier later. |

Rollout implication: bias the initial merchant mix toward independent cafés and small QSR groups where SOUS sells hardest, with bar/FSR profiles for full-service signal. Food trucks, market stalls and the most price-sensitive end of Yoco's base are out of scope for the initial rollout.