Delivery apps: commissions and traffic

Start here: the headline numbers are not comparable

Every delivery app leads with a percentage. None of them measures the same thing.

DoorDash's lowest plan is 15%, and DoorDash says that number covers everything, including card processing. Grubhub's lowest plan is 5%, but that 5% is a marketing commission, delivery is a separate fee starting at 10%, and Grubhub's own footnote says the pricing "does not include payment processing fees." Uber Eats' entry plan is 20% for marketplace delivery, with pickup priced separately and a lower rate in some regulated markets.

If you compare the headline numbers, you will reach the wrong conclusion. Compare the total cost of a delivered order, including delivery, marketing, and card processing.

DoorDash Marketplace

DoorDash also publishes: "Monthly fee $0," "Signup fee $0," "Contract None. Cancel anytime," and this, which is the important part: "You pay a percentage of each order's subtotal, that's it. No activation fee, no subscription fee, no payment processing fee." DoorDash says the commission "covers your store being listed and marketed on DoorDash, Dasher logistics, customer support, and credit card processing."

Sources: https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/pricing and https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/products/marketplace

Uber Eats

Details that matter and are easy to miss:

• The pickup rate has a price-parity string attached. Uber's footnote: "A 7% Pickup Fee is conditioned on submission of proof that pricing for in-app pickup is the same as in-store. Without validated in-store pricing your Pickup Fee will be 10%."
• On the Plus plan, participating in Uber One costs "an additional 5% for Uber One orders." On Premium it is included. Lite merchants are not eligible for Uber One at all.
• Self-delivery merchants who use Uber's couriers for farther deliveries pay a 25% fee for those orders.
• Uber Direct (delivering orders from your own site) "Starts at $7.99 per delivery."
• Web Shop (your own ordering site) is "a 2.5% order processing fee + $0.29 per order."
• Lite stays at 15% in several regulated markets, including New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and New Jersey.

Source: https://merchants.ubereats.com/us/en/pricing/

These rates went up recently. Restaurant Dive reported on March 10, 2026 that Uber Eats raised the Lite marketplace fee from 15% to 20% and the pickup fee from 6% to 7%. Uber's statement to the outlet: "Uber Eats' Marketplace Fees have remained stable over many years despite the pandemic and increases in costs to operate our marketplace." Source: https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/uber-eats-increases-marketplace-fees/814294/

Grubhub

Then, separately:

• Grubhub Delivery: "Delivery fees start at 10%."
• Self Delivery: "Pay zero delivery fees" and use your own drivers.
• Supplemental Delivery: "delivery fee starting at 10%."
• Footnote 5, verbatim: "Does not include payment processing fees. Depending on your jurisdiction, pricing may be subject to certain regulatory requirements restricting the fees Grubhub may charge."

Source: https://get.grubhub.com/grubhub-pricing-and-fees/

Grubhub does not publish its processing fee on the pricing page. The only Grubhub-owned page that names it is an older Grubhub blog post that lists "the Grubhub standard processing fee (3.05%, plus 30 cents per prepaid transaction)." That same post lists plan tiers that no longer match the live pricing page, so treat the 3.05% as indicative and get your actual number in writing. Source: https://get.grubhub.com/blog/grubhub-prices-guide/ (outdated in other respects)

Do the stacking. A Grubhub All-access order delivered by Grubhub's drivers is 20% marketing, plus 10% or more delivery, plus card processing. That is a very different number from the 5% at the top of the page. This is not a criticism of Grubhub in particular; it is how the page is structured, and reading the footnotes is the whole job.

The documented practices worth knowing about

Everything below comes from a government enforcement action, a court filing, a statute, or an on-the-record company statement. Court filings contain allegations, not findings. Where a company disputes them, we say so.

Grubhub listed restaurants that were not its customers

In December 2024, the FTC and the Illinois Attorney General took action against Grubhub. The settlement "includes a monetary judgment of $140 million against Grubhub, which is partially suspended based on the company's inability to pay the full amount. Grubhub will be required to pay $25 million." Reporting that mentions only the $25 million is incomplete.

From the FTC's announcement and complaint (FTC and Illinois v. Grubhub Inc., No. 1:24-cv-12923, N.D. Ill.):

• "Since at least 2019, Grubhub has added unaffiliated restaurants to its platform without their permission."
• Complaint ¶116: "Grubhub's Unaffiliated Restaurants grew to more than 325,000 at its peak, and accounted for between 20% and 53% of Grubhub's total restaurant listings from 2019 to 2022."
• Complaint ¶120: "Grubhub's Unaffiliated Restaurant listings typically show up as advertisements at the top of the Google search page, above the restaurant's own listing. As a result, diners searching for the restaurant are first directed to a link to order delivery through Grubhub, not through the restaurant itself."
• Per the FTC, unaffiliated restaurants "were bombarded with orders directly from Grubhub drivers, including for food the restaurants did not serve," and drivers paid with "Grubhub credit cards that were sometimes declined for insufficient funds. This left restaurants unpaid for food they had already prepared."
• "When restaurants contacted Grubhub demanding to be removed from the platform, the company would try to sell them paid partnerships instead, and often only removed restaurants after they threatened legal action."

The stipulated order permanently enjoins Grubhub from "Advertising, marketing, offering for sale or selling on the Grubhub Platform ... any good or service from any Unaffiliated Vendor that is a restaurant."

Sources: press release https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/12/ftc-illinois-attorney-general-take-action-against-grubhub-harming-diners-workers-small-businesses · case page and filings https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/202-3157-grubhub-inc-ftc-illinois-v · complaint https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2024-12-17-GrubhubComplaint.pdf · stipulated order https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/013_2024-12-31_grubhub_stipulated_order.pdf

A note on precision: the FTC press release says unaffiliated restaurants were "more than half of all of the available restaurants on Grubhub." The complaint gives the tighter range of 20% to 53% across 2019 to 2022. We use the complaint's number.

Grubhub's response. "While we categorically deny the allegations made by the FTC, many of which are wrong, misleading or no longer applicable to our business, we believe settling this matter is in the best interest of Grubhub and allows us to move forward." Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/17/grubhub-ftc-settlement-harmful-practices-diners-workers.html

Where the money went. In August 2026 the FTC distributed 640,038 payments totaling more than $23.8 million from that settlement. The recipients were drivers and diners, not restaurants. Source: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/08/ftc-sends-more-238-million-drivers-diners-harmed-grubhubs-deceptive-advertising-claims-other

Restaurants had a separate case. Lynn Scott, LLC, et al. v. Grubhub Inc., No. 1:20-cv-06334 (N.D. Ill.), a class action over listings using restaurants' names and logos without permission, settled for $7,154,586, with final approval on April 15, 2026. It covered listings across Grubhub, Eat24, Seamless, Tapingo, LevelUp, OrderUp, MenuPages, AllMenus, and BiteGrabber. Grubhub admitted no liability. Source: https://www.classaction.org/news/7.15m+-grubhub-settlement-ends-lawsuit-over-alleged-use-of-names-logos-of-unaffiliated-restaurants

The microsites and lookalike domains

In June 2019, the nonprofit newsroom then called the New Food Economy, now The Counter, reported that "GrubHub has registered more than 23,000 web domains. Its subsidiary, Seamless, has registered thousands," and that "It appears GrubHub has set up several generic, templated pages that look like real restaurant websites but in fact link only to GrubHub." Source: https://thecounter.org/grubhub-domain-purchases-thousands-shadow-sites/

Grubhub's response, verbatim: "Grubhub has never cybersquatted ... As a service to our restaurants, we have created microsites for them as another source of orders and to increase their online brand presence. Additionally, we have registered domains on their behalf, consistent with our restaurant contracts. We no longer provide that service and it has always been our practice to transfer the domain to the restaurant as soon as they request it."

The City of Chicago's 2021 complaint against Grubhub (No. 2021CH04327, Cook County) alleged the sites were still live years later: 166 impostor sites for Chicago restaurants operational as of May 2021, 125 on Grubhub and 41 on Eat24, with a table of examples such as Hong Huah's real site honghuahtogo.com against a Grubhub-operated honghuah.com. The complaint also alleged Grubhub "uses SEO techniques, including by manipulating the 'meta tags' it uses on restaurant landing pages, to create links that elevate its Platforms' pages in search results," "sometimes elevating the Platforms' presence over that of the restaurant itself." Source: https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/mayor/Press%20Room/Press%20Releases/2021/August/GrubhubComplaint(file-stamped).pdf (allegations)

Where this leaves you: the timeline is contested. Grubhub says the practice ended; Chicago alleged sites were still operational in 2021. If you have ever signed a Grubhub agreement, ask in writing whether any domain was registered on your behalf, and request transfer of it.

Commissions on phone calls

In 2018 and 2019, restaurants sued Grubhub over commissions charged on calls routed through Grubhub-assigned phone numbers. In Tiffin EPS, LLC v. Grubhub Inc., No. 2:18-cv-05630 (E.D. Pa.), the plaintiffs alleged Grubhub "charges commissions for calls that exceed 45 seconds, regardless of whether a customer places a food order," and "does not verify whether the calls actually result in food orders and relies solely on the length of the phone call." They sought to represent roughly 80,000 restaurants. Grubhub moved to compel arbitration and said it "did not act deceptively nor breach its contracts." Source: https://www.inquirer.com/business/grubhub-class-action-lawsuit-commission-tiffin-philadelphia-20190312.html

Outcome: the dispute went to arbitration and an arbitrator issued an award on July 22, 2021. Public reporting on that award is thin and partly contradictory, and we could not verify it well enough to say who prevailed. What we can say with confidence: there is no public record of Grubhub being found liable in that case, and no restaurant class recovery came out of it. Do not repeat claims that Grubhub "settled" it. Arbitration record: https://jusmundi.com/en/document/decision/en-tiffin-eps-llc-v-grubhub-holdings-inc-award-of-arbitrator-thursday-22nd-july-2021 · docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14614685/tiffin-eps-llc-v-grubhub-inc/

The number that is solid. At a New York City Council hearing in 2019, Grubhub executives disclosed that the company earned approximately $30 million in phone commissions during 2018. The Council demanded a third-party audit, and after pressure from the Council and Senator Chuck Schumer, Grubhub extended its refund window for disputed phone charges from 60 days to 120 days in August 2019. Source: https://thecounter.org/new-york-city-council-nyc-grubhub-refunds-restaurant-owners/

Practical takeaway: if your agreement includes a platform-assigned phone number, ask how call-based commissions are calculated, what the dispute window is, and how to pull a call-level report.

Menu prices on apps really are higher, and it is mostly you setting them

This is the most misreported topic in the category, so be precise about which number you are quoting.

Menu markup alone. The most-cited measurement is from sell-side research firm Gordon Haskett, which compared three to five menu items at each of 25 restaurant brands, in restaurant versus on third-party apps. As of March 2023, the average premium was 19%, up from 10% in July 2020. By segment: quick service 26%, fast casual 22%, casual dining 11%. Chipotle and Chick-fil-A were at 30%, Wendy's 29%, McDonald's and Portillo's 27%. Twenty-three of the 25 concepts had a premium. Source (secondhand, original note is paywalled): https://foodondemand.com/04192023/study-shows-rising-delivery-price-premiums/

Caveats worth stating out loud: small item sample per brand, national chains only, no independents, and nobody outside the firm has seen the underlying note. We could not find a single peer-reviewed academic study measuring delivery-app menu markups against dine-in prices. That is a real gap in the evidence, and anyone quoting a precise figure with academic confidence is overstating it.

Total cost including fees. These numbers are much bigger and measure something different. In its April 2026 rulemaking notice, the FTC writes: "One study found that consumers ordering food from an online delivery platform paid nearly 80% more on average than they would pay picking up the same order directly from a restaurant, and others have reported total costs ranging from 25% to over 90% higher, depending on the platform." Source: FTC, Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees in Online Food Delivery Services, ANPRM, 91 FR 20381, April 16, 2026, Project No. P267101, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/16/2026-07473/rule-on-unfair-or-deceptive-fees-in-online-food-delivery-services

Consumer Reports ordered the same meal in seven cities across four apps in 2020 and found the apps added roughly 47% to 52% on top of food and taxes. The report itself notes: "This research does not claim to be representative." Source: https://innovation.consumerreports.org/Food-delivery_-Report.pdf

The best-quality number, because it is not a survey. New York City requires delivery platforms to report their fees to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. For Q4 2024: "Delivery apps charged merchants an average of $5.70 in fees per delivery, an 11% increase from the same quarter a year prior. This represented 19.6% of the average order subtotal in the quarter, compared to 18.5% in the same quarter a year prior." Consumers, separately, paid an average of $7.55 in fees per delivery. Source: https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/workers/Restaurant-Delivery-App-Data-Q4-2024.pdf

The platforms concede the markup exists. DoorDash's own annual report to the SEC states: "Further, some items on our platform are listed at higher prices relative to their in-store prices. This practice can negatively affect consumer perception of our platform and could result in a decline in consumers or order volume." Source: DoorDash Form 10-K FY2025, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1792789/000179278926000013/dash-20251231.htm

DoorDash has publicly said it "does not require restaurants to match in-store prices on delivery orders," that "marked-up menu prices are one of the top customer complaints DoorDash receives," and that menu markups "must be no higher than 10% to qualify for Most Loved." It also published internal analysis of more than 4,500 restaurants claiming markups can produce "up to 37% fewer sales and up to 78% lower reorder rates." That is company-sourced, unaudited, and framed in "up to" language, but it is DoorDash acknowledging the practice is widespread and that it costs the restaurant volume. Sources: https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/menu-pricing · https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/strategic-menu-pricing-on-doordash · https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/learning-center/menu-pricing-insights

Uber Eats scores merchants on a published "Menu Markup" metric that "measures how closely your delivery menu prices on Uber Eats align with the prices customers see in-store." Source: https://help.uber.com/merchants-and-restaurants/article/how-is-the-menu-markup-metric-calculated

So: both major platforms measure your markup and reward you for keeping it low, while neither requires parity. Whether to mark up is your decision, and it is a real decision with a measurable cost on both sides.

Some cities cap what apps can charge

New York City capped third-party delivery charges in 2020 and made the caps permanent in 2021. The apps sued, and on June 4, 2025 they settled and agreed to dismiss with prejudice in a proposed settlement that "anticipates changes to the law." Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/04/doordash-grubhub-uber-eats-settle-with-new-york-city-over-fee-caps.html

Those changes are now law. NYC Local Law 79 of 2025 (Council Int. No. 762-B of 2024) was passed by the Council on May 1, 2025, returned unsigned by the Mayor on June 2, 2025, and takes effect 30 days after becoming law. From the statute:

• Delivery fee: unlawful above 15% of the purchase price of each online order.
• Basic service fee: unlawful above 5%.
• Transaction fee: unlawful above 3%, unless the platform charges exactly what it was charged and can prove it to the city and the restaurant on request.
• New "enhanced service fee": a platform that charges a basic service fee "may charge an enhanced service fee. Such an enhanced service fee may total no more than 20% of the purchase price of each online order."

Stacked, that is a materially higher ceiling than the old 15-plus-5 structure. If you operate in New York City, read your current rate against these categories, because the labels on your statement now carry legal meaning.

The same law also bars platforms from requiring price parity as a condition of service: a platform "shall not require a food service establishment, as a condition of ... providing such establishment with any service" that carries these fees, "to charge the same price" on the app as in the restaurant. Parity can only be agreed in a separate written contract that is not a condition of service.

Source (primary statutory text): https://intro.nyc/local-laws/2025-79

Grubhub maintains a separate New York City pricing page. Read its footnote carefully, because it points straight at the next section: "Grubhub must be selected as preferred partner on search engine business listings to receive promotions credit." Source: https://get.grubhub.com/grubhub-pricing-and-fees-new-york/

The honest tradeoff

Delivery apps are not a scam. They are a paid acquisition channel with a high, visible cost per order and a real audience you do not otherwise reach.

The question is not "apps or no apps." It is channel mix: what share of your orders should carry a 15% to 30% acquisition cost, and what share should come through a channel you own?

Be skeptical of the data on both sides, including ours.

Platform-funded research. DoorDash's marketplace page claims "55%+ of orders come from browsing, not search," "15%+ of first-time customers reorder within a month," and "DashPass customers order 2x more per month." Every one of those is footnoted to "Internal DoorDash data." A DoorDash-commissioned Technomic study found "75% of operators agree DoorDash enables them to reach new customers." Buried in the same report: "over one-third (34%) of consumers indicate that if third-party delivery were not available, they would have prepared a meal or snack at home instead," which is another way of saying about two-thirds of those orders would have happened somewhere anyway. In a DoorDash-commissioned Oxford Economics survey of 736 merchants, 58% said revenue would have declined without DoorDash, 35% said it would have been the same, and 7% said it would have been higher. Restaurant Business noted the study "did not reveal what effect the third-party service has had on operators' profits." Sources: https://get.doordash.com/en-us/products/marketplace · https://assets.ctfassets.net/trvmqu12jq2l/cNjxZm82wUqY3CY6jtDuH/cff05dae388b2f11ff50267b289ca2c2/2019-Economic-Impact-Report.pdf · https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/technology/over-half-restaurants-use-doordash-report-revenue-customer-growth

Independent research, which is less flattering and more useful.

• A peer-reviewed study in Management Science found that "restaurants overall benefit from on-demand delivery platforms," but that "the overall positive effect on fast-food chains is four times as large as that on independent restaurants," and that for takeout, "delivery platforms substitute independent restaurants' but complement chain restaurants' own takeout sales." If you are an independent, this is the most relevant finding in the literature: the app tends to eat your existing takeout rather than add to it. Source: Li and Wang, Management Science 71(7):5788–5804 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.01010
• A peer-reviewed study in the Strategic Management Journal covering US restaurants from 2012 to 2018 found that "delivery platform emergence increases exit and concentration and reduces business dynamism." Source: Raj and Eggers, Strategic Management Journal (2025), https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.70024 · plain-language summary: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/are-doordash-and-other-delivery-apps-hurting-restaurants/
• A Stanford economics honors thesis using Visa transaction data from 2014 to 2017 estimated that "30-50 cents of every dollar spent on online food delivery services are incremental, while the rest is drawn away from brick-and-mortar sales," and that the result is "an increase in restaurants' revenues but a decrease in profitability." It also found incrementality declines over time as a market matures. This is a well-executed analysis but it is an undergraduate thesis and is not peer reviewed, so weight it accordingly. Source: Collison, Stanford Department of Economics, 2020, https://web.stanford.edu/~leinav/teaching/Collison.pdf

Taken together, the honest summary is: apps add some genuinely new demand, less than half of it by the best available estimate, they help chains considerably more than independents, and revenue growth and profit growth are not the same thing. Measure your own totals, not the platform's reported orders.

Your Google "Order Online" button: check it today

This is the highest-leverage item in this article and it takes five minutes.

Google's own documentation says: "Third-party providers who state they have authorized relationships with your business are automatically listed on your profile." And on a related page: "Links to certain services can automatically appear on your Business Profile on Google Search and Maps. These links are provided and updated by third-party partners or through automated data from Google."

Read that again. A provider asserting a relationship gets listed automatically. You did not have to opt in.

Sources: https://support.google.com/business/answer/10842217 and https://support.google.com/business/answer/6218037 (Google does not date these pages; retrieved 2026-08-22)

How to check and fix it

Sign in as the profile owner and go to Food ordering. Per Google's instructions:

Add your own direct ordering link 1. Go to your Business Profile 2. Select Food ordering 3. At the bottom, select Add a link 4. Save your changes

Make your link the default 1. Go to your Business Profile 2. Select Food ordering 3. Select your provider or link from the list 4. Select Set as preferred 5. Turn Preferred for pickup or Preferred for delivery on or off 6. Select Save

Remove a third-party provider you did not authorize 1. Go to your Business Profile 2. Select Food ordering 3. Select the provider or link 4. Select Remove link

Google states: "Once a business makes a request, providers must remove third-party links from a profile within 5 business days. If a provider doesn't process your request, report a violation."

Turn ordering off entirely 1. Go to your Business Profile 2. Select Food ordering 3. Turn Accept orders on your profile off

Google notes: "If you turn off 'Accept orders on your profile,' any third-party order options and links you add are hidden from your Business Profile."

Three traps in the fine print

1. One link per domain. Google's policy page: "You can only add one link per domain and the domain you chose is already in use. It may have been provided by your business or by a third-party provider." If a provider claimed your domain first, you have to remove theirs before you can add yours.
2. No bulk fix. "Local business links are not available via the Business Profile API or spreadsheet upload." Multi-location operators have to do this location by location.
3. Your link has to be crawlable. Google verifies these links with a crawler identified as Google-BusinessLinkVerification, and its docs state these verification crawlers "don't follow robots.txt rules." If your firewall or bot filter blocks it, your link can fail verification.

Sources: https://support.google.com/business/answer/13769188 and https://support.google.com/business/answer/6218037. Note that Google's own pages disagree on the maximum number of links, one saying 20 per transaction type and the other saying 10 per category.

This changed recently, twice

• In February 2024 Google scaled back its end-to-end ordering. A Google spokesperson: "Over time, we've found that people generally prefer to complete their food orders on partner and merchant websites. So we're now transitioning Order with Google to focus on linking directly to partners." As of June 30, 2024 the button surfaces a list of third-party sites or the restaurant's own ordering page. Source: https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/technology/google-scale-back-its-restaurant-ordering-feature
• In August 2026 Google began rolling ordering back into Google Maps, integrated with Square and Toast online ordering. Source: https://www.nrn.com/restaurant-technology/google-brings-restaurant-ordering-to-google-maps (Disclosure: this site has a commercial partnership with Toast, one of the named integrations.)

Because this surface keeps moving, treat any how-to advice, including ours, as dated. Ours is current as of 2026-08-22.

Do aggregators really outrank your own site?

Partly. Be careful with this claim, because the good evidence is narrower than the common version of it.

• The strongest sourcing is the FTC's complaint, quoted above, alleging Grubhub's unaffiliated listings "typically show up as advertisements at the top of the Google search page, above the restaurant's own listing." That is an allegation in a federal complaint that Grubhub denies, in a case it settled.
• The best quantitative measurement is a study by local-SEO software firm BrightLocal, which ran 800 manual Google searches producing 8,000 results across 20 verticals and 20 US cities. It found business directories made up 31% of top-ten organic results overall, and that "72% of 'fast food restaurants' search results showed business directories, the highest proportion of all our industry searches." Yelp accounted for 28% of the directory results. Source: https://www.brightlocal.com/research/business-listings-visibility-study/ Two caveats: BrightLocal sells local-SEO software and has a commercial interest in this conclusion, and the study measures directories, mostly Yelp, not delivery marketplaces specifically.
• We could not find any independent, non-vendor SEO study measuring delivery aggregators outranking restaurants' own sites. If someone quotes you a number for that, ask for the source.

A newer version of the same problem is worth watching: Restaurant Business reported in July 2026 that AI-generated lookalike restaurant sites are proliferating and getting cited in Google's AI overviews, naming golden-corral.us as an example with no official connection to the chain, and describing "dozens, if not hundreds" of similar sites for major brands. A Denny's executive put it as "every brand effectively has unofficial digital shadows." Source: https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/technology/ai-fueling-boom-bogus-restaurant-websites

What "commission-free" actually costs

"Commission-free" is accurate as far as it goes. It means no percentage of the food. It does not mean free.

ChowNow

Plus, from the same page: "$119 – $499 setup fee · 2.95% + $0.29 per transaction · $99 annual Apple developer fee for Branded Mobile Apps · $250-$420 for printer · $7.98/order for Flex Delivery orders."

Source: https://get.chownow.com/pricing/

Owner.com

Owner describes Flat Rate as "Best for restaurants at $5k+/mo in online sales." On both plans, "guests pay a 5% order support fee that covers fulfillment and customer service." On the Flexible plan that means the guest pays 5% and the restaurant pays 5%.

Source: https://www.owner.com/pricing

The apps' own direct-ordering products

• DoorDash Online Ordering (Commerce Platform): Boost $99/mo and Pro $249/mo, "0% commission," with "Standard payment processing fee per order" and "No cancellation penalties, no surprise fees." DoorDash's learning center lists processing at 3.3% + $0.30 per order on Starter and 2.9% + $0.30 on Boost and Pro. Sources: https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/products/commerce-platform and https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/learning-center/delivery-commission
• Uber Eats Web Shop: "a 2.5% order processing fee + $0.29 per order." Uber Direct for delivering your own orders "Starts at $7.99 per delivery." Source: https://merchants.ubereats.com/us/en/pricing/
• Grubhub Direct: "all hosting, commission and delivery fees waived ... Only pay order processing fees on a per order basis." Note the gate: Direct is offered to existing Grubhub Marketplace customers, who are already paying 5% to 20% there. Source: https://get.grubhub.com/grubhub-direct/

Disclosure: this site has a commercial partnership with Toast, which sells competing online ordering software. Toast does not publish pricing for its Digital Storefront or online ordering modules, so we have left it out of the comparison rather than repeat a figure from a review site we cannot verify. Toast's published plan prices are $0/month for the Starter Kit and $69/month for Point of Sale. Source: https://pos.toasttab.com/pricing

The break-even math

None of these is free. The real comparison is a fixed monthly cost plus roughly 3% processing against 15% to 30% of every order, and it flips in your favor above a volume threshold.

Run it on your own numbers. ChowNow's Launch plan at $229 a month plus 2.95% costs about 5.8% all in on $8,000 of monthly online sales, and about 14.4% all in on $2,000. Owner.com effectively says the same thing when it points Flat Rate at restaurants doing $5,000 or more a month online. Subscription pricing rewards volume. That is the entire model, and if your online volume is small it is not automatically the cheaper option.

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Practical checklist for an owner

This week

1. Search your restaurant's name on Google, on a phone, logged out. Note where the "Order online" button points and what appears above your own website.
2. Sign in to your Google Business Profile, open Food ordering, and list every provider shown. Remove any you did not authorize. Set your own link as preferred for pickup and for delivery.
3. Confirm the website field on your Google profile points at your domain. Check whether a provider has already claimed your domain under the one-link-per-domain rule.
4. Search your restaurant name plus your city. If an app's page for you outranks your own site, that is a real cost on every order.

This month

5. Pull one month of statements from every delivery app you use. Add up all deductions: marketing commission, delivery fee, processing fee, ad spend, promotions you funded, and adjustments for refunded orders.
6. Divide that total by gross food sales on that platform. That is your real take rate. Compare it to the plan you think you are on. For reference, NYC regulator data put the merchant-side average at 19.6% of order subtotal in Q4 2024.
7. Confirm your plan tier on each app. DoorDash states you can switch plans anytime with no penalty.
8. Compare your app menu prices to your dine-in prices, item by item. Know what your markup is and why. Note that Uber's 7% pickup rate requires proof of in-store price parity, and that DoorDash ties "Most Loved" eligibility to a markup of 10% or less.

This quarter

9. Ask each app in writing for a complete list of every fee charged to your account, plus the contract term. Grubhub's processing fee in particular is not on its pricing page.
10. If you have ever signed with Grubhub, ask in writing whether any web domain was registered on your behalf, and request transfer.
11. If your agreement includes a platform-assigned phone number, ask how call-based commissions are calculated and what the dispute window is.
12. Price a direct ordering channel against your actual online volume, using the break-even math above and your real numbers, not the vendor's example.
13. Check whether your city or state caps delivery commissions, and whether your current rate complies. These caps are changing; New York City's took effect in 2025.
14. Write down a target channel mix. "No more than 25% of orders through third-party marketplaces by Q2" is a decision. A vague intention is not.

Never

15. Never assume the headline commission is the full cost. Two of the three big apps price significant costs outside the headline number.
16. Never let a platform be the only place a customer can find your menu, your hours, or your phone number.

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Sources

1. DoorDash merchant pricing. https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/pricing
2. DoorDash Marketplace. https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/products/marketplace
3. DoorDash Commerce Platform (online ordering) pricing. https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/products/commerce-platform
4. DoorDash learning center, delivery commission and processing fees. https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/learning-center/delivery-commission
5. DoorDash Form 10-K, FY2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1792789/000179278926000013/dash-20251231.htm
6. DoorDash, "Setting the Record Straight on Menu Pricing," June 30, 2023. https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/menu-pricing
7. DoorDash, "Strategic Menu Pricing on DoorDash," September 4, 2023. https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/strategic-menu-pricing-on-doordash
8. DoorDash merchant learning center, menu pricing insights. https://merchants.doordash.com/en-us/learning-center/menu-pricing-insights
9. Uber Eats merchant pricing. https://merchants.ubereats.com/us/en/pricing/
10. Uber, how the Menu Markup metric is calculated. https://help.uber.com/merchants-and-restaurants/article/how-is-the-menu-markup-metric-calculated
11. Restaurant Dive, Uber Eats increases marketplace fees, March 10, 2026. https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/uber-eats-increases-marketplace-fees/814294/
12. Grubhub pricing and fees. https://get.grubhub.com/grubhub-pricing-and-fees/
13. Grubhub New York City pricing. https://get.grubhub.com/grubhub-pricing-and-fees-new-york/
14. Grubhub Direct. https://get.grubhub.com/grubhub-direct/
15. Grubhub prices guide blog post (outdated; sole Grubhub-owned source for its processing fee). https://get.grubhub.com/blog/grubhub-prices-guide/
16. FTC and Illinois AG action against Grubhub, December 17, 2024. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/12/ftc-illinois-attorney-general-take-action-against-grubhub-harming-diners-workers-small-businesses
17. FTC case page and filings, FTC and Illinois v. Grubhub Inc. https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/202-3157-grubhub-inc-ftc-illinois-v
18. FTC complaint (PDF). https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2024-12-17-GrubhubComplaint.pdf
19. FTC stipulated order (PDF). https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/013_2024-12-31_grubhub_stipulated_order.pdf
20. FTC, Grubhub refunds distributed, August 2026. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/08/ftc-sends-more-238-million-drivers-diners-harmed-grubhubs-deceptive-advertising-claims-other
21. CNBC, Grubhub FTC settlement including Grubhub's denial, December 17, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/17/grubhub-ftc-settlement-harmful-practices-diners-workers.html
22. ClassAction.org, $7.15M Grubhub listings settlement. https://www.classaction.org/news/7.15m+-grubhub-settlement-ends-lawsuit-over-alleged-use-of-names-logos-of-unaffiliated-restaurants
23. The Counter, Grubhub domain purchases and shadow sites, June 28, 2019. https://thecounter.org/grubhub-domain-purchases-thousands-shadow-sites/
24. City of Chicago v. Grubhub complaint (PDF, allegations). https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/mayor/Press%20Room/Press%20Releases/2021/August/GrubhubComplaint(file-stamped).pdf
25. Philadelphia Inquirer, Grubhub phone-order class action, March 12, 2019. https://www.inquirer.com/business/grubhub-class-action-lawsuit-commission-tiffin-philadelphia-20190312.html
26. Tiffin EPS v. Grubhub, arbitration award record. https://jusmundi.com/en/document/decision/en-tiffin-eps-llc-v-grubhub-holdings-inc-award-of-arbitrator-thursday-22nd-july-2021
27. The Counter, NYC Council and Grubhub phone commissions, October 31, 2019. https://thecounter.org/new-york-city-council-nyc-grubhub-refunds-restaurant-owners/
28. Food On Demand, Gordon Haskett delivery price premium study, April 19, 2023. https://foodondemand.com/04192023/study-shows-rising-delivery-price-premiums/
29. FTC, Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees in Online Food Delivery Services, ANPRM, 91 FR 20381, April 16, 2026. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/16/2026-07473/rule-on-unfair-or-deceptive-fees-in-online-food-delivery-services
30. Consumer Reports Digital Lab, food delivery fee study (PDF), September 2020. https://innovation.consumerreports.org/Food-delivery_-Report.pdf
31. NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, Restaurant Delivery App Data, Q4 2024 (PDF). https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/workers/Restaurant-Delivery-App-Data-Q4-2024.pdf
32. NYC Local Law 79 of 2025 (Int. 762-B of 2024), full statutory text. https://intro.nyc/local-laws/2025-79
33. CNBC, delivery apps settle with New York City over fee caps, June 4, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/04/doordash-grubhub-uber-eats-settle-with-new-york-city-over-fee-caps.html
34. Google Business Profile Help, manage online ordering options. https://support.google.com/business/answer/10842217
35. Google Business Profile Help, manage your local business links. https://support.google.com/business/answer/6218037
36. Google Business Profile Help, business links policies and guidelines. https://support.google.com/business/answer/13769188
37. Restaurant Business, Google scales back its restaurant ordering feature, February 1, 2024. https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/technology/google-scale-back-its-restaurant-ordering-feature
38. Nation's Restaurant News, Google brings restaurant ordering to Google Maps, August 7, 2026. https://www.nrn.com/restaurant-technology/google-brings-restaurant-ordering-to-google-maps
39. BrightLocal, Business Listings Visibility Study, October 15, 2024 (vendor research). https://www.brightlocal.com/research/business-listings-visibility-study/
40. Restaurant Business, AI fueling boom in bogus restaurant websites, July 29, 2026. https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/technology/ai-fueling-boom-bogus-restaurant-websites
41. Li and Wang, "On-Demand Delivery Platforms and Restaurant Sales," Management Science 71(7), 2025 (peer reviewed). https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.01010
42. Raj and Eggers, "When delivery comes to town," Strategic Management Journal, 2025 (peer reviewed). https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.70024
43. Knowledge@Wharton summary of Raj and Eggers. https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/are-doordash-and-other-delivery-apps-hurting-restaurants/
44. Collison, "The Impact of Online Food Delivery Services on Restaurant Sales," Stanford Department of Economics, 2020 (undergraduate honors thesis, not peer reviewed). https://web.stanford.edu/~leinav/teaching/Collison.pdf
45. Technomic for DoorDash, economic impact report (platform funded). https://assets.ctfassets.net/trvmqu12jq2l/cNjxZm82wUqY3CY6jtDuH/cff05dae388b2f11ff50267b289ca2c2/2019-Economic-Impact-Report.pdf
46. Restaurant Business on the DoorDash and Oxford Economics merchant survey. https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/technology/over-half-restaurants-use-doordash-report-revenue-customer-growth
47. ChowNow pricing. https://get.chownow.com/pricing/
48. Owner.com pricing. https://www.owner.com/pricing
49. Toast pricing. https://pos.toasttab.com/pricing

Editorial note. All rates, plan structures, and help-page instructions were verified against the linked source on 2026-08-22 and change frequently. Court filings are allegations, not findings. Where a company disputes an allegation we have included its response. Where we could not verify a figure, we have said so rather than repeat it.