By Heidi Macomber · August 29, 2026

Delivery App Commissions: What DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub Actually Take

The math most owners only see on the deposit slip, worked out line by line.

The $10 burger that pays you $4

Picture your best-selling burger basket. In the restaurant, it sells for $10.00. Your food cost on it is $3.00, which is a 30% food cost. After ingredients, you have $7.00 left to pay the cook, the rent, and yourself.

Now that same burger gets ordered on a delivery app at a 30% commission. The app collects $10.00 from the customer and sends you $7.00. Subtract the same $3.00 of ingredients and you have $4.00 left.

Same burger. Same $10.00 price. Three fewer dollars toward your bills, on every single delivery order.

This article walks through exactly what each major app charges, where the money goes, and the one lever most owners never pull: the price on your delivery menu does not have to match the price on your counter.

What the apps charge right now

These numbers come from each company's own pricing pages for restaurants, checked August 29, 2026.

DoorDash has three plans, and the pickup rate is the same on all of them:

The 6% pickup rate has one condition: your pickup menu prices in the app must match your in-store prices. Delivery prices are a different story, and we will get there.

Uber Eats also runs three marketplace plans, plus a self-delivery option where your own staff drives:

The 7% pickup fee also requires your in-app pickup prices to match in-store prices. One detail worth knowing: on the Plus plan, orders from Uber One members cost you an extra 5%, so those orders run at 30%.

Grubhub prices its plans differently. It quotes a "marketing commission" and then charges delivery separately if you use their drivers:

So a Grubhub Plus restaurant using Grubhub's delivery fleet pays something like 25% all in, with the exact delivery rate set during signup. Grubhub also posts separate pricing for New York City restaurants, where local rules cap fees.

A plan with a low headline rate and a delivery add-on can end up costing the same as a plan with one bigger number. Always ask for the all-in rate.

The trap: commission comes off the top

Here is the part that quietly hurts. The commission is a percentage of the order subtotal, the full price of the food before any of your costs. It is not a percentage of your profit.

DoorDash says this plainly in its own merchant FAQ: you pay a percentage of each order's subtotal, and that one payment covers listing, delivery drivers, support, and card processing.

Run the burger again at a 30% rate:

1. Customer pays: $10.00
2. App keeps 30% of $10.00: $3.00
3. App sends you: $7.00
4. Ingredients cost you: $3.00
5. Left over: $4.00

In the restaurant, that same order leaves you $7.00 after ingredients. The delivery order leaves you $4.00. If your target is a 30% food cost with the rest covering labor and overhead, the delivery version of the order arrives already 30% lighter.

Delivery also adds small costs you would not have in the dining room: a sealed container, a bag, condiment cups, napkins. None of it is huge on its own. It all comes out of that $4.00.

The lever: your app menu is a separate menu

Most owners list the same prices everywhere. Here is the surprise: the apps expect delivery prices to be higher, and one of them says so on its own pricing page.

DoorDash's merchant FAQ addresses the 30% commission worry directly and notes that "you can set different prices for delivery orders if you want. Many restaurants do."

The pickup discount is where price matching is required. DoorDash's 6% and Uber Eats' 7% pickup rates are conditioned on app pickup prices matching in-store prices. Delivery prices can be set independently on these platforms. Check your own agreement, because terms can vary by plan and over time.

The 43% rule, step by step

Say you want a delivery order to leave you the same $7.00 after ingredients that the in-store order does. What price should the burger carry in the app?

Work backwards from what you need:

1. You need $7.00 after ingredients, plus the $3.00 for ingredients. So the app must pay out $10.00.
2. The app keeps 30% of whatever the customer pays. You keep 70%.
3. Ask: 70% of what equals $10.00?
4. $10.00 divided by 0.70 = $14.29.

So the burger needs to sell for about $14.30 in the app to net you the same $7.00. That is 43% more than the counter price. The general rule: take your menu price and divide by what you keep. At a 30% commission you keep 70 cents on the dollar, so you divide by 0.70.

Notice that the price increase is always bigger than the commission percentage. That is not a trick. It happens because the app takes its cut from the bigger number too. A 30% commission needs a 43% price bump to fully cancel out, a 25% commission needs 33%, and a 15% commission needs about 18%.

Do you have to raise prices the full amount? No. Plenty of owners land in the middle, raising delivery prices 15% to 25% and accepting a somewhat thinner margin in exchange for the extra orders. The point of the rule is that now you know the full-pass-through number, and you can choose your position on purpose instead of by accident.

When delivery still wins

DoorDash makes an argument in its own FAQ worth taking seriously: an app order is often an order you would not have gotten at all, from a customer who never found you otherwise. The comparison worth making is sometimes a thinner margin against zero revenue, especially on a slow Tuesday.

Two protections worth knowing about as you test the water:

• DoorDash Premier refunds your commission in any month you accept fewer than 20 orders, during your first six months.
• Uber Eats Premium charges 0% in any month you get fewer than 20 orders, also during the first six months.

Both have conditions, like staying open the hours you promised and not cancelling orders. Read the fine print before you count on them.

The exit ramps

If the commissions still sting after repricing, the apps themselves sell cheaper paths to the same customers.

Push pickup. DoorDash pickup runs 6% and Uber Eats pickup runs 7%, a fraction of the delivery rate. The catch is the price-match requirement, so pickup works best for places whose delivery prices are only modestly raised.

Own your ordering page. Grubhub Direct takes no commission on orders from your own site. Uber sells a "Webshop" at 2.5% plus $0.29 per order, which on a $10.00 order comes to 54 cents. For comparison, Square's pricing page lists online card processing at 3.3% plus 30 cents, which on the same $10.00 order is 63 cents. A Webshop order costs about the same as taking a card payment on your own website. The trade is plain: with your own page, you have to bring the customers yourself, through signs, bags, social posts, and regulars. The apps charge a lot because they bring the audience.

The quick version

• Commissions run 15% to 30% of the order subtotal at DoorDash and Uber Eats. Grubhub splits a 5% to 20% marketing fee from a 10% or higher delivery fee.
• The commission comes off the top, before ingredients, labor, or packaging.
• Delivery menu prices can be set higher than counter prices on DoorDash and Uber Eats. Pickup discounts require matching prices.
• To fully pass a commission to the customer, divide your price by what you keep: at 30%, that means a 43% increase.
• Pickup at 6% to 7% and your own commission-free ordering page are the cheap exits.

Run your own numbers before you commit to a plan. Your food cost percentage, your average ticket, and your slow-night capacity decide whether delivery is a margin problem or found money.

View this article in the app: https://percyplate.com/blog/delivery-app-commissions-doordash-ubereats-grubhub-math