Why are food delivery apps so expensive?
Third-party delivery platforms tack on heavy service fees, delivery charges, and commissions of up to 30 percent that drastically inflate prices for customers. For restaurants, these steep cuts eat away at margins and force owners to lose money on orders unless they raise menu prices to cover the difference.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- It goes quiet, then comes back — 3 separate clusters since November 2025.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Calling the restaurant directly to place a pickup orderDid this help you?
- 2Driving to the restaurant to pick up food in personDid this help you?
- 3Using the native ordering app of the specific restaurantDid this help you?
- 4Raising menu prices exclusively on third-party delivery apps to offset commission costsDid this help you?
- 5Refusing to use delivery apps entirely and encouraging customers to dine in, order directly for pickup, or use in-house deliveryDid this help you?
- 6Creating your own online ordering portalDid this help you?
- 7Pulling all third-party apps entirelyDid this help you?
- 8Putting take out over the phone on websites and social mediaDid this help you?
- 9Having an in-house delivery driver insteadDid this help you?
- 10Ignore automated emails from the delivery platforms complaining about price discrepancies.Did this help you?
- 11Raise prices on the delivery apps by 30% to 40% to completely offset the commission fees.Did this help you?
- 12Increase standard menu prices across the board but offer an exclusive discount to in-store and walk-in customers.Did this help you?
- 13Negotiate a hard cap on commission rates (e.g., 15%) under the threat of leaving the platform.Did this help you?
- 14Hire an in-house delivery driver to bypass third-party apps entirely.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I told her because I have to give $3.10 of every $10 order to DoorDash in order to use their “services”, and frankly I lose money every time an order goes out the door unless I jack my prices sky-high to cover the difference… which I’m not currently willing to do.”source ↗
“Owners get screwed by the 30%”source ↗
“Our 40% margin plummets to 15% after their 25% commission on orders. We’re a small brick and mortar third-generation family restaurant, nothing super fancy. Much like every other restaurant on the platform, we have our prices roughly 10% higher to combat DoorDash’s ungodly commission.”source ↗
“DoorDash charges 28% fees to restaurants; so prices are generally adjusted to offset some of that cost”source ↗
“Ya, no shit the prices are higher because DD charges restaurants 27 percent and Uber 30. I'm not gonna eat that loss in an industry they already has razor thin margins.”source ↗
“I finally got them to turn it off on my locations but last month I was suddenly giving $10 off every time a customer spent $100, on repeat. So 10% off for any regular doordash customer on top of the insane commission rate.”source ↗
“I hear a lot of people complain they are broke then pay $17 extra for door dash delivery I don’t get it.”source ↗
“Services like DoorDash and UberEats make food service more expensive for no reason at all.”source ↗
“It's actually closer to 40% unless you spend a few hours each quarter telling a sales rep you are going to drop them unless you negotiate lower. People don't see it.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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