Every restaurant owner has been told the delivery apps take “about 30%”. The real answer is published, it varies more than that, and the headline number is not always the whole bill.
Here is what each of the three actually publishes, quoted from its own pricing page and dated. Where a fee exists but the rate is not published, that is said plainly rather than filled in with a guess.
The published rates
All figures read from each vendor’s own US pricing page on 15 August 2026.
| Delivery commission | Pickup | Charged monthly? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DoorDash Basic | 15% | 6% | No |
| DoorDash Plus | 25% | 6% | No |
| DoorDash Premier | 30% | 6% | No |
| Uber Eats Lite | 20% | 7%* | No |
| Uber Eats Plus | 25% | 7%* | No |
| Uber Eats Premium | 30% | 7%* | No |
| Uber Eats Self-delivery | 15% | 7%* | No |
| Grubhub (entry) | 5% + delivery fee† | not published | No |
| Grubhub (mid) | 15% + delivery fee† | not published | No |
| Grubhub (top) | 20% + delivery fee† | not published | No |
* Uber Eats’ pickup rate is conditional. Its pricing page states: “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%.”
† Grubhub’s percentages are a marketing commission. Its delivery fee is separate: “Choose Grubhub Delivery for a delivery fee starting at 10%.”
Sources: DoorDash pricing, Uber Eats pricing, Grubhub pricing and fees. Marketplace pricing changes — Uber Eats revised its US marketplace fee in March 2026 — so check each before deciding anything.
The Grubhub 5% needs reading twice
It is the number that most often gets quoted out of context, and it is not a trick — it is just measuring something narrower than the others.
DoorDash and Uber Eats quote one percentage that covers the marketplace listing and their courier. Grubhub splits those apart: the 5%, 15% or 20% buys the listing, and if you want Grubhub’s drivers the delivery fee starts at 10% on top of it.
So on Grubhub’s own fleet, the arithmetic on their published numbers puts the entry plan around 15% and the top plan around 30% — in the same territory as the other two, not a third of them. That stacking is our arithmetic on their figures, not a rate Grubhub publishes.
Where the 5% genuinely is 5% is when you deliver with your own drivers. If you have a driver already, Grubhub’s entry plan is the cheapest marketplace listing of the three by a wide margin, and that is worth knowing.
The fee none of them publish
All three charge something for card processing and fraud handling, and none publishes the rate on its pricing page. Grubhub names it — an order processing fee covering “credit card processing and fraud monitoring” — without giving a percentage. DoorDash and Uber Eats do not break it out at all.
This matters when you compare a marketplace against taking the order yourself, because processing does not disappear when you go direct — you simply pay it to your own gateway at your own negotiated rate instead. Any comparison that drops it from one side and not the other is flattering somebody.
What the percentage costs in money
A percentage is easy to nod along to and hard to feel. On $12,000 a month of marketplace orders:
| Rate | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| 15% | $1,800 | $21,600 |
| 20% | $2,400 | $28,800 |
| 25% | $3,000 | $36,000 |
| 30% | $3,600 | $43,200 |
Straight arithmetic on the published rates. It is also why “commission-free” platforms charging $49–$449 a month are not really competing with the marketplaces on price — at these volumes a subscription is a rounding error against the percentage. What you give up is discovery.
Run your own numbers with your real volume. That calculator deducts card processing on direct orders before showing a saving, and it will tell you when moving orders does not pay — which below a certain volume it genuinely does not.
The honest way to think about it
The apps are not a rip-off and they are not a bargain. They are an advertising channel with per-order pricing, and they should be judged as one.
What you are buying is discovery. A customer who has never heard of your restaurant finds you on DoorDash. That is worth real money, and no commission-free ordering page will do it for you — ours included.
What you are overpaying for is your regulars. Someone who already knows your name, orders from you every fortnight, and opens an app out of habit costs you 15–30% of every order for an introduction that happened years ago. That is the part worth moving.
Most restaurants should not leave the marketplaces. They should stop paying introduction fees on customers they already introduced themselves to.
→ DoorDash fees, in detail · Uber Eats fees, in detail · Work out your own number