Uber Eats and DoorDash charge restaurants 15% to 30% commission on every order they process. For a restaurant doing $20,000 a month in delivery revenue, that’s $3,000 to $6,000 leaving your business every single month before you’ve paid a single food cost.
Most restaurant owners knew the commission rate when they signed up. Few have added up what it costs over a full year. That number, once you see it clearly, tends to change the conversation entirely — and point directly to direct online ordering as the fix.
What the Apps Actually Charge
The commission structure on delivery platforms is layered in a way that’s worth understanding completely before you calculate your real cost.
Standard commission tiers (as of 2025):
| Platform | Basic Plan | Standard Plan | Premier/Top |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uber Eats | 15% | 27% | 30% |
| DoorDash | 15% | 25% | 30% |
| Grubhub | 15% | 20% | 25% |
The lower rates (15%) come with reduced visibility in the app. Most restaurants on the standard or premier tiers are paying 25–30%.
Additional fees most operators overlook:
- Payment processing: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (separate from commission)
- Marketing/sponsorship: Promoted placement adds 5–15% extra per order attributed to the promotion
- Packaging: Some platforms charge a small fee per delivery bag or item type
- Onboarding fee: One-time setup fees of $0–$350 depending on the plan
By the time you account for all fees, the effective rate on many orders climbs well above the headline commission.
Running the Annual Numbers
Here’s the math for a mid-volume independent restaurant in the United States.
The restaurant:
- Monthly delivery revenue: $22,000
- Commission rate: 27% (DoorDash Standard)
- Payment processing: 2.9% + $0.30/order
- Average order value: $38
- Monthly order volume: ~580 orders
Monthly cost breakdown:
Commission (27%): $22,000 × 0.27 = $5,940
Payment processing: 580 orders × $0.30 + ($22,000 × 0.029) = $174 + $638 = $812
Total monthly platform cost: $6,752
Annual cost: $81,024
That is $81,000 per year on a restaurant doing $264,000 in annual delivery revenue. The platform is taking 30.7 cents of every delivery dollar before food cost, labor, or overhead.
For a higher-volume restaurant at $50,000/month in delivery:
- Annual commission at 27%: $162,000
- With processing fees: approximately $182,000 per year
For a smaller restaurant at $8,000/month delivery:
- Annual commission at 25%: $24,000
- With processing fees: approximately $27,600 per year
The scale is different. The math is the same. The platforms are the best-margin business in the transaction.
The alternative: A direct online ordering system carries zero ongoing commission, so for a restaurant with meaningful delivery volume it can pay for itself quickly.
The Three Fees You Probably Haven’t Noticed
The headline commission rate is just the start. Here are the additional charges that make the real cost higher than most restaurant owners realize.
The Marketing Tax
If you’ve ever used promoted placement or “DashPass campaigns” to boost visibility on these platforms, you’ve paid additional commission on top of your base rate. Sponsored placement typically adds 5–15% per attributed order.
The platforms make it easy to turn these on. They’re not as visible in your dashboard as the base commission. But they’re real fees on real orders.
The Pickup Commission Problem
Uber Eats and DoorDash both charge commission on pickup orders, not just delivery. If a customer finds you on the app and drives to pick up their food themselves, the platform still takes a commission.
The delivery platform is being paid for facilitating a transaction that requires no driver, no vehicle, no logistics. The customer did all the work. You still pay 15–30%.
Refunds and Chargebacks Fall on You
When a customer claims their order was wrong or missing items, the platform typically issues a refund from your account. The commission on that order is not returned. You pay commission on revenue you never kept.
This isn’t rare, and every contested order is value on which you’ve already paid commission.
What Your Delivery Revenue Actually Looks Like After Commissions
Here’s a simple way to think about it. For example, for every $100 in delivery revenue you generate:
Platform takes (at 27% commission + fees):
- Commission: $27.00
- Processing: ~$3.20
- Total to platform: ~$30.20
You receive: ~$69.80
From that $69.80, you still pay:
- Food cost (assume roughly 30% of revenue): ~$30
- Labor (delivery packaging, prep): ~$12
- Overhead allocation: ~$8
Net profit on a $100 delivery order: ~$20–$30
Before the platform commission, that same $100 order had $50–$60 in net contribution. The platform commission takes a large share of that contribution.
This is why delivery, despite high revenue numbers, often shows up as a neutral or negative contributor to net profit at year-end.
The Alternative: What Direct Online Ordering Actually Costs
A direct online ordering system gives customers the ability to order from your website, pay online, and receive confirmation, with no commission to any platform. You keep 100% of the revenue.
The upfront cost is scoped per restaurant. Ongoing, there is $0 commission per order, just standard payment processing at 2.9% + $0.30.
For example, at a restaurant doing $22,000/month in delivery:
- Current cost to DoorDash at 27%: $5,940/month
- Future cost at 0% commission: $0
- Monthly savings when 100% of orders are direct: $5,940
Even if only 30% of orders shift to direct, the monthly savings are $1,782.
The math isn’t close. It heavily favors owning your ordering channel.
Why Restaurants Stay on the Platforms Anyway
Understanding the real cost doesn’t automatically mean leaving the platforms. There are legitimate reasons to stay.
Discovery: A new restaurant or one with low name recognition can get meaningful exposure from app placement. Platforms spend heavily on customer acquisition you’d otherwise have to fund yourself.
Convenience for customers: Many customers won’t visit a restaurant’s website to order. They’ll open DoorDash, scroll, and order. Removing yourself from the platform means losing those customers, not converting them.
Algorithm dependency: Some restaurants have become so visible in-app that leaving would significantly reduce order volume before direct channels could compensate.
The goal isn’t necessarily to leave the platforms entirely. The goal is to reduce dependency by building your own ordering channel in parallel. Over time, as your direct channel grows (through your website, email list, Google Business Profile, and regulars), your platform revenue can decline as a percentage of total delivery sales, and your overall margin improves.
The Smart Approach: Direct First, Apps Second
The restaurants managing delivery economics well use the platforms as a discovery channel, not a fulfillment channel. Here’s how that works in practice:
- Maintain presence on Uber Eats and DoorDash at the lowest commission tier (15%)
- Add your website ordering link to every customer touchpoint: Google Business Profile, Instagram bio, in-dining receipts, table tents — and run Google Ads for restaurants to capture nearby high-intent customers
- Incentivize direct orders with a simple value offer: “Order direct, skip the fee. Same menu, same food.”
- Build your email list from every direct order, then market repeat orders through email rather than through the platforms
- Track the shift monthly. Direct ordering percentage going from 0% to 30% represents about $21,000 a year in commission savings at the $22,000/month example above
This approach keeps the platform for new customer acquisition while building an owned channel for repeat business, which is where restaurant profitability actually lives.
Ready to set up direct online ordering? See our restaurant direct ordering service, or get in touch.
The Number That Should Change Your Strategy
Run this calculation for your restaurant right now:
- Pull your last 12 months of DoorDash and Uber Eats payouts from your dashboards
- Pull your last 12 months of gross delivery revenue (before platform deductions)
- Subtract payouts from gross revenue
- Add 2.9% of gross revenue for processing fees
The result is what the platforms cost you last year. Write it down.
Now compare that number to what a direct ordering system would cost you.
The platforms will never tell you this. But the math is sitting right there in your dashboard.
Questions? Get in touch.