Uber Eats vs DoorDash for Restaurants: Where Your Margin Actually Goes

What You Actually Keep on a $40 Order

Assume a $40 subtotal, a 30% food cost ($12.00 — run yours through the food cost calculator first), and $1.50 in packaging. Here is the mid-tier math, line by line. Note Grubhub's separate processing fee; DoorDash and Uber Eats fold processing into the commission.

Across every tier — same $40 order, same food cost and packaging — the spread looks like this:

Net Per Order Calculator

Plug in your average delivery check, food cost percentage, and packaging cost, then flip between tiers. Grubhub's figure includes its 10% delivery fee and 3.05% + $0.30 processing.

Market Share, Tablets, POS & Self-Delivery

Share of 2026 US meal-delivery sales, per 2026 trackers — the same figures used in the commission section above. Methodologies vary, so treat these as one consistent estimate rather than an audited count. DoorDash reported 3.2B orders on $102B gross order value in 2025.

Tablet vs POS integration

Both platforms will hand you a tablet, and both tablets create the same problem: a staffer re-keying orders into your POS during a rush, which is where wrong-item refunds are born — and refunds come out of your payout. Direct integrations with Toast, Square, and Clover (or an aggregator like Otter, Chowly, or Deliverect) inject orders straight into the kitchen ticket flow. DoorDash charges no flat fees unless you opt for its tablet; POS integration is free on both platforms, though aggregators charge their own monthly fee. If you run more than one app, integration stops being optional: menu changes and 86'd items otherwise have to be updated in two or three separate portals.

Self-delivery and white-label delivery (DaaS)

The marketplace commission mostly pays for demand. If you already have the customer — on your website, phone line, or email list — you can rent just the driver instead:

• DoorDash Drive On-Demand dispatches a Dasher for a flat per-delivery fee at 0% commission. Self-serve pricing runs $6.99–$10.99 depending on order value and distance. The separate Drive API tier, for restaurants dispatching from their own site or POS, is quoted at a $9.75 base within 5 miles plus $0.75/mile out to 15 miles. Two products, two price sheets — not two quotes for the same thing.
• Uber Direct starts at $6.99 per delivery with no marketplace fee; price varies by distance and speed. Rates negotiated through a POS partner are different again: through Toast's integration, Uber Direct ran $6.99 flat against $7.49 for DoorDash Drive (Restaurant Business, 2025). That $7.49 is a Toast partner rate, not the self-serve Drive range above.
• Self-delivery plans: Uber Eats lists your restaurant in the app at 15% while your own drivers deliver; Grubhub's Basic tier (5% marketing) works the same way. DoorDash's marketplace plans assume Dashers deliver.

On a $40 order, a $7 flat delivery fee is 17.5% — already cheaper than a mid tier. On a $60 catering order it is under 12%, which is why flat-fee DaaS pairs so well with check-building tactics.

Marketing and ads costs on top

Commission is not the ceiling. Both apps sell sponsored listings and in-app promotions billed on top of your plan — DoorDash ads run on a cost-per-acquisition budget you set, Uber Eats bills per click or per redeemed offer, and Grubhub sells sponsored placement per order. The top tiers bundle some of it: DoorDash Premier auto-runs ads and includes a $200 photography credit; Uber Eats Premium matches up to $100/month in ad spend and waives fees for your first 30 days. Restaurants that lean on in-app promos routinely push their effective take rate past 35%. New York is the clearest illustration of how that stacks: the city caps core delivery commission at 15%, then permits 5% marketing and 3% card processing on top, plus an optional 20% “enhanced services” package since the April 2025 settlement ordinance — so a merchant who opts into all of it can legally be charged up to 43%. The 15% figure and the 43% figure are the same rule read at its floor and its ceiling, not a contradiction. Before buying visibility from the platform, compare the cost of owning the customer outright through email marketing, where a campaign costs the same whether it drives one order or a hundred.

Choose DoorDash If / Choose Uber Eats If / Use Both If

5 Ways to Cut Commission Bleed

Whichever app wins for you, the goal is the same: use the marketplace for discovery and move as much repeat volume as possible to cheaper channels.

1. 01

   Build a first-party ordering channel

   Every platform now sells a commission-free direct channel because restaurants demanded one: DoorDash Online Ordering starts at $0/month with 3.3% + $0.30 processing (2.9% + $0.30 on paid packages), and Uber Eats Webshop charges 2.5% + $0.29 per order. Pair either with flat-fee Uber Direct or DoorDash Drive for fulfillment and a $40 direct order nets you $4-$8 more than the same order through the marketplace. Then work the apps as a funnel: box inserts and an email list move second orders to your own site.

2. 02

   Steer regulars to pickup

   Pickup is 6% on DoorDash and 7% on Uber Eats — roughly a quarter of the mid-tier delivery rate. A “skip the fees, grab it yourself” nudge on receipts and social converts the customers who live five minutes away. On the $40 example, each converted order is worth about $7.60 more to you than a 25%-tier delivery.

3. 03

   Price your in-app menu for the channel

   Most operators mark up delivery-app menus 10-20% to claw back commission; both platforms allow it on delivery listings (the 6-7% pickup rates, by contrast, require in-store price parity). Do it per item, not across the board: menu engineering rules apply double when a third of the ticket is gone before you start, and your food cost calculator numbers tell you which items can absorb the commission at all.

4. 04

   Set a delivery minimum

   Packaging, labor, and Grubhub's $0.30 flat fee hit small tickets hardest: a $15 order at a 25% tier can net under $4. Set a $20-$25 minimum in the merchant portal, and build bundles and family meals that pull the average check up — cost them out with the recipe cost calculator so the bundle discount comes out of the commission savings, not your margin.

5. 05

   Run a limited delivery menu

   Cut anything that travels badly (fries that steam, plated fish) and anything with a food cost percentage above ~32% — at a 25-30% commission those items lose money on every order. A tight 12-15 item delivery menu also speeds up the line and cuts refund-triggering mistakes.