Pricing 5 min readUpdated August 30, 2026by Dishboard

DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub commission: what restaurants actually pay

Platform fees go beyond the headline commission rate. Here is what you actually pay on each order and how to calculate your true take-home.

Rates in this guide were last verified against the platforms' own merchant pricing pages on 30 August 2026. Commission structures change: Uber Eats raised its marketplace fees in March 2026. Check your own contract and the current pricing page before acting on any figure here.

Every delivery platform quotes a commission rate, but the actual cost of each order is higher once payment processing fees, marketing program charges, and tablet or software fees are included. Understanding what you actually pay, not just the headline rate, is the starting point for knowing whether delivery is profitable for your restaurant.

DoorDash

DoorDash uses a tiered commission structure based on which plan you choose:

Basic plan: 15% commission. Restaurants appear in search results but with limited visibility.

Plus plan: 25% commission. Adds DashPass eligibility (DashPass is DoorDash's subscription program) and expanded delivery radius.

Premier plan: 30% commission. Full marketing features including promotions and priority placement.

DoorDash does not charge a separate payment processing fee on Marketplace orders. Its merchant pricing page states the commission covers credit card processing, with no activation, subscription, or processing fee on top.

Processing does apply to DoorDash Online Ordering, the white-label product for orders placed on your own website: 2.9% plus $0.30 per order on the Boost and Pro packages, or 3.3% plus $0.30 on Starter. That is a different product from the Marketplace listing.

Your real cost per order still sits above the headline commission once the optional extras are included: advertising, restaurant-funded promotions, order error charges, and the tablet rental of $6 per week if you do not integrate your POS. How far above depends entirely on your own ad and promo spend, so there is no single effective rate worth quoting. Read your own remittance reports instead.

Additional costs: if you run DoorDash promotions (discounts, free items), you typically split the cost 50/50 with DoorDash. Your share comes out of your revenue.

Uber Eats

Uber Eats fees vary by contract and market:

Lite: 20% on delivery orders. Raised from 15% on 11 March 2026.

Plus: 25%, but 30% on orders from Uber One members.

Premium: 30%, with the full marketing feature set.

Self-delivery: 15% if you use your own drivers and take orders through the marketplace, rising to 25% on any order that falls back to an Uber courier.

Payment processing is included in the marketplace fee. In some rate-capped markets Uber breaks it out separately, so check the footnotes for your city.

Restaurants using Uber Eats advertising (Sponsored Listings) pay additional costs per click or impression, which can add materially to effective per-order cost if not monitored.

Grubhub

Grubhub prices marketing and delivery separately, which makes the headline number look smaller than what you actually pay:

Marketing commission: 5% on Basic, 15% on Plus, 20% on All-access.

Delivery: add 10% or more on top if a Grubhub driver delivers the order. Nothing if you deliver it yourself.

Payment processing: charged on top, unlike DoorDash. Grubhub publishes 3.05% plus $0.30 per transaction on its own profit calculator, though not on the rate card itself, so treat it as indicative and check your agreement.

So a Grubhub-delivered order on the middle tier is roughly 15% marketing plus 10% delivery plus processing, not the 15% the tier is named for.

Grubhub Ads is optional and priced by the ad budget you set, not as a fixed percentage of orders.

If you find older figures of 15 to 25% quoted as Grubhub's base commission, they describe a retired rate card that bundled delivery into the headline and included a Premium tier that no longer exists. Grubhub raised its Plus and top tiers in mid 2025, after Wonder acquired the company from Just Eat Takeaway in January 2025.

Order errors are charged as the value of the diner refund rather than a fixed fee, when the fault is yours. You can dispute within 30 days in the merchant portal. Review your remittance reports against your contracted rate.

How to calculate your true take-home

For any single order, true take-home = order subtotal minus commission minus payment processing minus your share of any promotions minus any other contracted fees.

Example: a $20 order on DoorDash Premier, 30% commission, no separate processing fee.

Commission: $6.00. You keep $14.00, 70% of the order subtotal, before food and packaging.

If your food and packaging on that order is $6.00, your delivery gross profit is $14.00 minus $6.00 = $8.00, a 40% margin on the order.

What to do when delivery margins are too thin

Raise delivery prices, but divide rather than multiply. Adding 30% to cover a 30% commission does not work, because the commission comes off the new price too: 30% of a higher price is a bigger number. To hold the same cash profit, take your costs plus the profit you want and divide by the share you keep. At 30% commission that share is 0.70. A $12 dish that costs $3.90 to make, with $0.60 of packaging, needs to be $18.00 on the app to earn what it earns in house. That is 50% up, not 30%.

Remove low-margin items from your delivery menu.

Renegotiate your contract tier. Restaurants with growing delivery volume have leverage.

Reduce your participation in platform promotions if your share of the cost is not driving profitable incremental orders.

Frequently asked questions

Can I negotiate commission rates? Yes. Most platforms will negotiate, especially if you have volume or are considering leaving. Having a competing offer from another platform strengthens your position.

Are delivery platform fees tax deductible? Yes, they are a business expense. Consult your accountant for specifics.

Do delivery fees charged to customers come to me? No. Delivery fees charged to customers go to the platform (and often to the delivery driver). You receive the order subtotal minus commission, not the delivery fee.

Is it worth being on multiple platforms? It depends on your market. More platforms means more exposure and more orders, but also more commission spend. Calculate profitability per platform separately before deciding to add or remove one.

What does that commission cost you per order?

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