How Much Does DoorDash Actually Take From Restaurants?

Our first DoorDash payout was a gut check. The week looked solid. Good volume, steady tickets, the kind of numbers that make you think delivery is finally pulling its weight. Then the deposit landed and it was nowhere near what I had in my head. I had been running the menu price against the commission rate in my head all week, and I had it wrong, because the commission rate is not the whole story and nobody tells you that going in. Here is what these platforms actually take, including the part that never shows up on the rate card.

The short answer #

DoorDash takes 15 to 30% commission per order, depending on which partnership plan you are on, and the other big platforms are similar: Uber Eats roughly 15 to 30%, Grubhub 15 to 30%-plus with add-ons. Once you add payment processing, the marketing tier, promotions and refunds, the all-in cost usually runs 30 to 40% of the food subtotal. The plan tier is the single biggest lever, and most restaurants are on the expensive one without realizing it.

The DoorDash plan tiers #

DoorDash sells three commission tiers, and they are priced around how much visibility you get in the app:

Plan	Commission	What you get
Basic	15%	Lowest commission, smallest delivery radius, lower placement
Plus	25%	Bigger radius, DashPass access, better placement
Premier	30%	Largest radius, top placement, a delivery guarantee

Most restaurants land on Plus or Premier because the Basic tier’s smaller radius and lower placement choke off orders. So the “15%” headline number is rarely the one you are actually paying. Plan on 25 to 30% as your real starting point.

The fees the rate hides #

The commission is the headline. It is not the all-in. There are six layers between the customer tapping “order” and the deposit hitting your bank:

1. Headline commission. 15 to 30% depending on tier. The number on the contract, and the only one the rep quotes.
2. Payment processing. Usually 2.9 to 3.5% of the order. Some contracts bundle it into the tier, others bill it separately. Read yours.
3. Marketing tier. Plus and Premier buy better placement and access to DashPass or Uber One members, effectively another 5 to 10 points of commission. The lift is real, often 20 to 40% more orders, but you pay the extra points on every order to get them.
4. Promotions you fund. “$5 off orders over $20” and BOGO deals come out of your pocket, not the platform’s. Easily another 5 to 10%.
5. Refunds for errors. Missing item, cold burger: the platform refunds the customer and bills you. Figure about 1 to 2% off the top.
6. Account fees. Setup, tablet, photography. Usually 0.5 to 1% of revenue over a year.

Add it up on a Plus-tier account running modest promotions: 15% commission + 3% processing + 7% tier + 6% promotion + 1.5% refunds + 0.5% account fees = about 33% all-in. On Basic with no promos you might land near 30%. On Premier with promotions running, 40% or more.

That is the gap that gutted my first payout. I budgeted for a quarter and paid closer to a third, on every order, all week.

A worked example: where a delivery order actually lands #

A customer orders a $20 burger and $3 fries on DoorDash Plus, then adds a $5.99 delivery fee, a $2.50 service fee and a $5 tip. They pay $36.49. You only ever see the food: $23.

• Commission (25% Plus tier on $23): $5.75
• A “$3 off orders over $20” promo you’re running: $3.00
• Refund losses amortized at 2%: $0.46
• Your deposit: $13.79

Now the cost of making it: food at 30% ($6.90), packaging ($1.10) and kitchen labor for the ticket ($4.20) come to $12.20. Profit: $1.59. The same burger and fries sold in your dining room clears roughly $7. Same food, about one fifth of the profit.

The break-even ticket size by platform #

The number that tells you whether a platform makes you money is the break-even ticket: the order size where platform fees, food cost, packaging and fulfillment labor add up to zero profit. Rough figures, assuming 30% food cost, $1 packaging and $4 fulfillment labor:

Platform and tier	Break-even ticket
DoorDash Basic (15%)	$22 to $25
DoorDash Plus (25%)	$28 to $32
DoorDash Premier (30%)	$34 to $38
Uber Eats standard (15%)	$22 to $25
Uber Eats Premium (30%)	$34 to $38
Grubhub all-in (~30%)	$32 to $36

An average ticket of $19 on Plus means every order is a small loss. An average ticket of $44 makes money even on Premier. That’s why lifting your delivery ticket (minimum orders, combos, family meals, dessert and drink add-ons) usually beats dropping the platform.

When delivery still makes money #

This is the honest part. Third-party delivery is not free money. It is also not automatically a loser, and the operators who write it off entirely are leaving real orders on the table. It makes sense when:

• The orders are incremental, meaning customers who would not have come in anyway. A 30% commission on a sale you would not have made is still a sale.
• You have idle kitchen capacity. If the line is staffed for dine-in that doesn’t show up Monday to Wednesday afternoon, delivery fills it at marginal cost, because the labor is paid either way.
• Your average ticket clears the break-even above. Steakhouse, sushi, family-style Italian and BBQ tend to. A taco shop with a $14 average ticket usually doesn’t.
• You build a delivery menu: items that travel well, priced for delivery, separate from the dining room menu.
• You treat part of the commission as marketing spend, buying new customers you convert to direct orders later. That works less often than the platform rep says it will, so track it.

It stops making sense when delivery cannibalizes dine-in (you pay 30% on customers who would have walked in anyway) or when low-margin items get sold at a loss after the cut. The answer is not “delivery good” or “delivery bad.” It is “model it per item.”

What this looks like in the calculator #

The third-party delivery calculator on this site runs your real take-home after commission, processing, and packaging, so you can see what an order actually nets at 15%, 25%, or 30%. Run your top delivery items through it. Some will clear it fine and a few will be selling at a loss, and you want to know which is which before you build a delivery-only menu.

What to do today #

Pull the last 90 days of deposits and divide by your order count: that’s your real average take per order, and the gap between it and the contract rate is your hidden cost. Then check which DoorDash plan you are actually on. A lot of operators assume they are paying 15% and are really paying 30%, and that one fact changes whether your delivery menu makes money. Then take your three best-selling delivery items and run them through the calculator at your real commission rate. If any of them net negative, raise the delivery price on those items or pull them from the platform. You can charge more on delivery than dine-in, and you probably should.

Quick reference: published commission rates #

• DoorDash: 15% Basic, 25% Plus, 30% Premier
• Uber Eats: 15 to 30% Marketplace; a flat 6% on orders you deliver yourself
• Grubhub: 15 to 25% commission plus a delivery fee; all-in often 25 to 35%
• ChowNow and other first-party ordering: a flat monthly fee, a different model entirely

Sources: DoorDash for Merchants, Commission and Fees on DoorDash, Explained, Uber Eats for Merchants, Pricing and Fees, Toast, delivery app commissions compared.