If you run a restaurant, cafe, or takeout spot in the US, the delivery apps have become one of your biggest fixed costs - and one you did not sign a lease for. Owners now call the commission "the new rent," and in 2026 the rent went up. Uber Eats raised its base rate in March, DoorDash still tops out at 30%, and the number you actually pay is almost always higher than the plan you signed.
This guide shows you how to get that cost back under control. It covers what each app really charges in 2026, why your effective rate is higher than the sticker price, what the law now says a platform can take, and a step-by-step playbook for keeping more of every order - tested by real owners, not vendors.
Key takeaways
- DoorDash and Uber Eats both top out at 30% on their full-service delivery tier in 2026; Uber Eats raised its entry rate from 15% to 20% in March (DoorDash, 2026; Restaurant Dive, 2026).
- Your effective commission is higher than the headline rate once pickup fees, sponsored listings, funded promotions, Uber One rates, and card processing stack on top.
- There is a legal ceiling in some cities. New York caps the core charges at 15% delivery + 5% basic + 3% processing, but "enhanced services" can push a lawful bill to around 43% - and the city just won its first enforcement case over illegal fees (NYC DCWP, 2026).
- The fix is a mix, not a single switch: right-size your plan, push pickup, build a direct-ordering channel, audit every statement, and convert app customers into direct ones.
- On a $100 delivery order you keep about $70 through a full-service plan, versus roughly $97 through your own ordering page where you only pay card processing.
What do delivery apps actually charge US restaurants in 2026?
Short answer: between 15% and 30% of each order's subtotal on the big two apps, before extras. Each platform structures it as a tier - the cheaper the plan, the less marketing reach and delivery support you get. Here is how the published US rates compare in 2026:
| App | Lowest tier | Middle tier | Highest tier | Pickup fee | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DoorDash | Basic - 15% | Plus - 25% | Premier - 30% | 6% | None |
| Uber Eats | Lite - 20% | Plus - 25% | Premium - 30% | 7% | None |
| Grubhub | Marketing commission "as low as 5%" (delivery and processing billed separately; no full public tier table) | - | - | varies | varies |
The sections below break down what each tier buys you - and why your real cost usually lands above the number in this table.
DoorDash
DoorDash runs three partnership plans, all charged as a percentage of the order subtotal with no monthly fee, no subscription, and no activation fee (DoorDash, 2026):
- Basic - 15% delivery commission, 6% pickup
- Plus - 25% delivery commission, 6% pickup
- Premier - 30% delivery commission, 6% pickup
The trade-off is reach. Basic puts you lower in the app and limits the delivery radius; Plus and Premier buy a wider radius and promotional placement. DoorDash holds roughly 62.7% of the US delivery market (Earnest Analytics, most recent published panel, late 2024), so for most owners it is the one order channel that is hardest to walk away from. If you are deciding which apps to carry, our DoorDash vs Uber Eats vs Grubhub comparison for US restaurants weighs reach against cost app by app.
Uber Eats (the March 2026 increase)
Uber Eats raised its marketplace fees in March 2026. The entry "Lite" tier went from 15% to 20%, and the pickup fee rose from 6% to 7% across tiers (Restaurant Dive, 2026):
- Lite - 20% delivery commission (was 15%), 7% pickup
- Plus - 25% delivery commission, 7% pickup
- Premium - 30% delivery commission, 7% pickup
- Uber One member orders - 30%
Uber's own explanation for the hike: "Marketplace Fees have remained stable over many years despite the pandemic and increases in costs to operate our marketplace. This increase in pricing will help us reinvest in ways to drive more customer demand for restaurants, courier reliability, and improved products and tooling to support your business" (Restaurant Dive, 2026). Uber Eats holds about 25% of the US market (Earnest Analytics, as of late 2024).
If a big share of your Uber orders come from Uber One members, note that those now carry the top 30% rate regardless of the plan you picked - a quiet way your effective cost climbs.
Grubhub
Grubhub is the smallest of the three, at roughly 6.2% of the US market after its sale to Wonder (Earnest Analytics, as of late 2024). Its official merchant page advertises a marketing commission "as low as 5%" but does not publish a full public tier table (Grubhub, 2026). In practice the marketing commission is one line; delivery (if Grubhub's drivers handle it) and payment processing are billed separately on top. Because Grubhub does not post the complete breakdown, the only reliable figure is the one on your own signed rate card - pull it before you assume you are on the 5% number.
Why your "effective" commission is higher than the headline rate
The tier percentage is the floor, not the ceiling. The number that actually lands in your bank account reflects several charges stacked together:
- Pickup fees. Even "commission-free pickup" is not free - it is 6% on DoorDash and 7% on Uber Eats. Still a fraction of delivery, which is the whole point of steering customers to it.
- Sponsored listings and ads. Paying to appear higher in the app is an auction you opt into, charged on top of commission. It is easy to let this creep.
- Funded promotions. "Buy one, get one" and free-delivery offers are funded by you, not the app, and come out of the same order.
- Uber One / membership rates. As above, member orders can carry a higher commission than your base plan.
- Payment processing. A per-order processing charge (commonly around 3% plus a flat fee) sits beneath all of it.
Add those up and a restaurant on a 30% plan running ads and promotions can hand over far more than 30% of a given order. The clean "effective 30-40%" figures you see quoted come mostly from marketing blogs, so treat them as a prompt to do your own math on your own statement, not as gospel. For a line-by-line teardown of what a single order really nets, see our breakdown of how much delivery app commissions cost a US restaurant.
Is there a legal limit on delivery commissions?
In some cities, yes. New York City caps what a third-party platform can charge a restaurant. Under the city's fee cap law the limits are 15% for delivery services, 5% for basic services (order processing and platform listing), 20% for enhanced services (only if a basic service is offered at or below 5%), and 3% for electronic payment processing (NYC DCWP, 2026).
Read that carefully, because it is the strongest evidence of how high "capped" still is. The core charges alone sum to 23% (15 + 5 + 3). Add the 20% enhanced-services allowance and a lawful bill in the most protected delivery market in the country can reach roughly 43% of an order. If that is the legal ceiling, the unregulated number in your city has no ceiling at all.
The caps also come with teeth now. In April 2026 New York's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection recovered more than $875,000 from a delivery company for overcharging restaurants - more than $580,000 in restitution to more than 380 restaurants plus more than $294,000 in civil penalties and fees - for tactics like bundling multiple fees into one line item and mischaracterizing illegal overcharges as "promotion deductions" (NYC DCWP, 2026). The city called it "the first time DCWP has enforced the law against a delivery app company," with a warning "to all delivery apps that we will not be defrauded."
The lesson for every owner, capped city or not: the fees on your statement are not always correct, and nobody audits them for you.
How much is this really costing you?
"The new rent" is not hyperbole. For a restaurant doing meaningful delivery volume, commission can become one of the largest controllable cost lines after labor and food. The owners walking away are not doing it on principle - the arithmetic stopped working.
Javier Trujillo, who runs Javi's Tacos and four other spots in Omaha, paid $188,000 in delivery-app fees last year across his five restaurants, then pulled DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats entirely; customers now order through his own system instead. His verdict on the orders that were accepted but never picked up by a driver: "that's losses on us" (WOWT, 2026).
$188,000 is a full-time salary or two, or the gap between a profitable year and a break-even one. You do not have to drop every app tomorrow - Javi's is an extreme case - but it shows what the cost compounds to when it goes unmanaged. The rest of this guide is how to manage it down.
How to cut your delivery commissions: the playbook
There is no single switch. Cutting delivery commission is a stack of smaller moves, each worth a few points, that together change your economics. Work through these in order.
1. Right-size your plan
The highest tier is rarely worth it for an established restaurant with its own following. Premier/Premium (30%) buys reach you may not need if locals already search for you by name. Try dropping to the middle tier for 60 days and watch order volume: if it holds, you just cut 5 points off every order. Treat the plan as a dial you adjust by season and performance, not a set-and-forget signup.
2. Push pickup over delivery
Pickup costs 6-7% versus 15-30% for delivery - the single biggest per-order saving available inside the apps. Make pickup the obvious choice: offer a small pickup-only perk, keep pickup wait times short and reliable, and train staff to mention "order ahead for pickup" at the counter. Every order you shift from delivery to pickup keeps roughly 20 extra points of the subtotal.
3. Build your own direct-ordering channel
This is the move with the biggest long-term payoff. When a customer orders from your own website or app, you pay card processing (commonly around 3%) instead of 15-30%. On a $100 order that is the difference between keeping about $70 and keeping about $97.
You do not even have to give up the apps' drivers to do it. Morgan's Brooklyn Barbecue routes its direct orders to Uber Eats or DoorDash for the delivery leg at a flat $3.99 fee per order instead of a 30% commission. As owner Matthew Glazier puts it: "When people place orders through our site or the app, the information goes to Uber Eats or DoorDash, which handle deliveries for us. They charge us a $3.99 fee, but it's much less than 30%" - and he is aiming to move half of his delivery volume direct (Brownstone, 2026).
The barrier used to be that building your own ordering page meant a web developer and a monthly platform bill. It no longer does - modern tools (DineHere among them) can turn a menu photo into a working site with an order button in an afternoon, for a flat fee that is less than a single week of app commission. If you want the full landscape of options, see our guide to restaurant online ordering platforms. The point is simple: own the channel, and the 30% becomes 3%.
4. Audit every statement for junk fees
As the New York enforcement showed, the fees on your statement are not always right. Once a month, pull your settlement report from each app and check three things: that your commission rate matches your signed plan, that you are not being billed for ads or promotions you did not authorize, and that there are no vague bundled line items or "adjustments" you cannot explain. Dispute anything that does not add up. If you are in a city with a fee cap, confirm the charges sit inside it - this is money owed back to you, not a favor.
5. Decide which apps to keep
You rarely need all three. Look at 90 days of data per app: order volume, your effective rate after extras, and how many of those customers were genuinely new versus regulars who would have found you anyway. An app that mostly cannibalizes direct orders at 30% is a bad trade. Keep the one or two that bring real incremental volume and cut the rest. Our head-to-head of DoorDash vs Uber Eats vs Grubhub for US restaurants walks through how to compare them on the numbers that matter.
6. Turn app customers into direct customers
The apps keep your customers' data; you keep the packaging. Use it. Put a small insert or a QR code in every delivery bag that points to your own ordering page with a first-order discount. The math is simple: converting one regular from a 30% app order to a roughly 3% direct order saves about 27 cents on every dollar they spend with you from then on - enough to fund the discount many times over. At scale, if you move even a fifth of your app volume to a channel you own, that saving compounds across every repeat order for the life of the customer.
The bottom line
Delivery commission is the new rent, but unlike rent it is negotiable in practice - not by arguing with the apps, which rarely move, but by changing how much of your volume runs through them. Right-size the plan, steer customers to pickup, build a direct channel, audit the bill, and keep only the apps that earn their cut. None of these moves is dramatic on its own; together they can shift delivery from a cost that quietly eats your margin to one you actually control.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average delivery app commission for US restaurants in 2026?
On the two largest apps, delivery commission runs from 15% to 30% of the order subtotal, depending on the plan. DoorDash charges 15% (Basic), 25% (Plus), or 30% (Premier); Uber Eats charges 20% (Lite), 25% (Plus), or 30% (Premium) after its March 2026 increase (DoorDash, 2026; Restaurant Dive, 2026). Your effective rate is usually higher once pickup fees, ads, promotions, and processing are added.
Did Uber Eats raise its fees in 2026?
Yes. In March 2026, Uber Eats raised its entry Lite tier from 15% to 20% and increased the pickup fee from 6% to 7% across all tiers. Orders from Uber One members now carry a 30% rate (Restaurant Dive, 2026).
Is there a legal cap on what delivery apps can charge?
In some cities. New York City caps the core charges at 15% for delivery, 5% for basic services, and 3% for payment processing, with up to 20% more for enhanced services - a lawful total that can approach 43% (NYC DCWP, 2026). Most US cities have no cap, so check your local rules.
How much cheaper is direct ordering than the apps?
Substantially. Ordering through your own website or app typically costs only payment processing - commonly around 3% - versus 15-30% on the apps. On a $100 order that is the difference between keeping about $97 and keeping about $70.
Can I keep using app drivers but avoid the full commission?
Yes. Some owners take orders on their own site and pay the app only a flat delivery fee for the courier leg. Morgan's Brooklyn Barbecue routes direct orders to Uber Eats or DoorDash at a flat $3.99 per order instead of a 30% commission (Brownstone, 2026).
Is pickup really commission-free?
Not quite. "Commission-free pickup" still carries a fee - 6% on DoorDash and 7% on Uber Eats - but that is far below the 15-30% for delivery, so steering customers to pickup is one of the fastest ways to cut your effective rate (DoorDash, 2026; Restaurant Dive, 2026).
Should I drop delivery apps entirely?
Rarely all at once. The apps still deliver genuine incremental customers for many restaurants. The better approach is to keep the one or two apps that bring real new volume, cut the rest, and move as much repeat business as you can to a lower-cost direct channel. Some owners, like Javi's Tacos in Omaha, do leave the apps entirely once the fees get large enough - $188,000 across five locations in his case (WOWT, 2026).
How do I find my real commission rate?
Pull your monthly settlement statement from each app and divide total fees by total order value. That effective rate - not the plan percentage - is what you actually pay, and it is usually higher once ads, promotions, and processing are included.
What are "junk fees" on a delivery statement?
Charges beyond your agreed commission: unauthorized ad spend, promotions you did not fund, bundled line items, and mislabeled "adjustments." New York fined one platform more than $875,000 in 2026 for exactly this kind of overcharging, including mischaracterizing illegal charges as "promotion deductions" (NYC DCWP, 2026). Audit your statement monthly and dispute anything you cannot explain.
How quickly can I set up my own online ordering?
Faster than it used to be. Where a direct-ordering page once needed a developer and a monthly platform contract, modern builders can create one from your existing menu in a day for a flat monthly fee - often less than a single week of app commission. The practical blocker is usually deciding to start, not the setup.
