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food pickup app fees
2024-08-04 16:15If you've used food delivery apps, you've hopefully noticed that the fees you pay pile up quickly. You might also have heard, e.g. from this John Oliver video, about how much they extract from restaurants, plus shady practices like listing restaurants without permission. I pretty much don't use delivery, but I have used Doordash a lot to order pickup, unless I notice that the restaurant prices are lower. I got to wondering, what's the commission taken on takeout?
DoorDash, UberEats, GrubHub, I couldn't find a clear page for Postmates.
In the USA, DoorDash and UberEats charge restaurants 6% for pickup; used to be 15 percent for DD. So something, but not a whole lot currently[1]. The Grubhub page implies they only take commission on delivery, and none for pickup or self-delivery (e.g. the restaurant fulfilling orders itself); I wouldn't be too confident about this.
Meanwhile, DD and UE have 3 tiers for delivery: 15%, 25%, 30%. Higher commissions supposedly get a restaurant more visibility (like on UE, the bottom tier means customers won't even see you unless they search for you), wider delivery ranges, and lower customer fees (including no fee for DashPass subscribers). Grubhub just says "starting at 10%".
And for all that, plus the fees they charge customers, they're still not profitable!
[1] I say "not a whole lot", but that's still 6% less revenue for a low-margin business because I didn't want to make a phone call (and have to hang around while they charge my card[2]) or use their website.
[2] Given covid, this might actually a legit reason: pay to minimize time spent in the restaurant.