DoorDash takes up to 30%. Here is what direct online ordering actually saves

The marketplaces are genuinely useful for one thing: putting your restaurant in front of somebody who was never going to search for you by name. The problem is what happens after that, when the same customer keeps ordering through the app and you keep paying an acquisition fee for a customer you already acquired.

What the platforms charge

Platform	Published commission	Notes
DoorDash Marketplace	15% / 25% / 30% by plan tier	Pickup listed separately around 6%
Uber Eats	Comparable 15–30% band	Visibility-linked pricing
Grubhub	5–20% marketing, plus delivery from 10%	Combined rate depends on plan
First-party ordering platforms	Flat monthly fee, commonly $49–$399	Plus card processing
Card processing baseline	Around 2.9% + $0.30	Applies to direct orders too

The published rate is not the effective rate. Independent 2026 analyses put the real all-in cost of a marketplace order at 30% to 40% of the ticket once processing, restaurant-funded promotions, tablet rental, activation fees and refund absorption are included.

Why this matters more than it sounds

The typical independent restaurant clears somewhere between 3% and 9% net profit. Put a 25% commission against that and the arithmetic stops working.

A worked example: if food cost is 30% of menu price, labor 30% and overhead 25%, you are at 85% before any platform fee. Add a 25% commission and you are selling at a loss on every order that comes through the app.

The reason this stays invisible is reporting. Most POS systems add the dine-in dollar and the marketplace dollar together on the sales report as though they were worth the same. They are not, and until you separate them the loss does not appear anywhere you look.

The one calculation to do this week

1. Take last month's marketplace sales total.
2. Multiply by your effective commission rate — use 30% unless you have exact figures.
3. That is what you paid the platforms.
4. Now estimate what share of those orders were repeat customers who already knew you.
5. Multiply. That number is what you paid to acquire customers you had already acquired.

For a restaurant doing $50,000 a month through a marketplace at 25%, the commission alone is $12,500. If half of those orders are repeat customers, roughly $6,250 a month is being spent on people who would have ordered from you anyway.

Direct ordering: what it actually costs

Direct ordering is not free. It is a different cost shape.

• Platform fee. Flat monthly, commonly $49 to $399 depending on features.
• Card processing. Around 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, unavoidable.
• Delivery. Either your own drivers, or a fulfilment service that delivers orders you took yourself, which costs meaningfully less than a marketplace commission.
• Marketing. The marketplaces provide discovery. Take that away and you have to replace it, which is where your website and Google Business Profile come in.

The break-even is straightforward: if a flat monthly fee plus processing costs less than your marketplace commission on the same volume, direct wins. For most restaurants doing meaningful online volume, that crossover arrives quickly.

How to shift repeat customers to direct

Nobody switches because you asked once. It works through repetition in the moments the customer is already thinking about you.

1. Put a card in every delivery bag. "Order direct next time and save 10%" — you are still ahead by fifteen points.
2. Price direct slightly lower. Many restaurants raise menu prices on the apps to absorb commission. Doing that and keeping direct prices at menu rate gives customers a visible reason to switch.
3. Make direct ordering obvious on your website. Above the fold, on every page, tappable on a phone.
4. Connect ordering to your Google Business Profile. The "Order Online" button can point to your own system. Check where yours currently points — if it was set up through a marketplace, it may be routing orders through their commission.
5. Collect the email or phone at checkout and use it. Marketplace customers are not your customers; direct customers are.
6. Keep pickup direct. Pickup on a marketplace still carries a commission for a delivery you performed yourself.

What not to do

Do not leave the marketplaces entirely on day one. They deliver genuine discovery, and a restaurant that switches off marketplace visibility before the direct channel works simply loses the orders.

The sequence that works: build the direct channel, drive repeat customers to it over several months, then reassess which marketplace tier you actually need. Treat commission as an advertising budget for new customers, not a permanent tax on every customer.

Where the website fits

Direct ordering only works if people can find you directly, which means your own site has to do the discovery work the app was doing.

In practice that means three things: a menu built as real web pages rather than a PDF, so search engines can read every dish name; a Google Business Profile with the correct category, accurate hours and recent reviews; and an ordering flow that works on a phone on cellular data at 7pm on a Friday.

Get those right and the marketplaces become what they should have been all along — a channel for finding new customers, not a toll on the ones you already have.