Stop paying up to 30% to delivery apps.
DoorDash's top Premier plan takes 30% of a delivery order and Uber Eats' top marketplace plan takes 30% too — both as published on their own merchant pricing pages in August 2026. Marketplaces are great for customer acquisition and catastrophic for retention. FoodyOS gives you a direct channel for the regulars they bring you, so the second visit and every visit after stops paying the marketplace tax.
This is not a POS comparison
FoodyOS is your operating system; DoorDash, Grubhub and UberEats are sales channels. Comparing them is really comparing two different roles in your business: the platform you run on vs the marketplace you sell through. The right answer for most restaurants is to use both — but flip the ratio of orders that come through each.
What do the marketplaces actually charge?
Each one publishes its rates. DoorDash charges 15%, 25% or 30% on delivery orders by plan and 6% on pickup. Uber Eats charges 20%, 25% or 30% on marketplace orders, 15% if your own staff delivers, and 7% on pickup with validated in-store pricing. Grubhub charges a 5%, 15% or 20% marketing commission by plan, with its delivery fleet starting at 10% on top and payment processing excluded. All figures as published in August 2026; rates differ in some regulated markets.
The math on a $50 order
- Marketplace order: a $50 ticket at a 30% top-tier delivery commission gives up ~$15, so you keep $35 minus food cost and labor.
- Direct order on FoodyOS: $50 ticket, $0 marketplace commission, processing fees apply if you take card. You keep ~$48–$50 minus food cost and labor.
- Net: a 30% direct mix on a 200-order weekend shifts $900 from marketplace fees into your bank account. Multiply by 50 weekends a year.
- What FoodyOS costs to run that direct channel: $149/mo flat per restaurant — POS, KDS, online ordering site, delivery dispatch, hostess and loyalty all included. The only per-order cost is Stripe (2.9% + 30¢ online), charged to your own Stripe account, not resold by us.
| Criterion | FoodyOS direct | DoorDash / Grubhub / UberEats |
|---|---|---|
| Per-order commission | 0% on direct orders | 5–30% of the order, depending on platform, plan and channel — plus payment processing on top for some |
| Customer relationship | You own the customer (phone, email, order history) | Marketplace owns the customer; you receive aggregated info |
| Re-order signal | You can WhatsApp / email a regular directly | Marketplace pushes the customer to other restaurants |
| Branding | Your URL, your logo, your photos | Marketplace UI; your brand competes with thousands of others |
| Loyalty program | Yours — phone-indexed, points, tiers, win-back | Marketplace loyalty (DashPass, Grubhub+) belongs to the marketplace |
| Customer support routing | Goes through your team | Goes through marketplace support; you may never see the complaint |
| Menu changes | Live in seconds | Synced to marketplaces with delays; weight items / 86s lag |
| Photos and copy ownership | Yours | Marketplace can re-shoot, re-crop, or hide photos at its discretion |
How to actually shift the mix
Start from what the marketplace publishes. Grubhub lists its marketing commission at 5%, 15% or 20% depending on plan, with its delivery fleet starting at 10% stacked on top, and payment processing excluded from all of those rates (as published, August 2026). Every point of volume you move onto your own channel is that arithmetic, reversed. To shift the mix, do four things:
- Direct ordering link in every receipt. Pizza box insert, takeout bag sticker, QR on the table — “next time, order direct: 10% off your first order, no app required.”
- Loyalty tied to direct orders. Every $1 spent direct = 1 point. Marketplace orders earn nothing.
- Phone-line redirect. A polite voicemail that says “message us on WhatsApp at 555-0140 — our AI takes the whole order, 24/7” gives a caller who hit the busy line somewhere to go instead of hanging up. FoodyOS answers that thread whether or not anyone is at the counter.
- Marketplace surcharge. Where your state law and your marketplace agreements allow it, price marketplace orders above your direct menu. Customers compare. They learn. Check the rules first — price-parity terms and local pricing statutes vary by platform and by state.
Marketplace as acquisition, FoodyOS as retention
Marketplaces are good at one thing: putting you in front of a customer who never heard of you. Use them for that. Once a customer has eaten your food and liked it, every subsequent order should be direct. FoodyOS is the channel that lets you capture and serve those customers.
Commission ranges are the rates DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats publish on their own merchant pricing pages as of August 2026. Your specific rate depends on the plan you signed, your market, and whether the marketplace or your own staff delivers.