Short answer: how much does DoorDash charge restaurants comes down to the plan you pick. DoorDash charges restaurants 15% commission on delivery orders on the Basic plan, 25% on Plus, and 30% on Premier. Pickup orders are 6% on all three plans. There is no monthly fee, no contract, and no separate card processing fee on Marketplace orders. You pay a percentage of the order subtotal, and only when an order comes in.
That is the whole pricing sheet. The hard part is not the number. The hard part is what a 25% or 30% cut does to a kitchen already running 30% food cost and 30% labor. We spend most of our time helping hotels and villas stop bleeding money to Booking.com and Expedia, and delivery apps are the exact same problem wearing a different logo. A middleman owns the customer, and you rent access to them.
Here is the real math, plus what to do about it.
How much does DoorDash charge restaurants on each plan
DoorDash sells three Marketplace partnership plans. All of them are available to restaurants with 75 or fewer US locations, and you can switch any time in the Merchant Portal. Plan changes take up to five business days to process.
| Plan | Delivery commission | Pickup commission | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | 15% | 6% | Smallest delivery radius, no DashPass access, free menu photoshoot, 0% intro rate for 7 days |
| Plus | 25% | 6% | Wider radius, lower customer delivery fee, DashPass access, 0% intro rate for 30 days |
| Premier | 30% | 6% | Widest radius, automatic Sponsored Listing ads, $200 photoshoot credit, order guarantee, 0% intro rate for 30 days |
Those rates come straight off DoorDash’s own merchant pricing page, not a third-party estimate. Most new merchants land on Plus.
What that looks like on a real week
Percentages are abstract. Dollars are not. Say a $50 average delivery ticket:
- Basic at 15%: $7.50 to DoorDash, $42.50 to you
- Plus at 25%: $12.50 to DoorDash, $37.50 to you
- Premier at 30%: $15.00 to DoorDash, $35.00 to you
Now run a week. Forty delivery orders at $50 is $2,000 in gross sales. On Plus, that is $500 gone. Over a year that is $26,000. For a lot of small restaurants that is a line cook.
Then stack your own costs on the $37.50 you kept. If food cost is 30% of the menu price, that is $15 of product on a $50 ticket. Add packaging, add the labor to fire and pack it, and the margin on a delivery order is often close to zero unless you priced for it.
That is not a reason to quit DoorDash. It is a reason to know your number before you sign. The math is identical to what we walk hotel owners through with our free OTA Commission Calculator, which we built so operators could see a year of commission in one screen instead of guessing. Plug in your delivery volume instead of room nights and the shape of the answer is the same.
Pickup is 6%, and most operators forget it exists
The single most useful line in DoorDash’s pricing is the pickup rate. Pickup orders are 6% on every plan, including Basic. Same $50 ticket, $3 instead of $15.
There is one condition. To keep the 6% pickup rate, your DoorDash pickup menu prices have to match your in-store prices. If you inflate the app menu, you lose it.
A lot of restaurants near a walkable strip or a cruise dock get far more pickup demand than they think, and they never promote it because the app funnels people toward delivery. Put “order ahead, pick up at the bar” on your table tents, your Instagram bio, and your Google Business Profile. You are still paying a cut, but 6% is a marketing fee. 30% is a partner.
The fees that are not commission
DoorDash is unusually clean here, and it is worth saying plainly. On Marketplace orders there is no activation fee, no subscription fee, no software fee, no cancellation fee, and no separate credit card processing fee. Card processing is bundled into the commission, which is one reason the percentage looks higher than a straight payment processor.
The optional costs are short:
- DoorDash tablet: $6 per week after the trial, unless you integrate through your POS instead
- Promotions and Sponsored Listings: you choose these, and you pay per order rather than per click or per view
If your POS can take DoorDash orders directly, use that instead of the tablet. Fewer screens on the pass means fewer missed tickets, and it is one less rented device. Our POS comparison for bars covers which systems handle third-party integrations well.
The commission-free option nobody markets to you
Here is the part DoorDash does not put on a billboard. DoorDash Online Ordering, which powers ordering on your own website, is 0% commission. You pay a payment processing fee instead: 2.9% plus $0.30 per order on the Boost and Pro packages, or 3.3% plus $0.30 on Starter. Those numbers are published in the FAQ on DoorDash’s commission and fees explainer.
Compare that on the same $50 ticket. Marketplace on Plus costs you $12.50. Your own site through Online Ordering costs about $1.75. That is a difference of roughly $10.75 per order, and it goes straight to the bottom line.
The catch is obvious and worth stating: DoorDash brings you a customer you did not have. Your own website does not, on its own. The app is customer acquisition. Your site is customer retention. You need both, and the mistake is treating the expensive one as if it were free.
What we would actually do
This is the same playbook we run for hotels drowning in OTA fees, translated to a kitchen.
- Start on Basic, not Plus. Run it three weeks and see whether the extra reach on Plus produces more than 10 percentage points of extra volume. Often it does. Sometimes it does not. You cannot know before you look, and switching costs you nothing.
- Price delivery menus separately. DoorDash allows different delivery prices, and most restaurants running 25% or 30% should be marking up 15% to 20% on the app. Keep pickup prices matched so you hold the 6% rate.
- Put a real ordering page on your own site. Whether it is DoorDash Online Ordering, Toast, or Square, the direct channel needs to be one tap from your homepage and your Instagram, not buried.
- Get the customer’s email in the bag. A card in every delivery order with a code for 15% off the next direct order costs you less than one month of commission on that customer. Our guide to restaurant email marketing covers the setup.
- Give repeat guests a reason to skip the app. A simple punch card or points program beats an app promo, because you own the list. We wrote up loyalty program ideas that actually bring guests back.
- Fix the front door. Broader tactics for filling seats without renting an audience live in our restaurant marketing strategies guide.
One note for our own neighborhood. In the US Virgin Islands and much of the Caribbean, DoorDash coverage is thin to nonexistent, and local delivery apps fill the gap instead. The rates differ, but the structure does not. Whoever owns the ordering screen owns the guest, and you pay for the privilege until you build your own. If you operate in the islands, our where we work pages break down what is different market by market.
FAQ
How much does DoorDash charge restaurants per order?
DoorDash charges 15% of the order subtotal on Basic, 25% on Plus, and 30% on Premier for delivery orders placed in the app. Pickup is 6% on all plans. On a $50 order that is $7.50, $12.50, $15.00, or $3.00 respectively.
Does DoorDash charge a monthly fee?
No. There is no monthly fee, no signup cost, no contract, and no cancellation penalty on Marketplace plans. You pay commission only when an order comes in. The only recurring optional cost is the DoorDash tablet at $6 per week after the trial period.
Can restaurants avoid DoorDash commission entirely?
Yes, on your own channels. Orders placed through DoorDash Online Ordering on your own website carry 0% commission and only a payment processing fee of 2.9% plus $0.30 per order on Boost and Pro, or 3.3% plus $0.30 on Starter. Orders placed inside the DoorDash app always carry the plan commission.
The point
Delivery apps are a tax on volume you did not generate yourself. Paying it is fine. Paying it forever on guests who already know your name is not. Every regular you move from the app to your own ordering page is 20 to 25 points of margin you get back on every future order.
If you want a second set of eyes on where your restaurant is leaking money to middlemen, we run a free Direct Booking Diagnostic. It takes about ten minutes and you get the findings whether or not you ever work with us.