The real cost of DoorDash and UberEats for a WY restaurant
Delivery commission is 15% to 30% depending on the plan you're on. Pickup through the same app is 6% flat. Most restaurant owners we talk to don't realize those are different numbers — or that the gap is the whole story.
Every dish that leaves this kitchen through a delivery app has already lost 15-30% of its ticket before it hits the sidewalk.
DoorDash's own pricing page puts it plainly: Basic plan is 15% commission on delivery orders, Plus is 25%, Premier is 30%. Pickup orders are 6% flat across all three plans, no matter which tier you're on. That second number almost never comes up in the conversation restaurant owners have about "getting off the apps" — and it should.
What the tiers actually buy you
The jump from 15% to 30% isn't arbitrary — higher tiers add marketing placement, better search ranking inside the app, and other visibility perks. There's no monthly fee on any of the three; DoorDash only takes a cut when an order actually comes through. That sounds low-risk, and for a brand-new restaurant with no delivery volume yet, it is. The math changes once volume shows up.
Take a mid-size Wyoming restaurant doing 300 delivery orders a month at a $35 average ticket — not an unusual number for a busy weekend-tourism town. That's $10,500 a month in delivery sales. On the Basic plan, DoorDash keeps $1,575 of it. On Premier, $3,150. Add in the small-order fees and promotional charges DoorDash applies on top, and the real number creeps higher than the sticker commission suggests.
Direct-ordering platforms already fix the commission problem
You don't need a custom build to get off that percentage — several mature platforms already solve exactly this:
| Platform | Monthly | Commission | Angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owner.com | $249–499 | 0–5% | All-in-one, incl. branded app |
| ChowNow | from $119 | 0% direct | 30+ POS integrations |
| Popmenu | $179–499 | 0% | SEO-driven menu pages |
| Sauce | $149 | 0% | Commission-free delivery logistics |
Run the same 300-order month through ChowNow at its $119 floor and you're paying roughly 1% of revenue in software cost instead of 15-30% in commission — plus you still get to list yourself on DoorDash for discovery orders if you want the reach. Most restaurants that make this move don't leave the marketplace apps entirely; they just stop routing their regulars through the expensive lane.
The nuance almost nobody mentions: if your business is mostly pickup and takeout — a lot of Main Street lunch spots are — DoorDash's own 6% pickup rate is already close to what a direct-ordering platform's software fee works out to at moderate volume. The 15-30% commission problem is specifically a delivery problem. Don't fix a pickup business with a delivery solution.
Where a flat-retainer custom build starts to make sense over a $119-499/month SaaS tool is volume: a restaurant doing 800+ delivery orders a month, or one that wants private catering and banquet-booking forms the off-the-shelf platforms don't offer well, gets more out of code it owns than another subscription line.
The real question to ask
Pull your last month of DoorDash or UberEats statements and separate delivery orders from pickup orders. If delivery commission is eating a five-figure chunk of monthly revenue, a $119-499/month direct-ordering platform pays for itself inside the first order. If it's mostly pickup, you may not have the problem this whole conversation assumes you do — and that's worth knowing before anyone sells you a fix for it.
Related reading
- Build vs. subscribe — the overview across all three verticals.
- Salon booking: subscribe or own it?
- Outfitter gear rentals: waivers, inventory, and the software behind it
- Field service software for a one-truck WY shop: what it actually costs
- What managed hosting actually means (and what it doesn't)
- Surviving a rodeo weekend: what happens to your ordering page when the town doubles
- Building Praxis-Q: a compliance audit portal, not a website
This is part of the Your Business work we do — see what we've built for other verticals, or the booking systems we run for Wyoming outfitters and dude ranches.
Not sure what your actual commission bill looks like?
Send us your last DoorDash or UberEats statement — we'll break down the delivery vs. pickup split and tell you honestly whether a SaaS tool or a custom build is the right next step.
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