Most restaurant owners mark up DoorDash delivery prices 20 to 30%, and that is a reasonable place to start. But the markup that actually covers the cost is higher than most people guess. It is your take rate divided by one minus your take rate: 17.6% on DoorDash Basic, 33.3% on Plus and 42.9% on Premier. If your statement shows DoorDash keeping 40% once marketing fees and discounts are in, break-even is 66.7%, and no menu will carry that.
So the useful answer has three parts: find your real take rate, decide how much of it the customer pays, and keep pickup out of it. The last part is the one most pricing guides miss. DoorDash's own pricing page makes the 6% pickup rate conditional on "having DoorDash Pickup menu prices match in-store prices." Mark up everything and you risk paying more on pickup too.
This is part of our restaurant money recovery series, which covers where delivery apps, processors and suppliers quietly take more than they should.
What markup do restaurants actually run on DoorDash?
Most owners who post their numbers are between 20% and 30%, with outliers at 12.5% and 40%. The best recent source is an r/restaurateur thread titled Franchisor removed our DoorDash markup, where a pizzeria franchisee asked other operators what they charge. Here is what they said. These are owner anecdotes, not a survey.
| What the owner said | Markup | Context |
|---|---|---|
| "We are on the 25% plan and upcharge 20%" | 20% | Still short of break-even on their plan |
| "We mark up 25%" | 25% | No plan given |
| "We recently got our rate down to 18%, but we still kept the markup at 25%" | 25% | Now above break-even (22%) |
| "Our prices are at a minimum 30% over on doordash" | 30%+ | High volume; DoorDash asked them to lower prices |
| "I raised pricing 12.5% on the online stuff" | 12.5% | Uber Eats at 25%, "split" the charge with customers |
| "Most places around here raise their doordash prices by 40%" | 40% | From the r/restaurantowners delivery thread |
A POS employee in the same thread said "most of our clients mark up 20-30 percent." In a larger r/restaurantowners thread with 466 comments, one owner said "our prices on the 3rd party apps are 30% higher than when dining in or ordering direct."
Vendor blogs that rank for this question give lower averages, around 15%. Most of them sell commission-free ordering, so they have a reason to say markups do not work. Either way, neither number is your number. The markup you need depends on what the platform actually keeps from you.
Why a 25% markup does not cover a 25% commission
The commission is a percentage of the marked-up price, so the markup has to be bigger than the commission. The formula is:
Break-even markup = take rate ÷ (1 − take rate)
Take a $15 item on DoorDash Plus at 25%. At $15, DoorDash keeps $3.75 and you get $11.25. Mark it up 25% to $18.75 and DoorDash keeps $4.69, leaving you $14.06, still short. Only at $20, a 33.3% markup, does your payout reach the $15 you get at the counter.
| Your take rate | Break-even markup | $15 item must sell for |
|---|---|---|
| 6% (DoorDash pickup) | 6.4% | $15.96 |
| 15% (DoorDash Basic) | 17.6% | $17.65 |
| 25% (DoorDash Plus) | 33.3% | $20.00 |
| 30% (DoorDash Premier) | 42.9% | $21.43 |
| 35% | 53.8% | $23.08 |
| 40% | 66.7% | $25.00 |
The plan rates come from DoorDash's merchant pricing: 15% for Basic, 25% for Plus, 30% for Premier on delivery, and 6% on pickup on every plan. DoorDash says the commission covers listing and marketing, Dasher logistics, customer support "and credit card processing," so you are not paying a separate card fee on those orders. That makes break-even very slightly lower than the table if you compare against your in-store sale after your card processing fees. It is a rounding error next to the commission.
Break-even here means your payout per item equals the in-store price. It does not cover delivery packaging, the extra labour on a rush, or refunds. If you already struggle to build overhead into your prices, full break-even on the app is the minimum, not the target.
Use your real take rate, not your plan rate
The number that matters is everything DoorDash kept, divided by your subtotal, over a few months. The plan rate is only the first line of it.
The franchisee in the r/restaurateur thread did exactly this. Their commission was 18 to 19%, but "after commission, marketing fees, and merchant-funded discounts, DoorDash's total take is hitting 40-41% of subtotal." With a 30% food cost, they wrote, "there's basically nothing left to cover labour, rent, or anything else." Their franchisor had just removed their 10% markup. At a 40% take, even a 20% markup only returns 72% of the in-store price.
Promotions are where the take rate grows without anyone noticing. DoorDash's promotions page gives the cost as the customer discount (or the delivery fee you cover) plus a DoorDash marketing fee, per order. It also says your "commission rate is applied to the order subtotal, less free items / discounts," which is a small offset, not a refund. A "$5 off" campaign on a $30 order is a 16.7% discount you pay on top of commission. One pizza franchisee in the thread put it plainly: "they run a ton of marketing deals that come out of our pocket. $5 off, etc."
Then there are the charges that are not in any plan. Another owner in the same thread replied to the franchisee: "You didn't even mention the chargebacks." Missing-item and wrong-order DoorDash error charges come out of the same payout, and many of them can be disputed if you catch them in time. The same goes for Uber Eats order errors and Grubhub adjustments.
To get your all-in take rate, add up four months of:
- Commission on delivery and pickup orders
- Marketing fees and ad spend (Sponsored Listings)
- Merchant-funded discounts and free items
- Error charges and adjustments you did not win back
- Tablet fees, if you pay them ($6 a week after the trial, per DoorDash)
Divide that total by the same period's subtotal. That percentage, not 15, 25 or 30, is the take rate to use in the formula above.
If your DoorDash statements show a take rate well above your plan, part of the gap is often money you can still claim back: error charges that were never disputed and sales tax paid twice on marketplace orders. Send us your delivery-app payout exports and we will show your real take rate per platform and list what is recoverable. No logins needed.
What DoorDash says a markup costs you
DoorDash allows markups but says they cut sales, and it uses your markup in rankings and for its Most Loved badge. Its menu pricing guide cites a one-month internal 2023 study of more than 4,500 restaurants: those that mark up "can see up to 37% fewer sales and up to 78% lower reorder rates." A second internal study says restaurants that marked up more than 20% and then cut prices by 10% were estimated to see volume rise by up to 15% in a month and 21% over 12 months.
Treat those numbers with care. They are DoorDash's own studies, they say "up to," and DoorDash earns more when you sell more orders at any margin. They are still the only published data on the question, and they point the same way owners describe: past some point, the markup costs you more in orders than it saves you in commission.
Three other things in that guide matter for your number:
- Most Loved needs 10% or less. "Menu markups must be no higher than 10% to qualify for Most Loved."
- DoorDash calculates your markup for you. It adds up the DoorDash prices of items on both menus, divides by the in-store total and subtracts one. In its example, $3, $12 and $14 against $2, $10 and $12 is a 20.8% markup. Your figure is under Insights, then Pricing in the Merchant Portal, with a slider that projects the effect of changing it. If the in-store prices DoorDash has for you are wrong, the guide says to use the Report feature under the rate.
- Visibility. "Restaurants with consistent pricing may rank higher on the app homepage."
DoorDash is clear that none of this is mandatory. A separate DoorDash statement on menu pricing says it "does not require restaurants to match in-store prices on delivery orders" and that restaurants "can continue to make their own delivery menu pricing decisions and assess the trade-offs between volume and unit margins." Expect the sales calls anyway. One owner in the r/restaurateur thread said: "I get calls and emails almost daily from DoorDash telling me that I would get a lot more doordash orders if I match my pricing."
Mark up delivery, not pickup
Keep DoorDash pickup at your in-store prices and put the whole markup on delivery. Pickup costs you 6% on every DoorDash plan, but only if you follow the rule in the pricing page's footnote: 6% Pickup is for partners who comply with DoorDash's terms, "including having DoorDash Pickup menu prices match in-store prices." At 6%, break-even is only 6.4%, so a pickup markup barely helps you and puts that rate at risk.
DoorDash supports this split. Its guide to editing menu prices says "if you offer different prices for pickup and delivery, dual pricing allows you to clearly display those differences." Where to set it:
- Menu managed in the Merchant Portal: edit the item. With dual pricing, you may see separate price fields for pickup and delivery.
- Menu synced from your POS: price changes have to be made in the POS. Ask your POS provider how it sends separate delivery prices.
- POS without dual pricing: DoorDash says you can manage it in the Merchant Portal under Settings, Account Settings, Menu Pickup and Delivery Rate.
Price changes can take up to 24 hours to show, so check the live app the next day.
Uber Eats works the same way, with a penalty attached. Its pricing page says the 7% pickup fee "is conditioned on submission of proof that pricing for in-app pickup is the same as in-store. Without validated in-store pricing your Pickup Fee will be 10%." Uber Eats lists 20% for Lite, 25% for Plus and 30% for Premium delivery, so run its break-even separately rather than copying your DoorDash markup across.
How to pick a partial markup on purpose
Most owners land below break-even on purpose, treating part of the commission as marketing. Just decide on that share instead of drifting into it. This table shows what you receive per $1 of in-store price at each markup and take rate:
| Markup | 15% take | 25% take | 30% take | 40% take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | $0.85 | $0.75 | $0.70 | $0.60 |
| 10% (Most Loved limit) | $0.94 | $0.83 | $0.77 | $0.66 |
| 15% | $0.98 | $0.86 | $0.81 | $0.69 |
| 20% | $1.02 | $0.90 | $0.84 | $0.72 |
| 25% | $1.06 | $0.94 | $0.88 | $0.75 |
| 30% | $1.11 | $0.98 | $0.91 | $0.78 |
Read your row, then ask two questions.
Is the order new? DoorDash's pricing page makes its case this way: app orders are "often incremental," so the comparison is "delivery margin vs. no order at all." That holds for a customer who would never have found you. It does not hold for your regular who used to pick up at the counter and now orders through the app.
Is the kitchen idle? The same $30 order is a different deal at 2:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, when the cook is standing around, than at 7 p.m. on a Friday, when it pushes back a full dining room. If most of your delivery volume lands in your peak, you need to be closer to full break-even. If it fills slow hours, a lower markup can still add profit.
Some owners do not use one flat number. One r/restaurateur commenter at "about 30%" said they go "even higher on my best profit margin items and then exclusively promote those through ads and marketing." A flat markup is simpler to keep straight across two apps and a POS, and it is the number DoorDash's Insights page scores you on.
If you are nervous about raising prices at all, the same thinking applies as in raising prices without losing customers: change once, by a planned amount, and measure the next 30 days instead of guessing.
Check your own number in 20 minutes
Run this with your last four months of DoorDash payout reports open.
- Find your real take rate. Total commission, marketing fees, merchant-funded discounts, unrecovered error charges and tablet fees. Divide by subtotal.
- Find your break-even. Take rate ÷ (1 − take rate).
- Read your current markup. Merchant Portal, Insights, then Pricing. Check that DoorDash has your current in-store prices.
- Check pickup. Open your store in the app as a customer, switch to pickup and compare three items against your in-store menu. If they do not match, you may be putting the 6% rate at risk.
- Price the gap. Break-even minus your current markup, times last month's delivery subtotal, is roughly what you are covering yourself each month.
- Match the deposits. Check that what DoorDash says it paid is what reached your bank. A payout reconciliation catches missing or short deposits that no markup will fix.
If step 1 lands well above your plan rate, the markup is not the only thing to fix. Before you raise prices to cover the gap, find out how much of it is refundable. Our delivery error charge calculator estimates what a month of disputed orders is worth, and the restaurant profit leak audit covers the other places the same statements leak.
Did steps 1 and 5 turn up a bigger gap than you expected? Send the payout exports from DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub. We will total what each platform kept, find the error charges still inside their dispute windows, and check whether you have paid sales tax the apps already remitted.
When a franchisor or DoorDash pushes back
Answer with your statement numbers, not with how it feels. That is what worked for the franchisee in the r/restaurateur thread. Their franchisor had cut the markup to 0% for customer acquisition. They sent an email with the 40 to 41% take rate, the fact that they were already running at a loss, and that "most operators run 15-25% markups." The reply came the same day. The franchisor pointed to sales up 47% and orders up 56% year over year, but "implemented a 20% markup across all DoorDash menu pricing immediately."
Commenters had the other side of the story too. Several pointed out that a franchisor paid on sales or supply margin makes money on volume whether or not the store does. The owner confirmed their chain earns its margin on the supplies it sells to franchisees. If your agreement gives corporate control of third-party pricing, the per-order margin in writing is your strongest case.
With DoorDash itself, the high-volume owner's reply is worth copying: "I told them that I'd be willing to drop them if they dropped their fees. Didn't hear anything from them afterwards." Another owner cut their commission to 18% and kept their 25% markup. A commenter also asked why a group of stores was paying so much, saying larger groups should get lower rates. That is one person's claim, but asking costs nothing.
Move repeat customers off the markup
The markup covers one order. Getting the repeat customer to order direct is what closes the gap. Owners in both threads kept coming back to the same tactic. The franchisee was preparing "a QR code that gets put in the bag of all DD orders" with a discount to order direct. Another prints on the DoorDash receipt "to order online through our website next time" with 10% off. A third uses a flyer: "25% markup on all 3rd parties."
DoorDash itself offers a way out: its pricing page says orders through Online Ordering by DoorDash are commission-free, though they carry a payment processing fee. Whatever you use, a direct order at your in-store price earns more than an app order even at full markup. If delivery apps are one of several places you suspect margin is going, the wider checklist in where a small business loses money is a good next read.
Can someone just do this for me?
Setting the markup is a one-hour job you should do yourself. You know your food cost, your peaks and your regulars better than anyone. Work out the break-even, choose a partial markup you can defend, set dual pricing so pickup stays at in-store prices, and check the Insights score a month later.
The part worth handing off is step 1 across every platform, every month. Totalling commission, promotions, error charges and adjustments from three apps' exports takes hours, and the refundable items have short dispute windows. The same exports also show whether you have paid sales tax twice on delivery orders, since marketplace facilitator rules vary by state. That is where a second pair of eyes usually finds money, not in the menu.