Which food delivery app costs the least?

Monika Kamiska is a psychologist who is interested in marketing and communication. He has been working in the marketing, customer path, and decision-making fields for almost 20 years. Experience has taught her that how well something works is the most important thing. She sets goals with confidence and then chooses online and offline tools to help her reach them. Her favorite things to do are study how customers act and make marketing content.

Which food delivery app costs the least? Does the cheapest mean the best? How do you pick the best food delivery app without spending a lot of money? All of these are questions that restaurant owners all over the world have been asking for years, but the year 2020 has made them even more important. Finding a good food delivery app with the lowest fees can make or break a business. That sounds important, doesn’t it?

So, let’s look at some of the most popular food delivery apps to help you figure out which one might be best for your business. Math is math, and a good price comparison app for food delivery will help you make the best choice.

Which is less expensive: DoorDash, Postmates, UberEats, Grubhub, Caviar, or your own app?

Let’s start with a question that has been on the minds of restaurant owners for months: which of DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats, or GrubHub is cheaper? Well, it depends where exactly you are on the map. A journalist from Charlotte who was bored and stuck at home decided a few months ago to find out which of the most popular apps is the cheapest and best.

The first interesting thing he found was that the same dishes from the same restaurants cost different amounts when ordered through different apps. For example, when he ordered carne asada fries, Postmates was the cheapest option at $9.25, while UberEats charged $1 more for the same fries. In the end, though, UberEats was the cheapest, even though it had the highest base price, because its delivery cost was the lowest.

But when the reporter ordered a tofu teriyaki bowl, GrubHub came out on top because it was almost $3 cheaper than the other options. And the next time he wanted to order a Greek chicken pita, DoorDash won by a small amount, less than a dollar. In the end, though, Uber Eats won because its average price was just a few cents lower than those of its competitors. This seems to show that UberEats is probably the best app to use if you’re a customer looking for the cheapest option.

On the other hand, data shows that DoorDash won in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Houston in October 2020, even though UberEats had 61% of the market in Miami. GrubHub, on the other hand, has a huge 51% share of the market in New York. Only in Los Angeles, where Postmates has 38% of the market, does it have a strong hold on the market.

Now, let’s look at things from the point of view of a business owner.

Doordash – In 2019, almost 27% of the market was owned by Doordash, which was more than any other cheap food delivery app. The app takes a 20% commission fee, which is not that much compared to what its rivals charge. It’s also available in all 50 states, which is probably why it’s so popular. People tend to stick with their favorite companies and brands. If you used Doordash, you would be able to reach the most potential customers.

GrubHub was the first food delivery app, and it later bought Seamless, Eat24, Foodler, and OrderUp. Grubhub works in 2700 cities in all 50 states. Depending on the restaurant and the city, the commission ranges from 15% to 30%. The app used to be the clear market leader, but it has recently lost almost 27% of the market to DoorDash and is now in a close second place. Grubhub also lets restaurants use their own drivers, and they can even integrate their POS with Grubhub. This lets them connect with your restaurant’s website and make it easier for people to place orders.

Postmates only has about 12% of the market and works in 1500 cities in 50 states. This means that using their service would give you access to fewer potential customers, even though their reviews show that their customers are among the most satisfied. Postmates does charge a pretty high commission, though. At 30%, it may be one of the reasons why customers and restaurants don’t like them as much as their competitors. This is a downside, but the app makes up for it in some ways. For example, a plan that costs $10 per month guarantees free food delivery on orders over $15. There are also no surge prices, which can be really helpful on a Saturday night.

UberEats is only in 500 cities around the world, but it still has about 25% of the market share. Uber Eats has a large fleet of drivers, so there is always someone ready to deliver orders. The app is easy to use. One problem with UberEats is that because Uber started out as a taxi service, UberEats drivers aren’t trained to deal with food delivery. You would be wrong to think that delivering food doesn’t require any special skills.

It’s drivers have gotten a bad reputation for delivering cold food, soup that spills all over the inside of the delivery bag, and even orders that are sent to the wrong address and are never seen again. Their customer service reps are also hard to get in touch with, which makes it even harder to make unhappy customers happy. In light of all this, it’s surprising that UberEats charges a commission of 30–40%.

Caviar stands out because it is a high-end service that only works with a few restaurants. At 3% of the market, they have a much smaller share than the other companies on this list. Caviar, on the other hand, doesn’t really compete with them. They do their own thing in their own niche, and they’ve been doing it quite well for almost a decade. Caviar is only available in 11 major American cities: Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Manhattan, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Queens, Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and Washington, D.C., so this app is probably not the best choice for most restaurants.

Caviar does, however, offer reliable, high-end service for only 25% commission. It also works with Square POS, which makes it easy for both the customer and the restaurant to place an order. So, if you own a restaurant in one of these 11 cities and want to make sure that your customers get their food on time and in style, you should check out Caviar.

Branded app Instead of relying on third-party ordering services like UberEats, GrubHub, etc., you can sell directly from your own restaurant website with an online ordering system and your own branded mobile app. After all, a business that wants repeat customers must have a brand identity, and the cost is much lower—a flat fee of $49 to $169. (See pricing).

So, which app delivers food for the least amount of money?

As always, there is no one right answer. It depends on what you’re selling, where you’re selling it, and if price is the only thing you want to think about. Here, it will be especially helpful to know which apps are the most popular in your area. You might also want to try out a few to see which one you work best with. At first, it might seem a bit chaotic, but it will be worth it when you build strong relationships with customers who come back.