There are a variety of online food ordering and delivery services out there but lately I’ve been a fan of DoorDash since the delivery time seems to be both quicker and more consistent than the others. Yesterday I ordered some Chinese food and noticed that the restaurant had added a receipt with prices that differed from what DoorDash charged. In hindsight I’m not surprised but did feel a bit misled since DoorDash has separate service and delivery that I figured covered the actual service. After I overcame the feeling of being tricked I thought it would be interesting to see how whether other delivery services are doing the same thing and by how much. I looked at the items I ordered across DoorDash, UberEats, and Seamless/GrubHub. Solely looking at the prices it looks as if DoorDash has the highest markup, followed up UberEats, and then Seamless/GrubHub. Surprisingly, the cheapest item (Hot & Sour Soup) hsa no markup across any of the services and the percentage markup across all of them drops as the item price increases.

My takeaway is that DoorDash is the most expensive but you’re paying for that reliable and quick delivery.