What a Charlotte Restaurant Keeps on a $40 Order: DoorDash, Uber Eats and Its Own Ordering, Line by Line

DoorDash commission on a $40 delivery order runs $6.00, $10.00 or $12.00 depending on the plan a restaurant picks, and Uber Eats runs $8.00, $10.00 or $12.00 on the same order, by the rates both companies publish as of October 2026. The same order placed through the restaurant's own ordering costs card processing, which on Square's published online rate is $1.62.

Two cautions before the table. These are list prices from merchant pricing pages, read in October 2026; a restaurant with volume can negotiate, and the number that matters is on your own statement. And the apps are not the villain: they find guests a restaurant could not reach alone. The question is what the second order from that guest should cost.

What DoorDash's three plans charge, and what each one buys

DoorDash publishes three marketplace plans for US restaurants: Basic at 15 percent commission on delivery orders, Plus at 25 percent and Premier at 30 percent, with pickup orders at 6 percent on every plan. The page states there are no monthly fees, signup costs or cancellation penalties, and that the commission covers credit card processing on marketplace orders.

The higher tiers buy reach, not a lower fee. Basic lists the restaurant to nearby customers and includes a menu photoshoot. Plus adds a wider delivery radius, a lower customer-facing delivery fee, and DashPass subscribers at no extra cost. Premier adds the widest range and a commission rebate for any month under 20 orders, with footnoted conditions: for the first six months, fewer than five cancellations and 90 percent of listed hours open. The optional tablet is $6 a week after the trial.

Promotions sit on top of the commission. DoorDash's promotions page gives the formula as the cost of the delivery or the customer discount, plus a DoorDash marketing fee, equals the cost per order, and states that the commission rate is applied to the order subtotal after free items and discounts come off. Sponsored Listings are charged per order placed through the ad rather than per click. Neither the marketing fee nor the ad rate is printed on the page.

What Uber Eats charges, including the pickup condition most restaurants miss

Uber Eats publishes Lite at 20 percent, Plus at 25 percent and Premium at 30 percent marketplace fee on delivery orders, and a self-delivery option at 15 percent. Pickup is 7 percent, but the page attaches a condition: 7 percent applies with validated in-store pricing, and otherwise the pickup fee is 10 percent. A restaurant that marks its app menu up to carry the commission pays more on pickup, by Uber's own rule.

The tiers again buy placement. Lite covers discoverability when a customer searches for the store and excludes Uber One subscribers. Plus shows the store with a lower delivery fee, opens ads and offers, and adds Uber One orders at a further 5 percent. Premium shows the lowest available delivery fee, includes Uber One at no extra charge, matches ad spend up to $100 a month, and includes a menu photo package. Footnotes add city-specific terms, including a 3 percent card processing line in New York City, so read your own market's page rather than a national summary.

Uber also publishes the direct side of its own business. Webshop, its commission-free ordering page for a restaurant's own website, is priced at a 2.5 percent order processing fee plus $0.29 per order, and the pricing page lists customer data access among what Webshop includes, against performance data, sales analytics and insights for the marketplace plans. That contrast, written by the platform, is the data-ownership answer in one line.

The $40 order, line by line

On a $40 subtotal, the apps' delivery plans leave a restaurant between $28.00 and $34.00 before food and labor; the pickup rates leave $37.20 to $37.60; the direct channels leave $38.38 to $38.71. The table applies each published rate to the same order: list pricing before negotiation, before any merchant-funded promotion, and before the restaurant's own delivery cost on a direct order.

Read the gap at the top tier: a 30 percent plan and a direct order differ by about $10.50 on this one ticket. The National Restaurant Association's February 2026 release reported that 42 percent of operators said their restaurant was not profitable in 2025. On a channel taking a quarter or more of the subtotal, that is the margin.

What the table leaves out, on both sides

The table flatters both sides a little. On the app side it omits merchant-funded promotions, Sponsored Listings and the tablet. On the direct side it omits delivery itself, the software fee for the ordering page, and the fact that a direct order has to be found before it can be placed.

• Promotions on the apps are paid for by the restaurant: DoorDash's formula is the discount or delivery cost plus a marketing fee per confirmed order, and the commission applies to the discounted subtotal.
• Delivery on a direct order is not free. DoorDash's own ordering product says customers pay the delivery fee when a Dasher carries it; Uber Direct starts at $7.99 per delivery. Pickup orders carry neither.
• Software for the ordering page runs from zero to a monthly fee: Square launched its self-serve ordering in September 2020 at no additional charge, and DoorDash's direct ordering states no monthly fee. Others charge monthly.
• Card processing on marketplace orders is inside DoorDash's commission; some Uber Eats cities add a processing line. Direct orders always carry processing, which is the rate the table uses.
• Chargebacks, refunds and the handling of a wrong order differ by channel and are not on any pricing page.

Who owns the guest after the order

On a marketplace order the platform holds the customer relationship: Uber's pricing page lists performance data, sales analytics and insights for marketplace plans and reserves customer data access for Webshop, and DoorDash's direct-ordering FAQ names the ability to own your customer data as a feature to look for in an ordering platform. On a direct order, the restaurant holds the name, the contact and the order history.

That is the asset the fee comparison undersells. A guest who ordered direct can be reached for the next slow Tuesday, enrolled in a rewards program, and told about a new menu, for roughly nothing. A guest who ordered through an app is the app's to show your competitor to next time. The practical rule: let the apps do discovery, and give every app guest a reason to order direct the second time.

What this looks like when it runs

Running, the direct channel is three connected pieces: an ordering page the restaurant owns, a Google Business Profile whose ordering preference points at that page rather than at an app, and a rewards program that only pays out on direct orders. Google's Business Profile page for restaurants says a restaurant can manage ordering preferences by indicating a preferred partner or disabling ordering, so a guest who searched for you by name can land on your menu rather than a marketplace's.

Mirastart builds and runs that layer for Charlotte restaurants. At Sushi Hana, with locations in Ballantyne and South End, Mirastart built the QR table ordering and the Sushi Hana Club app: a guest scans the code at the table, the menu opens on their phone, the order reaches the right ticket, and the visit lands in a rewards account in the Sushi Hana Club app that the guest keeps on their phone for the next visit. The same mechanics are what a direct channel needs to compete with an app with a national marketing budget and a 25 percent fee.