The hidden costs of delivery apps, beyond the commission

The commission is the cost you can see. A delivery app can also cost a restaurant in ways that never show up in the plan's rate: guests whose phone number and email stay with the app, error charges and promotions taken out of the payout, paying to be seen, an app price your guests may not know is higher, and an agreement that can change. They're hidden only in the sense that none of them is in the rate you signed up for.

The apps give you something real. They can bring you guests who have never heard of you, and a California Senate committee's 2020 bill analysis said they can help restaurants grow their sales and customer base. On a delivery order, the app finds the driver who picks up the food and takes it to the guest's door. What follows is the rest of the bill, from court records, city and state laws and the apps' own filings, as read on October 12, 2026. For the plans and rates themselves, see our post on what the apps charge.

The guest list stays with the app

When a guest orders on an app's marketplace, they give the app their full name, phone number, email and delivery address. The restaurant that cooks the food generally gets the first name, the last initial and the order. That is how the federal appeals court in New York described it in its August 5, 2026 decision in DoorDash v. City of New York. The court said the apps' contracts typically leave control of that data with the app: DoorDash's standard agreement lets restaurants use what they receive only to fill orders and says customer data belongs to DoorDash, and Grubhub allows wider use only in a few cases.

New York City tried to change that. Its Customer Data Law of 2021 required the apps to give a restaurant that asked the name, phone number, email, address and order of every customer who had ordered from it, with each customer presumed to agree unless they opted out, order by order. DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats sued. A federal district court held that the law violated the First Amendment and barred the city from enforcing it against the three apps' marketplaces, and the appeals court affirmed. It pointed to an opt-in as the less burdensome choice, and noted that Uber Eats already shares customer data with restaurants under certain agreements when customers opt in.

Here is why that costs you. A guest you win through an app is a guest you can reach only through the app. The city told the court that a small share of a restaurant's customers, its loyal patrons, places an outsized share of its orders. While the law was being debated, the New York City Hospitality Alliance warned that a restaurant could not leave an app without “los[ing] access to their own customers.”

Not every app product works this way. The same record says that with DoorDash's Storefront, which puts an ordering page on the restaurant's own website, what the guest enters stays with the restaurant. And since July 1, 2025, Florida's law has required apps to give restaurants a way to contact a guest while the order is being made, on its way, and for up to two hours after pickup. That helps you fix an order. It doesn't give you a guest list.

What comes off the payout besides the commission

The plan rate is what the app charges on the order. Your payout is what's left after everything the app takes out, and three kinds of charges can sit between the two.

• Error charges. When an order goes wrong, the app can charge part of the cost to you, depending on your app and your agreement. California's law calls these charges for customer order and delivery errors, and requires an app to tell a restaurant how they are calculated, how they are split between the app and the restaurant, and how to dispute them, including whether disputes may be resolved automatically. Outside California, ask your app the same three questions.
• Promotions you fund. A discount you agree to pay for, such as money off or a free item, comes out of your side of the order. In April 2026, New York City's consumer agency settled with the delivery app HungryPanda after its investigation found the app bundled fees into one line, often relabeled them, and called overcharges “promotion deductions”. HungryPanda agreed to pay more than $580,000 back to more than 380 restaurants. Check every promotion line on your statement against a promotion you agreed to.
• Ads. Our fees post shows that all three big apps list ads among their optional extras, and for DoorDash, selling them is a growing business. DoorDash's annual report for 2025 says it offers advertising to merchants as a value-added service, and names a growing contribution from advertising among the reasons its 2025 revenue grew. Before you buy, work out what one extra order leaves you after the commission.

Your statement is where all of this shows up. Under Local Law 79 of 2025, New York City requires apps to send restaurants a monthly statement that itemizes the fees charged, and California requires an itemized cost breakdown of each order for the restaurant. Here is what the extra lines can do to one month.

That gap matters when you set app prices. At the 25% plan rate, a $20 dish needs $26.67 on the app to bring in $20. At the 32.75% on the statement, it needs $29.74. Price from the statement, not the plan. Our delivery commission guide has the formula for your real rate.

Listed on an app you never signed with

For years, some apps listed restaurants that had never agreed to it. In December 2024 the FTC and the Illinois attorney general alleged that Grubhub had as many as 325,000 restaurants on its app without their permission, more than half of the restaurants there. According to the FTC, those restaurants got orders from Grubhub drivers for food they didn't serve, drivers' Grubhub cards were sometimes declined and left food unpaid, and diners blamed the restaurants when the food came late or in poor condition. When restaurants asked to come off, the FTC said, Grubhub would try to sell them a paid partnership instead, and often removed them only after they threatened legal action. Grubhub settled, neither admitting nor denying the allegations, according to the court's order, and the FTC said the order requires it to list restaurants only with their consent.

Chicago made a similar claim against DoorDash: the city's complaint said DoorDash listed restaurants without their consent. In November 2025, the city announced a settlement in which DoorDash would pay $3.25 million to restaurants listed without consent that are no longer on the app, give $5.8 million in commission and marketing credits to eligible restaurants on it, and not list Chicago restaurants without consent again. A settlement ends the claims without a court ruling on them. DoorDash's annual report says it doesn't add new non-partner restaurants for delivery in the United States, and that many US places now require a restaurant's consent first.

Three places now put it in writing, as their laws or agency pages read on October 12, 2026. Read each one for who is covered.

• California. An app needs an agreement that expressly authorizes it before it arranges delivery of your orders, and must remove you within 3 business days of your request, existing contracts aside.
• Florida. An app needs your express consent, written or electronic, and must remove your listing within 10 days of your request, unless an existing agreement says otherwise.
• New York City. An app needs a written agreement before it lists you, says the city's page for restaurants using delivery apps. The page sets no deadline for taking a listing down.

Search for your restaurant's name on each app now and then. If you find a listing you never signed for, ask the app in writing to take it down, and keep the date you asked.

The price guests see, and who they blame

If you raise app prices to cover the commission, some guests will see a higher price than your menu without knowing why. Chicago's complaint said DoorDash did not disclose that menu prices on its app were often higher than buying directly from the restaurant. In April 2026 the FTC asked for public comment on whether a rule is needed for delivery apps' fees and prices, including whether apps make clear when an item's price differs from the store's or restaurant's.

That's no reason to leave app prices too low. New York City says restaurants can charge different prices on an app, with limited exceptions, and Florida bars an app from changing a restaurant's prices without an agreement. It is a reason to tell guests. California lets a restaurant direct the app to show customers the delivery fee and each fee or commission it charges the restaurant. Anywhere, a line on your own menu or website saying app prices are higher because of app fees is free to add, if your agreement allows it.

A late or cold delivery also carries your name. The FTC said diners blamed the restaurants in its complaint for Grubhub's late and poor deliveries, and Florida now requires apps to give restaurants a way to respond to guests' ratings and reviews. Where your app has a reply tool, answer the guest, and say how to order from you directly next time.

When the app changes the deal

Your agreement can change. DoorDash's annual report says competition has led it, and may lead it in the future, to change its commission rates and fees. California requires an app to tell a restaurant about any material change to its agreement, and New York City's Local Law 79 requires apps to tell restaurant partners about new services, fee caps and fee changes. New York City has also been reviewing its fee caps (our fees post has the details), so check the current numbers.

Leaving is allowed: the same report says partner merchants can generally end their agreements with 7 or 30 days' notice. What's hard to take with you is the guests. If your app regulars exist for you only as first names inside the app, a rate change leaves two choices: pay it, or leave and lose your easiest way to reach them. That is the cost of the guest list, and the reason to start building your own now.

What to do: keep the apps for new guests

None of this means switching the apps off. They're good at the first order. The aim is to stop paying a commission on the tenth and the fiftieth.

1. 01Put a card in every app bag with your own ordering link or phone number and a reason to use it next time, so a guest who liked the food can find you without the app. Check your agreement first. New York City says restaurants may include menus and coupons in app orders.
2. 02Build your own list, with permission. A sign-up for news and offers on your website, receipts and bag cards lets you reach regulars yourself when an app changes its rates. Ask first: the appeals court faulted New York's law for building a marketing list no customer asked to join. Marketing emails and texts have legal rules of their own, so check them before you send.
3. 03Make your own ordering the first thing guests find. Check your Google listing's order button and phone number and your website's order links, so a guest who searches for you lands with you. Our free online check reads your website and tells you if its order links go only to the delivery apps.
4. 04Price the app menu from your statement's real rate, so each app order leaves you what a dining room sale of the same dishes does.
5. 05Keep a log of error charges, with the order number, the date and what the guest reported, so you can spot a pattern and have the details ready when you dispute one.

This week

1. 01Pull last month's payout statement for each app and list every line that isn't the commission: promotions, error charges, ads and adjustments. Add them up, so you can see your real rate next to your plan's.
2. 02Ask each app three questions: how error charges are calculated, how they're split between you, and how to dispute them. California makes apps answer these, and the answers tell you which charges are worth disputing anywhere.
3. 03Search for your restaurant on each app and on Google, so you can see whether the listing, the phone number and the order button lead to you.
4. 04Print a bag card with your own ordering link, if your agreement allows it.
5. 05Re-price the app menu with the real rate in the calculator, starting with the dishes that sell most on the apps.