How Much Does DoorDash Charge Restaurants in 2026?

The short answer: on DoorDash's US Marketplace plans, delivery commission is 15%, 25%, or 30% depending on which partnership plan you're on, and pickup is 6% on all three. DoorDash states there's no activation fee, subscription fee, software fee, cancellation fee, or contract fee — you pay when orders come in.

That's the headline. The number that actually matters to your business is what those percentages add up to over a year, and what portion of it you could keep. This walks through both.

The three Marketplace plans

DoorDash sells restaurant partnerships in three tiers. The difference between them is visibility in the app — how prominently you're surfaced to customers browsing — and how much marketing support comes bundled in.

Plan	Delivery commission	Pickup commission	Free trial
Basic	15%	6%	7 days at 0%
Plus	25%	6%	30 days at 0%
Premier	30%	6%	30 days at 0%

Rates as published on DoorDash's US merchant site at the time of writing (August 2026). Platform pricing changes — check DoorDash's merchant pricing page for the current terms before making a decision, and check your own merchant statement for the rate you're actually being charged.

The tier decision is genuinely a trade, not a trap. Basic at 15% keeps far more of each ticket but surfaces you less; Premier at 30% buys reach. Which one wins depends entirely on whether DoorDash is a discovery channel for you (new customers who've never heard of you) or a convenience channel for customers who already know your name. If it's the latter, you are paying a discovery premium on customers you already earned.

What sits outside the headline percentage

The commission is the big number, but it isn't the only line on the statement. When you're modelling the real cost, account for:

• Promotions and sponsored placement. In-app advertising and discount campaigns are separate spend, and they're how many restaurants end up well above their nominal commission rate on an all-in basis.
• Order errors, refunds, and adjustments. Missing items and refunded orders come out of your side.
• Menu-price inflation. Many restaurants raise delivery-menu prices to absorb the commission. That's a real strategy, but it's a cost paid in customer perception rather than in dollars — and the customer can see both prices.
• The customer's fees. Delivery fees, service fees, and tips are charged to the customer, not to you. They don't hit your statement, but they do shape whether the customer orders at all — which is why the all-in price on the app matters to your volume.

What this looks like over a year

Percentages are easy to wave off; annual dollars are not. Take a restaurant averaging a $30 ticket with 25 delivery orders a day, six days a week:

Commission rate	Per day	Per week	Per year
15%	$112.50	$675	$35,100
25%	$187.50	$1,125	$58,500
30%	$225	$1,350	$70,200

The gap between the top and bottom row — about $35,000 a year on this volume — is roughly a full-time employee. That's the scale of the decision, and it's why it's worth running with your own ticket average and order count rather than ours.

The three ways to pay less

There are only three real levers, and they're not equally useful.

1. Move down a tier

Dropping from Premier to Basic cuts the rate by half. You lose in-app visibility. Worth testing if a meaningful share of your app orders come from people who searched for you by name — you were paying for discovery you didn't need.

2. Push volume toward pickup

Pickup is 6% versus 15–30% on delivery. If your location has easy parking and a decent share of customers nearby, nudging orders toward pickup is the cheapest structural change available. It's also the easiest to under-use.

3. Move repeat customers to your own channel

This is the only lever that changes the economics rather than trimming them. An order placed on your own website or over your own phone line costs you payment processing — a couple of percent — instead of a 15–30% commission. Even DoorDash's own direct-ordering product is sold on this basis: 0% commission on direct orders, with payment processing as the charge.

The honest caveat: direct ordering isn't free. The two real costs are getting the order taken — somebody has to answer the phone during the dinner rush, or your site has to make ordering genuinely easy — and arranging delivery if the customer wants it delivered. That's why direct ordering pays off with repeat customers rather than first-time discovery. Use the marketplace to be found; use your own channel to keep the people who already found you.

Where the phone fits

Most independent restaurants already have a direct channel they're under-using: the phone. It costs nothing per order and it's how a large share of regulars would prefer to order anyway. The problem is that during the exact hours those orders come in, nobody can pick up — and an unanswered call at 6:45pm goes straight back to the app.

That's the specific gap Victor AI was built for: he answers your restaurant's line, takes to-go and catering orders, and handles the calls that would otherwise ring out during a rush. You can hear him yourself — his demo line is (501) 833-4751, and it's a real conversation, not a recording.

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