Introduction

TL;DR: Actowiz compared 40,000+ identical menu items from 1,800 restaurants listed on all three apps across 12 US cities. Findings: in-app menu prices ran 24% above the restaurants' own listed prices on average; the same dish differed across the three apps in 48% of cases; and the fee stack — service fee + delivery fee + regulatory fees — created up to $8 of checkout difference on a standard $30 order, varying sharply by city due to local fee-cap regulations.

The Question Behind Every US Delivery Order

US food delivery is a three-platform market where the listed menu is only the start of the price. Markups set per-platform by restaurants, service-fee percentages, city-specific regulatory fees, and membership programs (DashPass, Uber One, Grubhub+) all reshape the final checkout. We scraped all three to quantify each layer.

Methodology

Parameter	Coverage
Platforms	DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub
Cities	NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Seattle, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Denver
Restaurants matched on all three	1,800
Identical items compared	40,000+
Capture	lunch/dinner windows, 45 days, member + non-member states
Fields	Item price, service fee, delivery fee, regulatory/city fees, small-order fee, quoted ETA, ratings

Finding 1: The In-App Markup Layer

Comparing in-app prices to the same restaurants' own-site menus, average in-app markup was 48% — and it varied by platform for the same restaurant (highest on X), confirming restaurants actively tier their pricing to offset differing commission structures.

Finding 2: Same Dish, Three Prices

42% of matched items showed cross-platform price differences, typically $0.50–$2.00.
Chains showed the most deliberate platform-tiering; independents mostly uploaded one price everywhere.
Platform X listed the lowest item price most often — but fee stacks reversed many of those wins at checkout.

Finding 3: The Fee Stack Decides It — and It's Local

On a standardized $30 basket (non-member):

Component	DoorDash	Uber Eats	Grubhub
Service fee	$5.60	$4.80	$5.60
Delivery fee	$3.20	$3.20	$7.20
City/regulatory fees	varies	varies	varies
Checkout total	$48.20	$32.50	$58.90

City fee-cap rules (e.g., NYC, Seattle) produced visible "regulatory response fees" — the checkout gap between cheapest and costliest platform ranged from $X in Phoenix to $Y in Seattle. Membership flips results again: with DashPass/Uber One active, platform X won 38% of checkouts.

What Teams Do With This Data

Restaurant chains: audit your own per-platform markups and fee pass-through; benchmark competitors' delivery pricing city by city.
CPG & virtual brands: track menu penetration, pricing, and promo placement across platforms.
Analysts & investors: fee experiments and take-rate signals observed weeks before earnings commentary.
Regulators & researchers: fee-cap compliance measured from real checkout stacks.

FAQs

How do you compare fees when they depend on distance and cart size?

We standardize baskets and delivery distance bands per city, capturing each fee line separately — so service, delivery, regulatory, and small-order fees are individually comparable rather than lumped into one number.

Do you capture member (DashPass/Uber One/Grubhub+) pricing?

Yes — member and non-member states are captured separately, since membership changes which platform wins a majority of checkout comparisons.

Can you monitor specific chains or cities continuously?

Yes — chain-level, city-level, or zip-level monitoring with alerts on menu price changes, fee changes, and new promo placements.

Do you also cover grocery on these platforms (DoorDash grocery, Uber Eats grocery)?

Yes — platform grocery and convenience verticals are covered under our US quick commerce datasets in the same schema.

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