DoorDash vs. your own online ordering: what restaurants actually keep in 2026

Take a $40 delivery order on DoorDash’s most common plan. DoorDash keeps $10. The same order on your own website, paid by card, costs you about $1.46 in processing. That $8.54 gap is before we even get to the bigger difference: on your own site, you know who the customer is.

This post lays out what the delivery apps charge in 2026, what running your own ordering costs, what California law does and doesn’t protect, and when the apps are still worth using.

What the apps charge in 2026

The cheaper tiers come with less reach. On Uber Eats Lite, for example, your restaurant only shows up when someone searches for you by name. The higher tiers buy a bigger delivery radius, more visibility, and access to subscription members, which is why many restaurants end up on them.

What a year of that costs

Here’s the same volume through a delivery app and through your own ordering. Made-up but typical numbers:

Roughly $44,000 a year on one modest channel. At a typical full-service margin of about 3%, that’s the profit on nearly $1.5 million in sales.

The cost that doesn’t show up on the statement: the customer

When someone orders through DoorDash, DoorDash gets the customer. Restaurants get aggregate reports (how many orders were from new versus repeat customers, which zip codes they came from) and a masked phone number that stops working shortly after delivery. Uber Eats shares a customer’s name and email only if the customer opts in at checkout.

That matters because repeat customers are where the money is. If you can’t email or text the people who order from you, you can’t bring them back yourself. You’ll pay the app again, every time, for a customer who already likes your food. (More on that math in customer lifetime value and repeat rate.)

What California law does, and doesn’t, do for you

• No required data sharing. California has no law requiring delivery apps to give restaurants customer data. A data-sharing clause was cut from AB 2149 before it passed in 2020. New York City passed a data-sharing law, but courts struck it down, most recently on appeal in August 2026.
• AB 2149 (2020): an app must have a written agreement with you before it lists your restaurant.
• AB 286 (2021): an app can’t charge customers more than the menu price you posted, has to pass along 100% of tips, and has to give you and the customer an itemized breakdown of costs.
• AB 578 (2025, in effect in 2026): adds full refunds to the original payment method, access to a real person for customer service, and itemized breakdowns for customers, restaurants, and drivers.
• No fee cap in San Diego. The City of San Diego capped delivery commissions at 15% (plus 3% for other fees) during the pandemic, but the cap expired on October 13, 2021. San Francisco’s 15% cap is permanent, and it now covers only a basic delivery tier.

What about marking up menu prices on the apps?

A lot of restaurants raise prices on the apps to cover the commission. A 2022 Credit Suisse study found limited-service chains marked up delivery prices by about 20% on average. It works on paper, but DoorDash’s own 2023 data says restaurants that mark up see up to 37% fewer sales and up to 78% lower reorder rates. Markups also cost you the lower pickup commission, which requires prices to match your store.

Do customers even want to order direct?

It depends on who’s asking. In a late-2024 survey by NCR Voyix, 58% of consumers said they prefer ordering delivery through a restaurant’s own app (29%) or website (29%). In DoorDash’s own 2025 survey, 46% said they prefer the third-party apps. The fair reading: a lot of your customers are happy to order direct if it’s easy, and some never will be.

What running your own ordering costs

Note the last two rows: the delivery apps now sell their own commission-free ordering for your website. They can be a cheap way to start. Before you choose one, check whether you get the full customer list or only the customers who opt in.

When the apps still make sense

This isn’t all-or-nothing. The apps can earn their fee when:

• You’re new and need to be found by people who don’t know you yet.
• You use them mainly for pickup, at the lower commission with matching prices.
• You treat them as a way to meet customers, and give those customers a reason to order direct next time.
• You’re in a spot, like near offices or campuses, where most delivery demand lives on the apps.

The mistake is letting the apps become your main way of selling. If most of your off-premises orders go through someone else’s platform, you’re renting your own customers.

The short version

• Delivery apps take 15–30% of each delivery order, and Uber Eats raised its rates in March 2026.
• Your own ordering costs about 3% per order plus a small monthly fee.
• On 100 orders a week at $40, that gap is about $44,000 a year.
• The apps keep the customer relationship, and California doesn’t require them to share it.
• Marking up app prices tends to cost you sales and repeat orders.
• Use the apps to be found, and your own site to be ordered from again.