A $20 delivery order at a healthy 15% margin should net you $3. After a standard 25% platform commission, you’re left with 50 cents. That’s an 83% haircut on your profit, before packaging, before refunds, before anything else.
So why do smart operators still treat that commission like a marketing expense? Because that’s the story the platforms have told for a decade. This week’s episode calls it out with a framework I’m calling the Delivery Tax Stack: three layers, three different questions about where your money actually goes.
Layer one is the commission itself, 15% to 30% headline, 35% to 45% once packaging, processing, and forced promos stack on top. Restaurants run 4% to 9% net margins nationally. Do that math.
Layer two is the one that should stop you. New York City just settled with the major platforms, raising the fee cap from 23% to 43%, and for the first time, it’s itemized. One of the four line items: 5%, capped, explicitly labeled “basic marketing and platform visibility.” Not implied value anymore. A named, billed fee. Expect it to spread past New York.
Layer three is what you’re actually getting for it, and the acquisition value is real. Delivery apps drive genuine discovery. The problem is almost nobody measures it. Most operators can’t tell you their acquisition cost by channel, so they’re paying layer one, absorbing layer two, and hoping layer three is worth it.
The full episode breaks down exactly what DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub charge right now, what the FTC’s new proposed rule means for how these fees get disclosed, and what multi-unit groups and independents should each do differently starting this week.
Listen to the full breakdown here, then go pull your own delivery statements. That number, the one specific to your restaurant, is the only one that matters.
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