Phone orders vs. DoorDash: what your pizzeria keeps on every order

DoorDash commission rates in 2026 are 15%, 25% or 30% on delivery and 6% on pickup [1]. On a $38 order, your pizzeria keeps $26.60 to $32.30 when DoorDash delivers, $35.72 when the customer picks up through the app, and $36.86 when they call you directly and tap a card at the counter [3].

That raw math is not enough to decide. The delivery commission also pays the driver, a phone order costs staff time and missed calls at rush hour, and the apps bring you customers who had never heard of you. Here is the like-for-like comparison, built on the official rate cards.

How much does DoorDash charge restaurants in 2026?

DoorDash's public rate card for US restaurants, checked on October 1, 2026, has three plans [1]:

• Basic: 15% on delivery. Your store is listed to customers nearby; DoorDash calls the plan “designed for local exposure.”
• Plus: 25% on delivery. You reach customers farther away, they pay a lower delivery fee, and DashPass members can order from you.
• Premier: 30% on delivery, with the widest delivery range, a sponsored listing and an order guarantee.
• Pickup: 6% on every plan, as long as your DoorDash pickup prices match your in-store prices.

The percentage applies to each order's subtotal, with no monthly fee, and covers your listing, the Dasher, customer support and credit card processing [1]. DoorDash also notes that you can set different prices for delivery orders, and that many restaurants do: if you mark up your app menu, run the math on the marked-up price. Orders through Online Ordering by DoorDash are commission-free but carry a payment processing fee.

Uber Eats sits in the same range: 20% on Lite (15% in select cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Seattle), 25% on Plus and 30% on Premium. Pickup costs 7%, or 10% if you have not validated that your app prices match your in-store prices [2]. Uber Eats adds that fees may differ with local regulations: your contract and your monthly statement are what count.

Phone order vs. DoorDash: how much do you keep on a $38 order?

Take a $38 order, the average US takeout and delivery spend in TouchBistro's 2025 diner survey [4], and swap in your own average ticket. Then compare like with like: pickup with pickup, delivery with delivery. App commissions include card processing, so the phone order has to carry its card fee too, here at Square's public rates: 2.6% + 15¢ for a card tapped in person, 3.5% + 15¢ for a card number keyed in [3].

Two honest surprises. On pickup, the gap is smaller than most owners think: $2.28 through DoorDash against $1.14 by phone. On delivery, the app is not always the expensive option: on Basic, DoorDash keeps $5.70, less than the $7.99 starting price Uber Direct charges to deliver an order you took yourself [2]. The gap opens on Plus and Premier, at $9.50 and $11.40 per order.

For delivery, the real question is what one run costs you. If your driver, car and gas cost less than the commission on your plan, direct delivery wins. With Uber Direct, you set the delivery fee your customer pays [2]. And a percentage grows with the ticket: on a $60 family order, 30% is $18, while your driver's run costs the same.

Are phone orders really free for a restaurant?

No. A phone order pays no commission, but it has two costs the table does not show.

Staff time

Someone answers, takes the order, reads it back and gives a pickup time. Say 3 minutes per call and $20 an hour for an employee, payroll costs included (two assumptions: use your own numbers). Each call then costs about $1 of labor, so a phone pickup order comes to about $2.14 with the card fee, against $2.28 through DoorDash. The real cost of the phone is your team's time: a 40-call evening is two hours of someone's shift, which is exactly what an AI voice agent takes off their hands. We break it down in how many hours your team spends on the phone.

Missed calls at rush hour

This is the real cost. At 7 p.m. on a Friday, the phone rings while everyone is at the oven or the register. A customer who gets voicemail may call back later, call another pizzeria, or open an app where the same order costs you 6% to 30%. To put a number on it for your shop, read what missed calls really cost a restaurant.

Should your pizzeria quit DoorDash and Uber Eats?

Probably not. The apps do something your phone cannot: they get you discovered. A customer who has never heard of you will not call you. DoorDash makes the argument itself: its orders are often “incremental,” from customers who would not have found or visited you otherwise, so the comparison becomes “delivery margin vs. no order at all” [1]. That holds for a new customer. It holds much less for a regular who already has your number.

The rate cards put a price on discovery. On Uber Eats Lite, you show up when customers search for your store [2]; DoorDash Basic is built for local exposure [1]. Reaching more customers takes the rate to 25% or 30%. That extra is an acquisition cost: worth paying for a first order, much less for the tenth order from the same family.

And the phone still matters. In a 2023 CivicScience survey of US adults who order pizza, calling the restaurant was the top answer: 39% order directly by phone, 34% through the restaurant's website and only 8% through a third-party app like DoorDash or Uber Eats [5]. Across all restaurant types, TouchBistro's survey of 1,500 diners, run by The Harris Poll in October 2024, found that 15% usually place to-go orders by phone, ahead of third-party apps at 13% [4]. These are what consumers say, not transaction data, but plenty of customers still call.

How do you get regulars to order direct?

A sensible plan comes down to three moves.

1. Keep the apps for discovery. Treat the commission as the price of a new customer, and track it every month on your statement.
2. Bring regulars back to direct orders. Put your number on the window, the menu, your Google listing and the bags of your direct orders, plus an ordering page if you have one. Every $38 delivery order that moves from DoorDash Plus to the phone saves you $9.50 in commission, minus the card fee and your own delivery cost.
3. Answer the direct calls at rush hour. Moving regulars to the phone is pointless if nobody picks up at 7 p.m. That is where an AI voice agent like Soleir can step in: it says it is an AI, takes the order when your team cannot answer and sends it to the restaurant.

Then redo the table with your own numbers: your average ticket, your plan, your cost per delivery run. Your monthly DoorDash or Uber Eats statement is the final check.