Usually yes, but by less than the commission. To earn the same money per order at a 25% commission you would need about a 33% rise, which loses too many orders. An 8 to 15% rise on high-margin dishes, checked against the volume you can afford to lose, and against your platform's price rules, is the safer move.
The decision rests on one sum: what an app order earns you after food, packaging and commission, compared with what the same basket earns when the customer rings or orders direct. The model below does it on five dishes so you can copy it for your own menu in an evening.
What the platforms charge, as listed in October 2026
Commission is a percentage of the food price the customer sees on the app, so raising the price on the app also raises the commission you pay on it, though not by as much as the extra money you keep.
| Platform | Delivery commission by plan | Pickup commission | Notes from the page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uber Eats | Lite 20%, Plus 25%, Premium 30%; 15% if you deliver yourself | 7% | The 7% pickup fee needs validated in-store pricing; otherwise 10%. The page lists lower Lite rates in select areas. |
| DoorDash | Basic 15%, Plus 25%, Premier 30% | 6% | Free trial periods of 7 or 30 days at 0% commission, depending on plan. No price-parity rule stated on the page. |
Higher tiers buy more visibility, and that is a promise about reach, not a guarantee of orders. Whatever your own rate, plug that figure into the model. Rates differ by market and change, so use the one on your current agreement, not the headline. Card processing and any promotions you fund come on top and need their own lines in the sheet.
The five-dish model, with numbers
An illustration, not real data. A takeaway sells five bestsellers. Prices are what customers pay in the shop. Packaging is a flat $0.50 per dish. Commission is 25% of the food price on the app. All figures in USD.
| Dish | Shop price | Food cost | Packaging | Direct contribution | App at same price (25%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken tikka masala | $12.00 | $3.60 | $0.50 | $7.90 | $4.90 |
| Vegetable biryani | $10.00 | $2.80 | $0.50 | $6.70 | $4.20 |
| Lamb kebab wrap | $9.00 | $3.00 | $0.50 | $5.50 | $3.25 |
| Large fries | $4.00 | $0.90 | $0.50 | $2.60 | $1.60 |
| Mixed grill platter | $18.00 | $6.30 | $0.50 | $11.20 | $6.70 |
| One of each | $53.00 | $16.60 | $2.50 | $33.90 | $20.65 |
Contribution here means what is left to pay rent, wages and profit. At an unchanged price, the basket's contribution falls from $33.90 to $20.65 on the app, a 39% drop, because the $13.25 commission is more than a third of what the basket earned. That is the real cost: commission on price takes a share of a figure that already had food and packaging cost taken out.
Three price scenarios on the same basket
| Scenario | App basket price | Commission (25%) | Contribution per basket | Orders you can lose before you are worse off |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No rise | $53.00 | $13.25 | $20.65 | None (baseline) |
| 10% rise | $58.30 | $14.58 | $24.63 | about 16% |
| 15% rise | $60.95 | $15.24 | $26.61 | about 22% |
| 33% rise (full gross-up) | $70.67 | $17.67 | $33.90 | about 39% |
The last column is the number that settles the argument. At a 10% rise each order earns 19% more ($24.63 against $20.65), so you can lose up to 16% of your app orders and still earn the same total. Work it as 1 minus (old contribution divided by new contribution): 1 - 20.65/24.63 = 0.161. If you think a 10% rise would cost you more than 16% of orders, do not do it; if it would cost less, it pays.
The full 33% gross-up restores the contribution exactly ($70.67 less $17.67 commission less $19.10 of food and packaging is $33.90), but only if the customer does not leave. A $16 chicken tikka masala on the app beside a $12 one in the shop is a visible gap, and customers compare on a competitor's listing, not your own.
It depends: five factors that move the answer
- Margin per dish. A high-food-cost item such as a $6.30 platter loses most of its contribution to commission. Low-cost items like fries and drinks lose less in proportion, but the dollar contribution is small.
- How price-sensitive your app customers are. People comparing six takeaways on a Friday night look at price and delivery time. People who search for your name behave more like loyal customers.
- Your commission tier. At 15% the full gross-up is a 17.6% rise, not 33%. At 30% it is 43%. The tier you chose changes the answer more than most owners expect.
- Platform rules. Uber's page links its pickup rate to in-store price matching. A markup on pickup items could cost you 3 points of commission (10% instead of 7%), which wipes out some of the gain. DoorDash's page states no parity rule. Neither page is the contract, so read yours.
- What else you are paying for. If the app also brings a promotion you fund, treat the discount as another cost on the same line.
Four takeaways, four different answers
The curry house above. Contribution per basket is healthy (64% direct), so a modest 10% rise on the three highest-ticket dishes, leaving fries and sides alone, protects the "value" feel of the menu while recovering most of the loss.
Take that partial version. Raise tikka masala to $13.20, platter to $19.80 and biryani to $11.00 (all +10%), leave the wrap at $9.00 and fries at $4.00. The basket is $57.00, commission $14.25, contribution $57.00 less $19.10 less $14.25 = $23.65, against $20.65. The three-dollar gain per basket needs a 12.7% order loss to vanish, which is comfortable if most of the loss risk sits on dishes people do not price-check.
A pizza takeaway with low food cost. Say a large pizza sells for $14 with $2.80 of ingredients and $0.60 of box, a 76% direct contribution. At 25% commission the app contribution is $14 less $2.80, $0.60 and $3.50, or $7.10. Because food cost is low, the commission bites on a lot of margin, and a 12% rise ($15.68) restores about $1.26 a pizza. Pizza is also a category where customers know the price, so test with one size first.
A sandwich shop with a tight margin. A $7 toastie with $2.60 of food and $0.40 of packaging contributes $4.00 direct. At 25% commission, it contributes $2.25. A rise to $7.70 gives $2.78. At these sums, delivery is barely worth doing for a single toastie; the fix is basket size. A minimum order, or bundle deals with a drink and a side, matter more than the price rise.
A dessert counter with high margin. A $6 slice with $1.20 of ingredients and $0.40 of packaging contributes $4.40 direct and $2.90 on the app at 25%. A price rise barely matters; what matters is whether the app brings you customers you would not otherwise reach.
Cheaper alternatives to a straight price rise
Raising the whole menu is the bluntest tool. These often work better, alone or together.
- Reprice selectively. Mark up the items where commission hurts most (high food cost, low price sensitivity) and leave the anchor items customers compare, such as a standard burger meal.
- Shrink the app menu. Offer only dishes that travel well and earn well. A 20-item app menu with the best 12 beats 60 items with a dozen loss-makers.
- Raise the basket. Add "add a side or drink" prompts, set a minimum order, and create a bundle priced to hit a target contribution.
- Move repeat customers off the app. A card in the bag with your own ordering link or number and a small thank-you for ordering direct. Check your platform agreement first, as some restrict promoting other channels on their own orders. See taking takeaway orders on WhatsApp with AI for one direct route and AI ordering against delivery apps for the fuller cost comparison.
- Negotiate or switch tier. If you take most orders from one platform, compare the cheaper tier's lower reach with your actual repeat share. Self-delivery rates, such as the 15% Uber lists, suit a takeaway with its own drivers.
Order-volume risk, and how to test it without guessing
Nobody can tell you your elasticity, and statistics from other restaurants do not transfer. Measure your own.
- Baseline for four weeks. Record app orders per week, average basket and conversion rate if the dashboard shows it.
- Change one thing. Raise the price on the three top-earning dishes by 8 to 10%. Leave everything else, including photos and promotions, alone.
- Compare four weeks later on orders and on contribution, not on revenue. Weeks with a holiday or rain do not compare to weeks without.
- Decide with the table above. If orders fell by less than the break-even in the last column, keep the rise and try the next step. If they fell by more, go back.
Better listings can lift orders without touching price. See rewriting delivery app descriptions and photos with AI, which is cheaper to test than a rise.
Using AI to build and check the sheet
A chatbot or spreadsheet assistant can set up the model in minutes. Give it real figures, and keep the instructions exact.
I run a takeaway. Build a table with these columns: dish, shop price, food cost, packaging, direct contribution, app price at X% markup, commission at 25% of the app price, app contribution, and the percentage of app orders I could lose before my total contribution falls below today's. Use these dishes: [paste dish, price, food cost]. Show formulas I can paste into a spreadsheet and check one row by hand.A realistic sample output (illustrative) is a table with the right columns, plus formulas such as app contribution = app price x (1 - commission) - food cost - packaging. What to fix: assistants sometimes compute commission on cost instead of price, or round the break-even in the wrong direction. Check the first row by hand: $12.00 less $3.60 less $0.50 less $3.00 is $4.90. If your first row does not match, stop and correct the formula before trusting the rest. For a broader method on dish costs and which items to promote, see AI menu engineering.
A call on each of your own dishes
Once the sheet exists, sort the dishes by app contribution and ask three questions of each.
- Does it still earn at least your minimum contribution on the app, say $3 per dish? If not, hide it on the app or raise it.
- Do customers compare its price? If yes, hold it and recover the margin on add-ons.
- Is it a hero item in your listing photos? If yes, leave it alone and mark up the items near it.
Write the outcome per dish: hold, raise 10%, raise 15%, hide. For a cloud kitchen running several brands, the same approach scales per brand, which cloud kitchen margins after commission covers. For a view across channels, one queue for every order channel shows how to track them together.
Turning per-basket gains into a weekly figure
Basket sums are tidy, but owners think in weeks. Take the same illustration and say an average app order is half the sample basket: $26.50 of food at the shop price, contributing $10.33 after commission at no rise. The takeaway gets 200 app orders a week, so the app contributes about $2,065 a week.
| What happens after a 10% rise | Orders a week | Contribution per order | Weekly contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Today, no rise | 200 | $10.33 | $2,065 |
| Orders fall 12% | 176 | $12.31 | $2,167 |
| Orders fall 16% | 168 | $12.31 | $2,069 (break-even) |
| Orders fall 20% | 160 | $12.31 | $1,970 |
The picture has two sides. At a 12% order loss the takeaway gains about $100 a week, roughly $5,300 a year, while handling 24 fewer deliveries. Fewer orders also means less packing and fewer chances for a late rider to cost you a review, which does not appear in the contribution figure but matters on a busy Friday. At a 20% loss it is $95 a week worse off. The edge of the table is the thing to watch, not the middle.
Reading your own statement to find the real commission
The headline rate is rarely the whole deduction. Open last month's payout statement and build one line per order type.
- Gross food sales on the app, before anything comes off.
- Commission, as a percentage of that figure. Divide it out to confirm it matches your plan.
- Funded promotions, such as a free item or a percentage off, where you pay for part of the discount.
- Refunds and adjustments for missing items, which come out of your payout.
- Anything else: advertising fees, marketing credits or processing lines.
Add them up and divide by gross food sales. If your plan says 25% and the all-in figure is 31%, use 31% in the model. A smaller pattern worth spotting is refunds clustering on a single dish; if the fries arrive cold and get refunded, the dish is losing money at any price.
Asking the platform the right question
Do not guess at parity rules or promotion limits. Send support one short message and keep the reply.
Hello, I want to set different item prices on my delivery menu from my in-shop menu.
1. Does my agreement require price parity between in-app and in-store prices for delivery orders?
2. Does it for pickup orders, and does it affect my pickup commission rate?
3. Are there restrictions on telling customers about direct ordering?
Please confirm in writing. My store ID is [ID]. Thank you, [your name]An assistant can draft this in a moment, but the answer has to come from the platform. If the reply is vague, assume the stricter reading until it is clear.
What customers see, and how to word the rise
Most customers never see both prices, but some will. Two things keep goodwill. First, never present the app price as a "shop price". Name the menu honestly ("delivery menu") if the app allows a note. Second, give the direct channel a real reason to exist: free garlic bread over a certain order, or a repeat-customer discount of your own. That turns a price gap into a reason to order from you, rather than a complaint.
A short, honest line for your own website or social post, drafted with AI and edited: "Delivery apps charge us a commission on every order, so app prices are a little higher than our shop menu. Order direct on our site or by phone for our standard prices." Keep it factual and skip any criticism of the platform.
A mistake that cost a takeaway real money
A common pattern, described generally: an owner raises every item on the app by 20% in one go, because the commission sum says it is needed. Orders dip, then the owner discounts the whole menu to recover them, and ends up funding a promotion on top of an inflated price, which means commission is charged on the higher figure. The cure is slower: one change at a time, measured over four weeks, with a clear reversal point.
A second pattern is forgetting packaging. Add $0.50 per dish and the contribution figures shift by a few percent; add a delivery bag, sauces and cutlery and they shift more. If your costs are still estimates, price a few real orders from your till receipts first.
Checks before you press save
- Read your platform agreement for price-parity wording, and ask support to confirm in writing if it is unclear.
- Check any rules that apply to fees or menu prices where you trade; some markets regulate these.
- Look at how the listing reads: does a higher price on the app sit with an honest description, such as "delivery menu"?
- Set a review date four weeks out and put it in the calendar.
- Keep a copy of the old prices so that you can revert in minutes.
If you want to work through your own numbers with someone, my AI implementation consultation includes exactly this kind of margin check. The sheet itself is yours either way: dish, price, food cost, packaging, commission, contribution, and the order loss you can afford.
Questions takeaways ask about app pricing
Is it allowed to charge more on the app than in the shop?
It depends on your agreement with each platform and on rules where you trade. Uber Eats' pricing page ties its 7% pickup rate to in-app prices matching in-store prices. DoorDash's pricing page mentions no parity rule. Read your own contract, and ask the platform in writing before changing prices.
How much do I need to raise prices to cancel a 25% commission?
To keep the same money per order you divide the price by 0.75, a rise of about 33%. Most takeaways cannot do that without losing orders, so a part-rise of 8 to 15% combined with other fixes is the usual compromise.
Should I just stop using delivery apps?
Only if the model says an app order earns you less than your minimum contribution per order, after food, packaging and commission. Many takeaways keep an app for discovery and move repeat customers to direct ordering.
Do I include packaging and driver tips in the model?
Include packaging, because it comes out of your pocket. Leave tips out; they go to the courier. Count any promotions you fund, such as buy-one-get-one offers, because those lower the price commission is calculated on and the money you keep.
Can AI build this model for me?
AI is good at laying out the sheet and checking the arithmetic, if you give it real prices and costs. Check every output against a hand calculation on one dish, because a spreadsheet assistant can mix up commission on price versus commission on cost.
Further reads
- How to Set Up an AI Phone Line for Takeaway Orders — Another direct route for repeat customers.
- AI for Takeaways: What Is Worth Automating and What Is Not — Where else the time and money go.
- AI for a Cloud Kitchen: Keep Every Brand's Menu Consistent on Apps — Keeping several app menus in step.
- Coffee Shop Pricing: Cost per Cup and Margins Worked Out With AI — The same cost-per-item method for drinks.
- Can a Restaurant Use AI Food Photography on Menus and Delivery Apps? — Better listings raise conversion before you touch prices.
- Is Yelp Host Worth It for a Small Restaurant? — An independent cost-and-listing verdict on Yelp Host: the price, the break-even sum, and what your Yelp page and POS must have in place.
- Pizza Delivery Software: Which Options Handle Dispatch and Texts? — Which delivery tools assign drivers, promise realistic times and send on-its-way texts for a pizza shop, with list prices and a Friday-night walk-through.
- Takeaway EPOS Systems Compared: Which AI Features Matter — Score takeaway EPOS systems on the jobs that matter: delivery-app orders, kitchen printing, reports and contract terms, then check the AI extras.
- Cloud Kitchen Inventory: Forecast Prep by Delivery Platform With AI — How to forecast orders per delivery app and daypart, measure promo and weather effects, and turn the result into a prep sheet your kitchen can follow.
- Food Truck Pricing: Set Menu Prices After Fees, Fuel and Pitch Costs — One Saturday market worked through with numbers: overhead per service day, cost per portion and the menu prices that clear a 12% margin.
- How to Price Ice Cream: Cost per Scoop and Menu Prices — Test real scoops per tub, cost every cone, sundae and pint, then set prices against a margin target worked out from your own overheads.
- Pizza Shop Marketing: Fill Slow Nights With AI-Written Offers — Find the slow nights in your orders, have AI write five offers, then test each one's margin before it reaches a customer.
- Restaurant Menu Price Increase: Test Each Change by Dish With AI — A dish-by-dish plan for passing cost rises on to the menu in waves, with a price-change log and a POS read-out an AI can check for you.
- Are Ghost Kitchens Still Worth It? A Cash-Flow Test You Run With AI — Break-even orders per day, a six-month cash ramp and a sensitivity table for a ghost kitchen, plus prompts that pull your own rates from payout statements.
- What Is a Ghost Kitchen? How an Existing Restaurant Can Test One — What a ghost kitchen is, and how a restaurant can test one from its current kitchen on one delivery app: menu, per-order economics and a four-week log.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Uber Eats restaurant pricing page and DoorDash Marketplace merchant page, read in October 2026. All dish prices and costs are illustrative.