Most people estimate the cost of delivery as the delivery fee. That is usually the smallest part of it. The largest part is a mark-up on the food itself, presented as though it were the normal price.
The full calculation
To compare properly you need five numbers, and only three of them are shown to you clearly.
| Component | Shown clearly? | Typical size |
|---|---|---|
| Menu mark-up on the platform | No - It looks like the price | The largest single component on many orders |
| Delivery fee | Yes | Fixed or distance-based |
| Service fee | Usually | Often a percentage of the marked-up subtotal |
| Small-order fee | Sometimes | Applied below a threshold |
| Tip | Yes, often pre-set | Your choice, defaults are not neutral |
The compounding in row three is worth noticing. A percentage service fee applied to an already marked-up subtotal charges you a percentage of the mark-up as well as of the food.
How to check the mark-up
Two minutes, once per restaurant, and then you know.
- Pick three items you would actually order.
- Look up their counter prices - The menu search here covers 15,775 items across 255 menus, or use the restaurant's own site.
- Compare against the same three on the delivery platform, before fees.
- The difference is the mark-up, and it will be roughly consistent across that restaurant's menu.
Why our prices are the right baseline
The prices on this site are counter prices from published menus, not platform prices. That is exactly what you need to isolate what a platform is adding. Details on the methodology page.
When delivery genuinely makes sense
Three cases hold up on the numbers.
Large group orders. Fixed fees spread across more food, so the per-head premium falls sharply. A delivery fee split six ways is close to irrelevant.
When the alternative is a car journey. Fuel, parking and time have real costs that people systematically ignore when comparing against "free" collection.
When you genuinely cannot go. Weather, illness, childcare, no transport. The service exists for good reasons and this is the main one.
What does not hold up is a single small order on a normal day, where the premium can approach the cost of the food itself.
The cheapest option is usually collection via the own app
Chains would much rather pay you a small incentive than pay a platform a large commission, and they price accordingly. Collection ordered through a restaurant's own app typically gets you the counter price, no delivery fee, no service fee, and access to app-exclusive offers that platforms do not carry.
The cheapest chain meal is almost always the one you ordered on the brand's own app and walked in to collect.
The trade is the data relationship, which is a real cost even if it is not a monetary one - See apps and loyalty programmes.
The quality clock
Some food travels and some does not. Fried items lose their texture fastest, because steam trapped in a closed container is the enemy of anything crisp. Items designed to be wrapped hold up best, which is not a coincidence - They were designed for a drive-thru bag in the first place.
| Travels well | Travels badly |
|---|---|
| Pizza, at short distances | Fries and anything battered |
| Wrapped burgers and sandwiches | Anything with a crisp coating |
| Rice and noodle bowls | Salads with warm components |
| Whole roast and grilled items | Ice cream and shakes over any distance |
The summary
Delivery is a real service with a real cost and there is nothing wrong with paying for it. The reasonable objection is that the largest part of the cost is disguised as the price of the food, which makes an informed comparison impossible without doing homework the platform could easily have saved you.
Do the two-minute check once for the restaurants you use, and the decision becomes straightforward from then on. The counter prices you need are on every menu page here.
