What Is The Cheapest Food Delivery App?

Food delivery apps have empowered food lovers by enabling them to skip long queues and waiting times to relish their favorite food from their most loved restaurants. While these apps provide a home delivery service, they also allow people to place orders and make payments within minutes. It also enables restaurants to reach out to a wider audience at low costs. By integrating the food delivery app in one’s own restaurant website, the business can reap greater profits and build a brand effortlessly.

A study has stated that the US food delivery market will grow to $43 billion by 2025.

There are several food delivery apps. A few of them are:

1. Grubhub
2. Uber Eats
3. Seamless
4. DoorDash
5. Delivery.com

This makes it difficult for people to select a cheap and reliable food delivery app. This blog from Restaurantify is to guide you in finding the cheapest food delivery app that can satisfy your food cravings without making you spend much.

Restaurateurs have been asking themselves the following questions regarding food delivery apps for years.

1. What is the cheapest food delivery app?
2. Does cheapest mean best?
3. How can one choose the best food delivery app without emptying one’s pocket?

The  pandemic in 2020 made these questions particularly important. It is essential for restaurants to find a good food delivery app that charges the lowest fees as this decision can make or break the business.

A good food delivery app price comparison can guide restaurant owners in choosing the most popular and cheapest food delivery app.

1. Doordash
2. Postmates
3. UberEats
4. Grubhub
5. Caviar, or
6. Own branded app

The answer to this lies in the exact location of the restaurant on the map.

The most interesting thing is that the same dish from the same restaurant costs different on different apps. For example, while an order of carne asada fries costs the cheapest at $9.25 in Postmates, it costs a dollar more on Uber Eats. But, the final invoice ends up cheaper on UberEats due to its low cost of delivery.

An order of a tofu teriyaki bowl will work out to be $3 cheaper on GrubHub than other options.

Try ordering a Greek chicken pita through various food delivery apps and you will discover that the winner is DoorDash by a small margin of less than a dollar.

After several comparisons, it was found that UberEats was the cheapest option with an average price that was a few cents lesser than the others in the fray.

With a 27% market share in 2019, Doordash was the cheapest of all food delivery apps. When compared to the others in the fray, Doordash charges only a 20% commission fee. It is extremely popular because of its availability in 50 states. Since using Doordash exposes a restaurant to the largest number of potential customers. Customers also stick to their favorite restaurants and brands.

Read more: How does DoorDash works?

GrubHub operates in 2700 cities in 50 states. Its commission varies from 15% to 30% and depends on the restaurant and its location. GrubHub later bought Seamless, Eat24, Foodler, and OrderUp. GrubHub which was once the market leader has not been overtaken by DoorDash to attain a close second place. GrubHub’s market share is 27%. GrubHub is a restaurant-friendly food delivery app as it offers the option of working with the restaurant’s own fleet of drivers. It also offers POS integration facilitating restaurants to integrate their website and make the ordering process profitable and smoother.

Operating in 1500 cities in 50 states, this food delivery app has only about 12% of the market share. Using this food delivery app will give a restaurant only to a fewer number of customers. But reviews for Postmates reveal that customers are most satisfied with their service. The high commission charges of Postmates – 30% – might be one of the reasons why it is less popular among both restaurants and customers. But, the app compensates for this by offering perks like a $10 per month plan with free delivery for orders above $15. Since there is no surge pricing, it proves pocket-friendly during busy weekends or special occasions.

Although Uber Eats operates only in 500 cities, it still enjoys a market share of 25%. This easy-to-use app also has a large fleet of drivers. This means that delivery is done at lightning speed. The only concern is that the drivers of Uber Eats, who were originally engaged in taxi service, are not well-trained for food deliveries. Their fleet of drivers has become infamous for their food delivery mishaps like delivering cold food, improper handling of food during transport leading to spillage, delivering to the wrong address, etc. Customers also find it difficult to get in touch with their customer service representatives in case of any complaints. Moreover, Uber Eats also charges an exorbitant commission of 30%-40%.

Caviar has branded itself as an upscale service that operates only with selected restaurants. Their market share is a mere 3%. Caviar does not really compete with the other food delivery apps. They operate effectively within their own niche and have been successful in it for nearly a decade. Since Caviar is available only in 11 major American cities, most restaurants do not choose it. Compared to its dependable, high-end service, the commission rate of Caviar is low – 25%. It is also affiliated with Square POS and makes the ordering process smooth for both the customer and the restaurant. So, if you are a restaurant owner operating in one of the 11 cities, make sure to forge a business relationship with Caviar to send your dishes to the customers in a timely, elegant fashion.

Having looked at the advantages and disadvantages of several food delivery apps, let us now analyze a restaurant’s own branded app. Rather than relying on third-party food delivery apps, restaurants can sell directly from its own website using an online ordering system and branded mobile app. This eliminates middlemen from the business and helps restaurant owners to retain their profits completely.