08 Sep Best 4 Delivery Apps Compared: Postmates, UberEats, DoorDash, GrubHub
Not sure a third-party delivery app is the right choice for your restaurant? Get all the answers in this Complete Restaurant Reopening Guide.
Since the Covid-19 outbreak, very few restaurants have survived without using a delivery app service for take out and delivery. In recent years, third party delivery apps have gained nearly 50 million active users in the US alone.
Food delivery services like DoorDash, GrubHub, UberEATS, Caviar, and Postmates are the biggest players in the foodservice industry. With so many to choose from, it’s hard to know which one is right for your restaurant. Every third party delivery app has its upsides and downsides.
For a quick comparison, check out the chart below. Read on for more in-depth analysis and facts.
Table of Contents
All 3rd Party Delivery Apps Compared
Postmates | UberEats | GrubHub | DoorDash | |
Covid-19 response | Temporarily waiving commission fees for businesses in the SF Bay Area | Temporarily waiving delivery fees for over 100,000 local restaurants | Started the Grubhub Community Relief Fund to support local restaurants | Helping restaurants increase revenue via a package of commission relief and marketing support |
Specialize in the foodservice industry | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Fees | $7 or less | $0 – $8 | $1 – $10 | $6 or less |
Subscription plan | Grubhub+ – $9.99 per month – Unlimited free delivery from select restaurants – 10% cash back for every $100 spent | DashPass – $9.99 per month – Zero delivery fees on orders from select restaurants – Zero delivery fees for orders of $12 or higher | Postmates Unlimited – $9.99 per month or $99.99 annually – free delivery for orders of $12 or higher – No extra fees during busy hours – More perks and offers | Eats Pass – $9.99 per month – Unlimited free delivery – 5% off orders of $15 or higher in your area |
Postmates: Increase Delivery Rates by 30%
Postmates is a pickup and delivery solution of restaurant-prepared meals and other goods. It’s been growing in popularity even before Covid-19. They now have a wide-enough market share, especially in busy metropolitan areas such as New-York and LA where their demand is quite large, but less so in the Bay Area.
Since Postmates isn’t a dedicated food delivery app, everything from marketing to customer service is streamlined through its main app services. To be fair, they do not specialize in handling food-industry related issues.
Still, Postmates promises a professional approach to delivery and pickup, and if you’re located in a high-service area Postmates has the potential of boosting your delivery rates by around 30%.
UberEats: Expand Your Delivery Radius
Everybody knows Uber – it’s a groundbreaking, peer-to-peer app that shook an entire industry. UberEats capitalizes on the Uber franchise by using the same business model and allowing drivers, scooter or even foot messengers to deliver orders received through their app.
This approach may deter some restaurant owners, but if you’re willing to let the exclusivity issues slide, you’re looking at a pretty large market share and exposure potential by expanding the delivery radius as well as your audience.
Uber also lets you advertise your business directly in its main Uber app – a huge marketing opportunity for chains or larger establishments. On the other hand, doing this will put you in direct competition with national chains your restaurant doesn’t necessarily want to compete with.
UberEats’ customer support experience is similar to Postmates, although it also boasts an informative Twitter Uber Help page.
GrubHub: Boost Marketing
Unlike UberEats and Postmates, GrubHub is a third-party delivery app designed specifically around food delivery for restaurants that holds a lot of the market share in major cities like San Francisco, Boston and New York.
After buying out over a dozen small delivery services, GrubHub are boasting their 300,000+ affiliated restaurants and over 28 million app users. While GrubHub still doesn’t allow you to use your own delivery staff, their drivers actually specialize in delivering food packages so you can safely leave your orders.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, GrubHub has been advocating for restaurants with their marketing endeavors including special deals for businesses that order from local restaurants. Their knowledge and experience with local restaurants make them a strong candidate for anyone looking for a specialized food delivery service supplier.
DoorDash: Build a Loyal Customer Base
DoorDash has 310,000 restaurants located in 4,000 cities worldwide. Boasting 46% of American consumers and the largest market share to date, specifically in San Francisco, DoorDash is a staple of delivery service providers.
DoorDash has a user base second only to GrubHub, with around 275,000 active users, but it’s best known for encouraging new customers with its free first order delivery fee, while also rewarding returning customers for restaurant loyalty.
DoorDash also promotes its subscription plan, DashPass, for regular customers that eliminates delivery fees for a small monthly fee. Just like GrubHub and UberEats, DoorDash offers in-app promotions and deals for recurring customers.
Unlike its competitors, it also offers restaurant owners features like catering delivery services and a larger delivery radius. It also takes a page from GrubHub’s book by using specialized delivery staff, called Dashers, that know how to properly handle food packages exclusively.
Be Your Own Food Delivery App Alternative
Even at their lowest, delivery service fees are something not every restaurant owner can or should pay. Start your own pickup or delivery service to cut those expenses in the long run.
Encouraging regulars to order directly from you might require laying out some foundation, but it’s doable, with more and more restaurant owners choosing to employ delivery and pickup managers within their own staff instead of outsourcing a third-party app.
Learn more about how to set up your own delivery service.
Cheetah: The Delivery App for Your Restaurant
Cheetah is a free and easy-to-use app with top-in-market customer support. Cheetah lets you order wholesale, high-quality ingredients from anywhere, at any time, with next-day delivery and pickup available.
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