The best DoorDash alternatives for restaurants, ranked by Zayos.
Published July 2026 · Updated July 26, 2026
DoorDash does three separate jobs, so the best alternative depends on which one you are replacing. For marketplace demand, Uber Eats at 20% to 30%. For cheaper commission with your own drivers, Grubhub from 5%. For pizzerias, Slice. To keep the margin, a direct channel like Zayos.
What are you actually replacing when you leave DoorDash?
Almost every list of DoorDash alternatives fails on this point. DoorDash is not one product, it is three, and the right replacement is different for each. Decide which one is hurting you before you shop.
1. Demand
Strangers who have never heard of you, browsing an app at 7pm. Only another marketplace replaces this, and that is what the commission is buying.
2. Delivery labor
A driver at your door in eight minutes. You can buy that on its own, per delivery, without giving anyone a cut of the food.
3. The ordering channel
The checkout your regulars use, the ones who already know your name. This is the expensive one to rent and the easy one to replace.
Most restaurants only need to replace the third one. If half your DoorDash orders come from people who could have typed your name into Google, you are paying a discovery fee for customers who were never lost.
What does DoorDash charge, so you know what to beat?
DoorDash publishes its partnership tiers openly, which makes it easy to set the baseline. All three carry no monthly fee, no signup fee and no contract, and pickup commission is the same on every plan.
| DoorDash plan | Delivery commission | Pickup commission | Intro trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | 15% | 6% | 0% for 7 days |
| Plus | 25% | 6% | 0% for 30 days |
| Premier | 30% | 6% | 0% for 30 days |
Those are headline rates. Marketplace commission across the category runs 15% to 30% base, and 25% to 35% as a blended real cost once delivery, in app advertising and payment processing stack on top. Full breakdown on what DoorDash charges restaurants.
Which DoorDash alternative is best for each job?
Each entry is tagged with the job it replaces. The two rival marketplaces come first because they are the literal swap most people are searching for. We build the fourth one, and it is fourth for reasons written into its card.
Uber Eats
The straight swapIf what you actually want is a different app sending you orders, Uber Eats is the honest first answer. It is the only alternative with a comparable diner pool in most US markets, the tiers map almost one to one onto DoorDash, and the self delivery rate is meaningfully cheaper than DoorDash equivalent if you already have drivers.
Published on merchants.ubereats.com, checked July 2026: Lite 20%, Plus 25% and Premium 30% marketplace fee, all with a 7% pickup fee "With validated in-store pricing". Self delivery is a 15% fee. Uber Direct starts at $7.99 per delivery and the Uber Eats Webshop is 2.5% plus $0.29 per order. Uber notes lower Lite rates in some cities, starting at 15% in markets including New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
It is the same business model, so it fixes the platform and not the economics. You still do not get the diner's contact details, you are still bidding for visibility with the commission rate, and a 25% take is a 25% take whichever logo is on the bag.
Grubhub
Cheapest marketplace if you deliver yourselfGrubhub separates the marketing fee from the delivery fee, which is why it can be the cheapest marketplace on this page for a restaurant that already has its own drivers. Take the Basic package and deliver the food yourself and the take stays in single digits, which nothing else here matches.
Published on get.grubhub.com, checked July 2026: Grubhub Basic "marketing fees as low as 5% (excluding delivery)", Plus "as low as 10%", Premium "as low as 15%". Grubhub Delivery adds "a 10% delivery fee". Grubhub says the marketing commission "ranges from 5% to 20% of each order, depending on the Grubhub pricing package you choose", plus an order processing fee.
The commission is buying visibility, and Grubhub says so: higher marketing fees mean more exposure on the marketplace. A 5% Basic listing is cheap because it is quiet, so the saving is real only if you were not relying on Grubhub for discovery in the first place.
Grubhub Direct
The free direct channelCredit where it is due: this is the cheapest way to stand up a commission free ordering site, and it comes from a marketplace. Grubhub Direct gives an eligible merchant a branded ordering page with no subscription at all, which makes it a legitimate first step for a restaurant that is not ready to pay for software.
Published: "completely free to all eligible customers: no setup cost, hosting fee or service fee required", with prepaid transactions processed at "3.05%, plus 30 cents per prepaid transaction" (get.grubhub.com, accessed July 2026).
It is a page, not a platform. There is no kitchen operations layer, no consolidation of your other marketplace tablets, and your direct channel now lives inside the account of a marketplace you may want to leave. Free is a great price; portability is the thing you are trading for it.
Zayos
Our pick, and we build itFull disclosure: this is our product, which is exactly why it is fourth and not first. It is not a marketplace, so it will not hand you new diners the way entries one and two do. What it replaces is the channel and the chaos: a branded ordering site on your own domain, and one kitchen tablet that shows your direct orders next to the DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub tickets ingested through Otter, so nobody is re-keying orders across four screens.
Published on /pricing: Operator $499 a month, Operator plus Marketplace $599, Concierge $699, each per location, month to month, no setup fee. The restaurant pays 0% commission and keeps 100% of food revenue and tips. The diner pays a flat service fee at checkout: $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine in, 10% on catering. Most operators are live in under 2 weeks, with a first direct order within a week of signing up.
A flat fee is a bet on volume. Below roughly 100 direct orders a month, $499 is worse arithmetic than a percentage, and Grubhub Direct is free. It is also the youngest platform here: Naya Grill in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach is live and taking orders today, and Shishka Lebanese Grill, La Vie Mediterranean, Yummy Grill, aura, Courtyard Cafe, Mr. Smoke across 13 locations, Yalla Market and Tap That Ash are built with ordering opening at each launch.
Owner.com
The direct channel with the marketing attachedOwner is the most complete done for you package aimed at leaving the marketplaces: your own site, a branded mobile app, automated SEO pages, loyalty, and email plus text campaigns in one subscription. If your worry about going direct is "nobody will find me", this is the entry that attacks that worry hardest.
Published on owner.com/pricing, checked July 2026: $249 a month on the Flexible plan plus a 5% restaurant fee per order, or $499 a month on the Flat Rate plan "with no additional restaurant fees". Guests pay a 5% order support fee on both plans. Month to month, with Owner noting the flat plan is "Best for restaurants generating $5k+/month in online sales".
The Flexible plan's 5% restaurant fee equals the $250 gap between plans at $5,000 a month in online sales, so past that point the cheaper looking plan costs more. And the guest side 5% is a percentage, which grows with your ticket where a flat fee does not.
ChowNow
Commission free plus a small diner networkChowNow is the middle ground: commission free direct ordering, plus its own diner facing app that sends some new customers your way. It is not marketplace scale demand and ChowNow does not claim it is, but it is more discovery than a plain ordering page gives you.
Published on get.chownow.com/pricing, checked July 2026: Launch $229 a month billed annually or $249 month to month, Grow $319 or $349, Elevate $409 or $449, plus a one time $119 to $499 setup fee and 2.95% plus $0.29 payment processing. 0% commission on orders. Flex Delivery is listed at $7.98 per order.
The setup fee and per transaction processing sit on top of the subscription, and the diner network is a bonus rather than a replacement for DoorDash volume. Do not buy it expecting marketplace demand.
Slice
Best answer if you sell pizzaIf you run a pizzeria, move this to the top of your own list. Slice does nothing but pizza, publishes its prices plainly, and covers ordering, phone orders and hardware in one membership. For that one vertical it is a better DoorDash replacement than anything above it, and we would rather say so than pretend a general platform fits every kitchen.
Published on slice.com/pricing, checked July 2026. Online Membership: $39 a month plus $3.00 per order on credit card orders, card processing 2.90% plus $0.30, month to month. Family Membership: $399 a month plus $2.00 per order on online and phone orders, a $1,000 implementation fee, hardware and phone ordering support included. Both state "No per-order fee under $10".
The per order fee scales with success: 600 online orders a month on the $39 plan is $1,800 in order fees before processing. And it is pizza only, so if you run a grill, a taqueria or a cafe, this option does not exist for you.
Uber Direct
Delivery labor without the marketplaceThe most commonly missed option on lists like this. If the only thing DoorDash gives you that you cannot replace is a driver at the door, buy drivers on their own: a diner orders on your site, and a courier is dispatched for a flat fee per delivery instead of a percentage of the ticket. DoorDash sells the same thing under its Drive product.
Published: Uber Direct "Starts at $7.99 per delivery" (merchants.ubereats.com, accessed July 2026). Pricing varies by distance and market, so confirm your own rate. DoorDash Drive does not publish a comparable flat rate we could verify.
A flat delivery fee beats a percentage on a big order and loses on a small one: $7.99 on a $25 order is 32%. It also brings no demand at all, so it only makes sense once you have a direct channel that people are already using.
Side by side, with DoorDash as the baseline.
The last column is the one that compounds. A commission is this month's cost; the customer relationship is every month after it.
| Option | Job it replaces | What it costs | Who owns the diner |
|---|---|---|---|
| DoorDash (baseline) | Demand plus delivery | 15%, 25% or 30% delivery commission, 6% pickup | DoorDash keeps the customer |
| Uber Eats | Demand plus delivery | 20%, 25% or 30% marketplace fee, 7% pickup, 15% self delivery | Uber keeps the customer |
| Grubhub | Demand plus delivery | Marketing fee from 5%, plus a 10% delivery fee if Grubhub delivers | Grubhub keeps the customer |
| Grubhub Direct | Ordering channel | Free, 3.05% plus 30 cents processing | Restaurant, inside a Grubhub account |
| Zayos | Ordering channel plus kitchen queue | $499 to $699 per month per location, 0% commission | Restaurant, exportable |
| Owner.com | Ordering channel plus marketing | $249 a month plus 5% per order, or $499 flat; guests pay 5% | Restaurant |
| ChowNow | Ordering channel plus light demand | $229 to $449 a month, $119 to $499 setup, 2.95% plus $0.29 | Restaurant |
| Slice | Ordering channel, pizzerias only | $39 a month plus $3.00 per order, or $399 plus $2.00 | Restaurant |
| Uber Direct | Delivery drivers only | From $7.99 per delivery | Restaurant |
Rates as published by each platform in July 2026. Payment processing, advertising and delivery fees vary by market; confirm your own rates before switching.
Does switching marketplaces actually save money?
Run it on 650 marketplace orders a month at a $26 average ticket, which is $16,900 in monthly marketplace volume. Same restaurant, same food, four different bills.
Two honest readings of that. First, switching marketplaces is a real saving: $5,070 to $3,380 is $1,690 a month. Second, it is not free, because the cheaper tiers buy less visibility. Grubhub states plainly that higher marketing fees mean more exposure, and DoorDash tiers work the same way, so some of the saving comes back as fewer orders. Only you can judge how many.
The direct column is a different kind of number: it stops growing. On a flat fee, order 651 costs the same as order 650, and the restaurant keeps 100% of the food revenue and tips, with the diner paying a flat $0.99 pickup or $2.99 delivery service fee at checkout. Break even against a 25% blended take on a $26 ticket lands at roughly 77 direct orders a month for a $499 plan and 92 for a $599 plan.
For a real figure rather than a model: Naya Grill, in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach, keeps $48k+ a year that used to go to commissions. Model your own volume with the free AI report or the commission calculator.
Should you leave DoorDash entirely?
Probably not, and any vendor telling you otherwise is selling. The marketplaces are genuinely good at the one thing that is hardest to buy: putting your name in front of somebody who has never eaten your food. Deleting the listing throws that away to save a commission on orders you would have lost anyway.
The version that works is boring. Keep a marketplace listing and judge it on one number only: new customers acquired. Move everyone else, the regulars who already search for your name, the office that orders every Thursday, the pickup crowd who never needed a courier, onto a channel where you keep the money and the customer record.
Then make the kitchen side survivable. Adding a direct channel adds a screen unless the orders land somewhere they already look, which is why order consolidation matters more than any feature comparison on this page. Read how to stop paying DoorDash commission for the step by step, or how Otter ingestion works for the tablet problem.
Leaving DoorDash, answered straight.
What is the best alternative to DoorDash for restaurants?
How much does DoorDash actually charge a restaurant?
Will switching from DoorDash to Uber Eats save my restaurant money?
Can a restaurant leave the delivery apps completely?
How many orders do I need for a flat fee platform to beat commission?
Do I lose my DoorDash orders if I start taking direct orders?
Sources
- DoorDash Marketplace plans, accessed July 2026: Basic 15% delivery and 6% pickup with "0% for 7 days", Plus 25% and Premier 30% with "0% for 30 days", no monthly fee, signup fee or contract.
- Uber Eats merchant pricing, accessed July 2026: Lite 20%, Plus 25%, Premium 30% marketplace fee, 7% pickup "With validated in-store pricing", 15% self delivery, Uber Direct "Starts at $7.99 per delivery", Webshop 2.5% plus $0.29 per order, with lower Lite rates in some cities.
- Grubhub pricing guide and Grubhub restaurant fees FAQ, accessed July 2026: Basic "as low as 5%", Plus "as low as 10%", Premium "as low as 15%" marketing fees excluding delivery, a 10% delivery fee, a marketing commission that "ranges from 5% to 20% of each order", and Grubhub Direct "completely free to all eligible customers" at "3.05%, plus 30 cents per prepaid transaction".
- ChowNow pricing page, accessed July 2026: Launch $229 or $249, Grow $319 or $349, Elevate $409 or $449, $119 to $499 setup fee, 2.95% plus $0.29 processing, Flex Delivery $7.98 per order.
- Owner.com pricing page, accessed July 2026: $249 Flexible plus 5% restaurant fee, $499 Flat Rate, 5% guest order support fee, month to month.
- Slice pricing page, accessed July 2026: Online Membership $39 a month plus $3.00 per order, Family Membership $399 a month plus $2.00 per order and a $1,000 implementation fee, processing 2.90% plus $0.30.
- Zayos pricing: the $499, $599 and $699 tiers per location, no setup fee, 0% restaurant commission, and the flat diner paid service fee of $0.99 pickup and $2.99 delivery.
Every commission figure above was read from the platform's own published page at the time of writing. The 25% to 35% blended cost is a category range covering commission plus advertising plus processing, not a single vendor's rate.
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