What is a blended commission rate? The Zayos definition, and how to calculate your own

Published July 2026 · Updated July 26, 2026

A blended commission rate is the share of a delivery order a restaurant actually loses once every fee is counted, not just the headline commission. It adds marketing, delivery, processing and promotion charges together, then divides by gross sales to give one true percentage.

Also called the effective take rate or the all in rate. If two people in a meeting disagree about what delivery costs, this is almost always why.

Why is the headline commission rate misleading?

Because it is one line on a statement with six. The tier you signed up for sets a base commission, commonly somewhere between 15 and 30 percent. Everything else that leaves your payout sits on top of it, and none of it appears in the number an owner quotes when someone asks what DoorDash charges.

This matters because every real decision an owner makes is a comparison. Whether to fund a promotion, whether to raise delivery menu prices, whether a channel is worth the labor it adds on a Friday. You cannot make any of those calls against a number that is missing a third of the cost.

Marketplace commission is commonly 15 to 30 percent as a base rate and 25 to 35 percent blended once delivery, marketing and processing fees stack. Any conversation that does not say which of the two it means is not a real conversation.

What is actually in the fee stack?

Five lines, on one $40 order, for a restaurant on a mid tier plan that funds a modest promotion and buys some placement. The dollar column is one plausible month, not a quote. Your statement is the authority.

Illustrative delivery marketplace fee stack on a $40 order
Line item Typical range On a $40 order
Base commission tier Set by the plan you picked on the platform. This is the only number most owners can quote from memory. 15% to 30% $8.80
Payment processing Charged per order. Small on its own, never zero. about 3% plus a fixed fee $1.46
Promotions you funded Buy one get one, free delivery offers, first order discounts. Real money, spread across the month. 0% to 15% of promoted orders $1.20
Sponsored placement Paid to appear higher in the app. It buys revenue on that channel, so it belongs in that channel cost. variable ad spend $0.80
Refunds and adjustments Missing items, late orders, quality complaints. Charged back to the restaurant. about 1% to 3% $0.40
Blended total 31.7% $12.66

The restaurant in that table believes it is on a 22 percent plan. It is running at 31.7%. On a $40 ticket that is $12.66 gone before the kitchen turns on a burner, and it is the same ten point gap whether the restaurant does 200 orders a month or 2,000. Platform by platform numbers are on DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub.

How do I calculate my own blended rate?

Twenty minutes with a month of payout statements and a calculator. Nobody needs to sell you anything for this.

  1. 01 Pull a full month, per platform

    One week is noise. Promotions, ad spend and refunds land unevenly, so a single week can read ten points off. Take a full calendar month of payout statements for each platform separately.

  2. 02 Find gross food sales, before anything

    The subtotal of the food, before taxes, before tips, before any fee the diner paid. This is your denominator. Getting this wrong is the most common error, and it always flatters the platform.

  3. 03 Add up everything the platform kept

    Commission, marketing and advertising charges, processing, the discounts you funded, error charges and adjustments. If the money left your payout, it goes in this number, whatever the statement calls it.

  4. 04 Divide, and write it down

    Total kept divided by gross food sales, times 100. That is your blended rate on that platform for that month. Write it on the same sheet every month, because the number moves with your promotions.

  5. 05 Weight the platforms together

    Multiply each platform rate by that platform share of your delivery volume, then add them. Now you have one number for the business, which is the only version you can fairly compare against a flat monthly cost.

Blended rate equals everything the platform kept, divided by gross food sales before tax and tips, times 100. Exclude sales tax and tips from both halves or the ratio lies to you.

If you would rather see the shape of it before opening the statements, the commission calculator runs the same arithmetic on estimated volume, and the Florida commission benchmark shows how the stack lands across a market.

What do owners get wrong about blended rates?

Your plan tier is not your rate

The tier sets the base commission and nothing else. Every other line in the stack sits on top of it. An owner on a 15 percent tier who funds two promotions and buys placement is not paying 15 percent, and the payout statement is the only thing that will tell them what they are paying.

The fees the diner pays do not offset yours

Service fees, small order fees and delivery fees charged to the diner go to the platform. They do not reduce the commission taken from the restaurant. What they do affect is your cart abandonment, because the diner sees a total that is well above your menu price.

Advertising counts

Owners often keep sponsored listing spend in a marketing budget and out of the channel math. That makes the channel look cheaper than it is. The clean rule: if the spend exists to produce orders on that channel, it is part of the cost of that channel.

Direct ordering is not literally zero either

The honest comparison is a fixed monthly cost against a percentage of every ticket, not free against expensive. A flat platform fee becomes an effective percentage the moment you divide it by your direct sales, and that percentage falls every month your direct volume grows. A commission does the opposite.

Where Zayos fits

Zayos is the flat side of that comparison. Plans are $499, $599 and $699 per location per month, month to month, with no setup fee, and the restaurant keeps 100 percent of food revenue and 100 percent of tips on direct orders. The only per order charge is a service fee the diner pays at checkout: $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine in, 10 percent on catering. The restaurant never pays it.

Run the same division on that. A $599 plan against $30,000 of direct sales in a month is an effective rate near 2 percent, and it keeps falling as direct volume grows. Plan detail is on pricing, the wider argument is in the commission free ordering guide, and other cost terms are defined in the glossary.

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Blended rate questions

What is the difference between a base commission rate and a blended rate?
The base rate is the headline percentage attached to your plan tier, commonly 15 to 30 percent depending on which package a restaurant signed up for. The blended rate is what actually left the payout once processing, advertising, funded promotions and adjustments are added, which for most operators lands in the 25 to 35 percent range. Always say which one you mean, because the two numbers can be fifteen points apart on the same restaurant.
What is a typical blended delivery commission rate?
Across the major marketplaces the base commission is commonly 15 to 30 percent, and the blended real cost is commonly 25 to 35 percent once delivery, marketing and processing fees stack. Your own number is the only one that matters, and it is a twenty minute exercise with a month of payout statements.
Do the fees my customer pays reduce what I am charged?
No. The delivery fee, service fee and small order fee a diner pays at checkout are collected by the platform on top of what the restaurant is charged. They are worth watching anyway, because they inflate the total your customer sees against your menu price, and that is what drives an abandoned cart.
Should marketplace ads be counted in my commission rate?
Yes, if you want a number you can compare against anything. Sponsored placement exists to produce orders on that channel, so it is a cost of that channel revenue. Leaving it in a separate marketing line is how a 32 percent channel gets discussed in a meeting as a 20 percent channel.
How do I compare a marketplace commission to a flat monthly platform?
Divide the monthly platform fee by your monthly direct sales. A $599 plan against $30,000 of direct sales in a month is an effective rate of about 2 percent. Against $10,000 it is about 6 percent. That is the number to put next to your blended marketplace rate, and it is the reason a flat fee gets cheaper as direct volume grows while a commission never does.

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