How Zayos uses DoorDash Drive

Published July 2026 · Updated July 26, 2026

Quick answer

DoorDash Drive is DoorDash’s courier network without the DoorDash app. On Zayos, a diner orders on your own site, Otter hands the delivery to Drive, and a Dasher brings it. You pay no marketplace commission. The diner pays a $2.99 delivery service fee at checkout.

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Wait, is this the same DoorDash that takes 25 to 35 percent?

Same company, different product, and the difference is the whole page. DoorDash Marketplace is the app: it lists you, sends you a customer you did not have, and charges a percentage of every ticket for doing it. DoorDash Drive is only the driver: your website takes the order, and Drive shows up to carry the bag for a flat per delivery rate quoted by distance.

Put plainly: on Marketplace you rent the customer. On Drive you rent the car. Zayos uses Drive so a delivery order placed on your own site costs you a courier fee instead of a quarter to a third of the ticket. If you want the full arithmetic on the app side, the numbers live on what DoorDash charges restaurants.

DoorDash Marketplace compared with DoorDash Drive on a Zayos direct order
The question	DoorDash Marketplace	DoorDash Drive on Zayos
Where the diner places the order	Inside the DoorDash app, next to your competitors.	On your own Zayos site, on your own domain.
Who owns the customer record	DoorDash. You get a ticket, not an email address.	You. Name, phone, email and order history sit in your customer book.
What the restaurant pays	A percentage of every ticket: 15 to 30 percent base, 25 to 35 percent blended once delivery, marketing and card fees stack.	A per delivery courier rate quoted by distance. No percentage of the food.
Who brings you the customer	DoorDash. That is exactly what the commission buys.	Nobody. Drive is a driver, not a marketing channel.
Who the driver works for	DoorDash.	DoorDash. Same driver pool, same app, same bag.
Where the ticket lands in the kitchen	The Otter tablet on your pass.	The same Otter tablet, in the same ticket flow.

Commission ranges are marketplace industry ranges, labeled base and blended. Blended means after delivery, marketing and card processing stack on top of the base rate.

What actually happens between Place Order and the doorbell?

Five steps. Your staff is involved in exactly one of them.

01

The diner checks out on your site

They pick delivery, type an address, and pay with a card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. The diner pays a $2.99 delivery service fee at checkout. You do not pay it, and it does not come out of your food revenue.
02

Zayos hands the order to Otter

Otter is the tablet software that already sits on your pass and holds your DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub tickets. Your direct order lands in that same feed, so the line cook learns nothing new.
03

Otter Dispatch shops the delivery

Dispatch asks the courier networks it is connected to, DoorDash Drive among them, and takes the one that can actually cover the address. If Drive has no driver in range, the request falls through to another network instead of dying.
04

A Dasher is assigned and picks up

The driver arrives with the DoorDash bag, scans in, and takes the bag. Your staff hand it over the same way they hand over a marketplace order today.
05

The diner tracks the driver on your page

The tracking link goes to the diner from your order confirmation, not from the DoorDash app. The delivery is DoorDash. The brand on the screen is yours.

The tablet part is not a detail. Every channel arriving in one Otter ticket flow is the reason a kitchen accepts a new ordering channel at all. The mechanics of that hub are written up on how Otter integration works, and the rest of the stack is on the integrations page.

What do I have to do to turn this on?

Less than you think, because this one is configuration, not a project. During onboarding you give us four things: the pickup address the courier should come to, the delivery radius you are willing to serve, your delivery hours, and any address rules you already know are trouble (gated communities, offices with a loading dock, the bridge that is always up). We wire the dispatch side.

You do not log into a DoorDash Drive dashboard day to day, and in the standard setup you do not sign a courier contract network by network. Otter holds those relationships. Most operators are live in under 2 weeks and take their first direct order within a week of signing up. The full timeline is on how it works.

One honest caveat about sequencing: courier coverage is checked against your actual zip codes, not a national map. Ask for that check before launch day. A radius set on optimism is how a restaurant ends up refunding its own customers in week one.

The part most vendors skip

What does DoorDash Drive not do?

It does not put you on the DoorDash app

Drive is a courier network with an API, not a listing. Nobody browsing DoorDash will discover you because you turned on Drive. If you want app discovery, you keep your marketplace listing, and you keep paying commission on those tickets.

It does not make delivery free

The courier charges a real per delivery rate, quoted live by distance. That charge belongs to the courier network. Zayos does not set it and does not mark it up. Ask for the quote range for your zip codes before you launch, not after.

It does not cover every address

Courier coverage is dense in South Florida metros and thin at the edges. A rural or late night address can come back with no driver. Set your delivery radius honestly at launch so a diner never gets a promise you cannot keep.

It does not settle a food complaint

Drive moves a sealed bag. If the food is cold or an item is missing, that is your refund to decide and your customer to keep. The upside: the customer is yours to keep. On the marketplace, DoorDash decides the refund and often keeps the customer too.

It does not let you pick a specific driver

You cannot request a Dasher, rate a Dasher, or route around one. Dispatch assigns from the pool. If a delivery goes wrong, the record and the escalation run through Otter, not through a phone number for the driver.

What does the integration cost?

The Drive connection is included at every Zayos tier. Plans are $499 Operator, $599 Operator + Marketplace, and $699 Concierge, per location per month, month to month, no setup fee, no contract. Nothing about delivery changes that number.

Per order, two amounts exist and they are not the same thing. The Zayos service fee is paid by the diner at checkout: $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine-in, 10 percent on catering. The restaurant never pays it and keeps 100 percent of food revenue and 100 percent of tips. Separately, the courier network charges its own per delivery rate, quoted live by distance. That one belongs to the courier. Zayos does not set it and does not mark it up.

So: nobody takes a percentage of your food. Anyone who tells you a driver crosses a city for $2.99 is selling you something. Compare that against your current app mix in the commission recovery calculator, or read the plan detail on pricing.

Questions operators actually ask about Drive

If I use DoorDash Drive, am I paying DoorDash commission again?

No. DoorDash sells two different things under one brand. DoorDash Marketplace is the app: it lists you, brings the customer, and charges a percentage of every ticket, 15 to 30 percent base and 25 to 35 percent blended once delivery, marketing and processing fees stack. DoorDash Drive is only the driver: your site takes the order and Drive brings a Dasher for a flat per delivery courier rate quoted by distance. No percentage of your food revenue goes to DoorDash on a Drive delivery.

Do I have to sign a separate contract with DoorDash Drive?

In the standard Zayos setup, no. Otter Dispatch aggregates the courier relationships, so the restaurant does not contract network by network. That is the whole reason Zayos routes dispatch through Otter instead of building a courier integration per vendor. If you already hold your own Drive account, tell us during onboarding so we do not create a duplicate.

What does the DoorDash Drive integration cost on top of my Zayos plan?

Nothing on the Zayos side. The integration is included at every tier: Operator $499, Operator + Marketplace $599, and Concierge $699, per location per month, month to month, no setup fee. The only per order money is the diner-paid service fee at checkout, $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine-in and 10 percent on catering, plus the courier network’s own per delivery rate. The restaurant keeps 100 percent of food revenue and 100 percent of tips.

What happens if no Dasher accepts my order?

Otter Dispatch does not stop at one network. If DoorDash Drive cannot cover the address in time, the request cascades to another connected courier network automatically. If every network is dry, the order surfaces on the Otter tablet so a manager can call the customer instead of letting a bag sit under a heat lamp for forty minutes.

Can I use DoorDash Drive and still stay on the DoorDash app?

Yes, and most operators should at first. Keep the marketplace listing for discovery, and use Drive so the diners who already know your name can order on your site instead. Over time the mix shifts. That shift is the entire point: Naya Grill in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach keeps $48k+ a year that used to go to commissions, on a commission model run at 3,000 orders a month.

Does a Drive order show up on a different tablet than my app orders?

No, and that is the single biggest operational reason operators say yes. Direct orders, DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub all land in one Otter ticket flow on one tablet. No second device on the pass, no second alert sound, no expo trying to read three screens on a Friday night.

Still deciding whether to keep the app at all? Read Zayos compared with DoorDash or what Zayos is first.

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