Should you charge more on delivery apps?
Yes. Delivery prices should sit 15-25% above dine-in prices because the platform commission is a cost layer that dine-in orders never carry.
Take a $14 chicken sandwich. On delivery, a 25% commission costs $3.50, packaging costs $2.20, and food cost at 32% runs $4.48. After all three, the restaurant keeps $3.82, a 27% contribution margin before labor, rent, or utilities are even counted. That same sandwich priced at $16.80, a 20% markup, pays a $4.20 commission, the same $2.20 packaging, and the same $4.48 food cost. The restaurant keeps $5.92, a 35% contribution margin. The profit increase is $2.10 per order. Across 400 monthly delivery orders, that is $840 a month in additional margin from a single menu item.
Why does delivery pricing need to be different from dine-in pricing?
Delivery pricing has to cover a cost that dine-in pricing never does: the platform's 25-30% commission for handling ordering, payment, and logistics.
A dine-in guest pays for food and service. A delivery customer's order gets routed through a platform that charges a commission before the restaurant sees a cent. That commission does not shrink because the restaurant absorbs it quietly. It either gets absorbed, which compresses margin on every single order, or it gets passed through in the menu price. Customers are already paying a delivery fee, a service fee, and a tip on top of the menu price, so a 15-20% menu markup is a small part of the total they are already paying. Delivery platform algorithms rank restaurants by customer rating, order volume, and delivery speed, not by menu price, so a markup does not cost visibility.
How much should a restaurant mark up delivery prices?
The markup should scale with the commission rate: roughly 10-12% at a 15% commission, 15-20% at a 20-25% commission, and 20-25% at a 30% commission.
| Commission Rate | Recommended Markup | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| 15% (pickup/low tier) | 10-12% | Minimal commission, light touch |
| 20-25% (standard) | 15-20% | Standard offset, covers commission gap |
| 30% (premium tier) | 20-25% | Full offset, protects dine-in margins |
Round the result to a natural price point rather than a clean percentage. A dine-in price of $14 with an 18% markup lands at $16.52. Rounding that to $16.49 or $16.99 reads better to a customer scanning a delivery menu on a phone screen.
Results are not typical and will vary with your business, your market, your team and how much of the work you actually do. Client figures on this site come from recorded interviews and are dated. Nothing here is a guarantee of revenue, profit or growth.
Which menu items should get the biggest markup?
Low-margin, high-popularity items, the ones a restaurant sells the most of at the thinnest margin, need the largest markup, while high-margin bestsellers need the least.
Not every dish carries the same risk on delivery, so a flat markup across the whole menu misses the point. Items that are high margin and high popularity sell themselves and only need a 15-18% markup. Items that are high margin but low popularity benefit from a smaller 10-12% markup, since a lower price can drive discovery. Items that are low margin but high popularity need the heaviest protection, a 20-25% markup, because volume on a thin-margin item is exactly what erodes profit fastest. Items that are both low margin and low popularity are candidates to remove from the delivery menu entirely rather than mark up.
Should the delivery menu be the same as the dine-in menu?
No. A delivery menu should be smaller than the dine-in menu, built around items that travel well and items that lift average order value.
A full dine-in menu replicated onto a delivery app adds complexity, order errors, and food waste without adding profit. A tighter delivery menu, roughly 60-70% the size of the dine-in menu, drops items that do not travel well, carry low margin, or add operational complexity in the kitchen. What stays should be optimized for arriving intact, nothing delicate, nothing that wilts or turns soggy in a bag. The delivery menu should also be engineered for average order value through combo meals, family packs, and add-ons, since a $28 average order is far more profitable than a $15 average order at the same commission rate.
Will raising delivery prices cause a drop in orders?
Order volume typically dips 5-10% in the first week after a price increase, then stabilizes while margin improves.
This is the pattern that shows up repeatedly in Founders Board sessions. Members resist raising delivery prices because they expect to lose customers, then the actual result is a short, modest dip followed by a margin gain that outlasts it. One member had his entire dine-in menu listed on two delivery platforms at dine-in prices, running an effective margin of just 11% after commissions and packaging. After applying the markup table and cutting eight low-margin items from the delivery menu, his effective margin rose to 26%. Monthly delivery revenue dropped from $18,000 to $15,500, but his actual profit on delivery nearly tripled. Less revenue, far more profit. After any price change, prices should move on all platforms at the same time to avoid inconsistency, order volume should be watched daily for about 14 days, and effective margin should be tracked weekly, since it should rise even if revenue dips slightly. Ratings almost never move because of a pricing change.
When should a restaurant accept a delivery platform promotion?
A promotion is worth accepting only if the platform funds it, or if it keeps effective margin at 20% or higher, and never more than twice a month.
Delivery platforms suggest discounts constantly, and the temptation to say yes is strong because it looks like free volume. The decision should run through a short checklist: if the platform fully funds the promotion, accept it as free exposure. If it does not maintain at least a 20% effective margin, decline it. During a launch period on a new platform, a promotion can be worth accepting for 14 days to build reviews and volume. But running more than two promotions a month trains customers to wait for the next discount instead of ordering at full price, which is the opposite of what a pricing strategy is supposed to accomplish.
Restaurant owners working through pricing, menu structure, and platform decisions inside the Founders Board get the full Scaling Engine OS™ framework this lesson is drawn from, along with the rest of the system behind it. Related reading on building a menu and operation that runs without constant owner intervention is available at the restaurant that runs without you.
