TL;DR. Apps eat 25-30% commission. List at +20% over your in-store price to preserve margin. List at in-store prices and you lose 18 percentage points of margin per order. Hide low-margin entrees from the app menu entirely.
The math nobody runs before listing on apps
A customer orders a $15 burger on DoorDash. Here's what actually lands in your bank account:
Menu price (DD) $15.00
DoorDash commission (25%) -$3.75
DoorDash payment processing -$0.45 (~3%)
-------
Net to restaurant $10.80
If your in-store food cost on that burger is $4.50 (30% FCP), then:
Net revenue $10.80
Food cost $4.50
Gross margin $6.30 (58%)
Sounds OK until you realize that gross margin needs to cover labor, rent, utilities, packaging, and that the order needs to move 3-5x more bodies through your kitchen than dine-in to net the same profit dollars. Most operators burn cash on app orders without realizing it.
The two pricing strategies that actually work
Strategy A: Markup on apps (most operators)
List the same menu on apps 15-25% higher than in-store. Customers absorb most of the commission. You preserve margin.
Example: $15 in-store burger → $18 on DoorDash.
Menu price (DD) $18.00
DoorDash commission (25%) -$4.50
Payment processing -$0.55
-------
Net to restaurant $12.95
Food cost (same recipe) $4.50
Packaging $0.85
-------
Gross margin $7.60 (59%)
That's basically your dine-in margin preserved. The commission gets passed to the customer who chose the convenience of delivery.
Risks:
- Customers compare your in-store and app pricing. Some get angry.
- Search algorithms favor cheaper restaurants. You may rank lower.
- DoorDash sometimes runs "fair pricing" pressure on operators with too-large gaps.
Mitigations:
- Stay within 18-22% markup, not 30%+. That's the sweet spot.
- Don't run promos on the in-store side without matching apps - increases comparison friction.
Strategy B: Subset menu on apps
List only your high-margin items on apps. Skip low-margin entrees that don't survive the commission haircut.
Example: burgers, sandwiches, and pizza on DoorDash. NOT steaks, lobster, or composed plates that need fresh prep.
This works when:
- 60%+ of your revenue comes from a handful of high-volume, high-margin items.
- Your kitchen can't easily scale to handle a parallel delivery line.
- You'd rather have fewer orders at full margin than many at razor-thin margin.
The downside: smaller app menu means smaller app order volume, lower visibility in app search.
Real numbers: what 25% commission actually does to margin
Compare three scenarios for a small Italian restaurant with a $15 pasta dish, $5 food cost (33% FCP), $10 contribution margin in-store.
| Channel | Menu price | Net revenue | Food cost | Contribution margin | Margin % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dine-in | $15.00 | $13.50 (10% tip avg) | $5.00 | $8.50 | 56.7% |
| App at in-store price | $15.00 | $10.80 | $5.00 | $5.80 | 38.7% |
| App at +20% | $18.00 | $12.95 | $5.00 | $7.95 | 56.4% |
| App at -10% promo | $13.50 | $9.70 | $5.00 | $4.70 | 31.3% |
The "App at in-store price" line is where most small operators sit. They're losing 18 percentage points of margin per order. Over hundreds of orders a month, that compounds into thousands of dollars of margin walked out the door.
Five tactical moves
1. Calculate every dish's "app-floor" price
For each menu item, compute the menu price required to maintain your dine-in contribution margin after commission. That's your floor. Anything below it is bleeding.
Formula:
App-floor price = (in-store contribution margin + food cost + packaging) / (1 - commission rate)
A $15 in-store dish with $5 food cost, $0.85 packaging, $9.15 contribution margin:
- Floor = ($9.15 + $5 + $0.85) / (1 - 0.25) = $20 on app
That's the price at which your app order generates the same dollars as your dine-in order. Round to $19.99 in practice.
2. Use packaging as a cost line, not an afterthought
Boxes, lids, sleeves, plastic ware add $0.50-1.50 per order. That's 3-7% of a $15 ticket. Track it separately - you can't budget for it once and then ignore.
3. Hide low-margin items from apps
Steakhouse-level entrées with 22% FCP look great in-store but hemorrhage on apps. Don't list them. Customers ordering through DoorDash are not the customers who'll pay $50 for a ribeye experience anyway.
4. Run promo math before you click "yes"
DoorDash will prompt you to "Boost orders with a promotion." A 20% off promotion on top of 25% commission can mean 40-50% effective margin loss per order. Sometimes that's worth it (new customer acquisition, off-peak fill). Most of the time it's not. Run the numbers per item, not per concept.
5. Track contribution margin, not revenue
Apps show you order volume and gross sales. Build your own report tracking app contribution margin per order. That's the number that matters. A month with rising app revenue and falling app margin is a month going backward.
Bottom line
Third-party apps are a customer acquisition channel and a takeout / delivery enabler. They are not a replacement for dine-in margin. Operators who price their app menu carelessly find themselves working harder for less - more orders, more chaos, less profit.
Build out your dine-in food costs in MarginCub first, then duplicate each recipe with the +20% app pricing applied. Now you can see at a glance which dishes survive on apps and which should stay off. The math takes 10 minutes per recipe and saves thousands a year.