Uber Eats alternatives for restaurants: what each costs and who it fits
The main Uber Eats alternatives for restaurants are other marketplaces (DoorDash, Grubhub), a flat-fee ordering page of your own (ChowNow, Menufy, BentoBox, Owner.com and similar), and your own free pickup page with a card fee only. Uber Eats charges 20%, 25% or 30% on delivery by plan and 7% to 10% on pickup, so the question is how much of your volume can move to a link you own [1]. Most sources recommend keeping Uber Eats for discovery and moving regulars to direct ordering, and most of those sources sell direct ordering, so check their sums.
If you want the cheapest alternative to try first, you can build a free menu site with pickup ordering from a photo of your menu. Below: the baseline Uber Eats cost, each alternative with its fee, a month worked on the same orders, what you lose by leaving and how to move customers over without losing sales.
What Uber Eats costs, so you have the baseline
On Uber Eats' US pricing page, read in November 2026, the marketplace fee is charged on the food subtotal [1]:
| Plan | Delivery | Pickup |
|---|---|---|
| Lite | 20% | 7% (10% without matching prices) |
| Plus | 25%, plus 5% on Uber One orders | 7% (10%) |
| Premium | 30% | 7% (10%) |
| Self-delivery | 15% with your own drivers | 7% |
Our Uber Eats commission guide has the plan-by-plan math. For this page the baseline is simple: on $25,000 of delivery sales, Lite costs $5,000, Plus $6,250 and Premium $7,500 before food and labour. Pickup at 7% on the same $25,000 is $1,750. An alternative has to beat those, or bring orders Uber Eats would not.
Uber Eats alternatives for restaurants, side by side
| Option | What it costs | Delivery included? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| DoorDash | 15% to 30% commission by plan | Yes, their drivers | Reach, same as Uber Eats |
| Grubhub | About 5% marketing fee, plus about 10% for delivery by their drivers | Optional | Cities where it is strong |
| Flat-fee ordering (ChowNow, Menufy, BentoBox and similar) | Monthly plan, often $149 to $499, plus card fees | Usually your own drivers or an add-on | Regulars, 150+ orders a month |
| Free pickup page of your own | Card fee only, about 2.9% + 30¢ | No | Starting out, pickup-heavy places |
| Delivery-only service (DoorDash Drive style) | A per-delivery fee, listed in one comparison as 0% on the food | Yes, you take the order | You own the order, they own the driver |
Rates come from our DoorDash alternatives and Grubhub commission guides, and from vendor comparisons in search results [2] [3]. Vendor blogs (Owner.com, Snappy, Sauce, UpMenu, Restolabs) put their own product first, so we only use their fee figures, not their conclusions.
Other marketplaces: DoorDash and Grubhub
Moving from Uber Eats to DoorDash changes the logo, not the maths. DoorDash's plans run from 15% to 30%, like Uber Eats [2]. Our guide DoorDash vs Uber Eats compares them line by line, and Grubhub vs DoorDash covers Grubhub. If you are already on one marketplace, adding a second splits your orders without lowering the cost of each one. Do it only if the second app brings customers the first never reached.
Grubhub's lower entry rate, about a 5% marketing fee when you deliver yourself, is the one marketplace figure that beats Uber Eats' pickup rate. If you have drivers, check whether Grubhub's self-delivery terms fit.
Flat-fee ordering of your own
These products give you a branded ordering page, usually on your website, for a monthly fee, and take no commission on the order. You pay card processing, and you own the customer's email. Sources describe plans from $49 to $169 a month for ordering alone, and a few hundred for a full website with ordering [3]. See each price in our guides: ChowNow pricing, Menufy pricing, BentoBox pricing, Owner.com pricing.
Their limit is the same for every one of them: they do not bring you strangers. A marketplace shows your menu to people searching for dinner. A flat-fee page serves people who already know you, or who find you on Google, so your Google Business Profile and website matter. Our guide to Google online ordering for restaurants covers the "Order online" button.
Your own pickup page, free
The cheapest alternative is a page with your menu and a way to order for pickup, paid by card, with no monthly plan. The cost is the card fee, about 2.9% + 30¢ on an online sale in the case we used elsewhere. It has no delivery and no discovery, but it costs nothing until an order comes. Compare it with the paid pages in commission-free online ordering and free online ordering systems.
One month on each, same orders
Take a restaurant with $25,000 a month in Uber Eats delivery, 714 orders at an average of $35. Here is what each takes before food and labour:
| Option | Takes |
|---|---|
| Uber Eats Lite (20%) | $5,000 |
| Uber Eats Plus (25%) | $6,250 |
| Uber Eats Premium (30%) | $7,500 |
| Own page, 2.9% + 30¢ card fee | $939 |
| Own page plus a $169 plan | $1,108 |
The sums: 20% of $25,000 is $5,000; 2.9% is $725 and 714 × 30¢ is $214, so $939. The own-page rows assume every order moved, which will not happen. A better case: you move 20% of the volume, $5,000 or about 143 orders, from Plus (25%) to your own link. Plus would have taken $1,250. Your link takes 2.9% ($145) plus 143 × 30¢ ($43), so about $188. You keep about $1,062 a month more, provided the customers would have ordered anyway. If you also run your own delivery, subtract driver pay: the figure above is only the fee, not the cost of getting the food there.
What the numbers mean
Leaving Uber Eats entirely saves nothing if the orders vanish. Moving a fifth of them to your own link, on the numbers above, is worth about $1,000 a month. That is the right size of first goal.
What you lose by leaving Uber Eats
- Discovery. New people search the app. A page of your own does not show up there.
- Delivery drivers. If you have none, self-delivery is a cost and a risk. Ask a delivery-only service before you buy your own.
- Uber One members. Plus charges an extra 5% on their orders because they order a lot.
- Ratings and reviews. They stay in the app. Your Google reviews are the ones you can keep building.
The honest answer for most places is to stay on one marketplace and push regulars to the link. If Uber Eats is the one you can drop, make sure the rest of the volume holds for a month first.
How to move customers to your own link
- Put the link in the bag. A card that says "order direct next time" with a short link or a QR code.
- Make the page the first Google result for your name. Fill in your Google Business Profile, put the ordering link on it, and keep the menu current.
- Offer something small. A free drink or a lower price than the app, within what the fee you save allows. Our markup guide explains why app prices are often higher.
- Tell regulars at the counter. A sentence beats a sign.
- Measure the share. Count direct orders a week against app orders.
Mistakes to avoid when you leave or add an app
- Raising app prices without checking pickup. On Uber Eats, prices that do not match your menu move pickup from 7% to 10% [1]. Do the sum before you change them.
- Signing a long term for a page that has not brought a single order. Start month to month, or free, and count.
- Counting the fee saved as profit. Delivery by your own staff costs wages, petrol and insurance. A fee saved is not money kept until you subtract them.
- Hiding the link. An ordering page nobody can find saves nothing. Put it on your Google profile, your door and every bag.
- Dropping the app in the middle of a busy season. Make the change in a quiet month so a dip does not hide what happened.
How to choose in four questions
- Do you have drivers? If not, a marketplace or a delivery-only service does the hard part.
- Are your orders regulars or new people? Regulars move to a link; strangers do not.
- How many orders a month? Under 150, a free page wins. Over 300, a flat plan can beat a percentage fast.
- What can you test for 30 days? Run the link for a month before you cancel anything.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Uber Eats for restaurants?
For reach, DoorDash or Grubhub. For margin, your own ordering link, kept next to one marketplace.
Is there an Uber Eats alternative with no commission?
Yes: ordering pages with a flat plan or a card fee only. They bring no new customers, only the ones you send.
Can I leave Uber Eats at any time?
Terms depend on your agreement. Read it for notice and any custom rate, and ask support in writing.
Is Uber Eats pickup cheaper than delivery?
Yes: 7% or 10% against 20% to 30% [1].
How do I start with a link of my own?
You can build a menu site with pickup ordering free from a photo of your menu. More answers are in all our guides.
Sources
- Uber Eats US pricing page as read for our Uber Eats commission guide, Nov 2, 2026.
- Our DoorDash alternatives and Grubhub commission guides and the sources they cite, Nov 2026.
- 8 Uber Eats Alternatives for Restaurants, Owner.com; Alternatives to Uber Eats for independent restaurants, ChowNow; Uber Eats Alternative, UpMenu, as shown in search results Nov 11, 2026 (vendors with a stake in the answer; fee ranges only).
Rates change. Confirm on your own Uber Eats agreement and on each vendor's written quote.