It was a Friday night, and neither one of us felt like cooking. So I pulled up Grubhub on my phone, and we talked about what we each wanted from one of our favorite restaurants.

The restaurant is 1.2 miles away, so I could easily pick it up. But this particular night, like many before, I just wanted to chill. We picked our items, and I went to the final step when I decided to see how much I would save if I just went to pick it up. Aside from the tip, which is always generous (as we still gay tip) and I never have an issue with, we would pay about $11.00 for the convenience. I opted to call the restaurant and go pick it up myself.

While heading to the restaurant, I began to wonder if the restaurant has to pay a fee on the food items ordered, or does GrubHub simply make money off of us?

Indeed, they do. This particular restaurant is charged 33% of the food order by GrubHub.

33%!

To be fair, I’m sure other services charge the same or similar. And different restaurants pay different amounts, depending on their pricing plan. Google searches tell me that most restaurants pay 15% to 30%.

I may be OK with a 10% or 15% fee. And then I remember that they are also charging me!

The more I looked into this, the more I realized why some restaurants’ pricing is more expensive on GrubHub or similar apps. The restaurants are trying to make up some of the cost of doing business with the app.

I haven’t ordered from GrubHub since funding this out. And I haven’t stopped ordering from my favorite restaurants, I just go pick up the food. The restaurant business is tough enough without fees that seem to be only about greed, while making it even tougher for the restaurant.

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Go vegan. Vote. Be kind.