Devin Dornbrock I remember the first time I saw a commercial for a delivery service that wasn’t tied to a single restaurant. I was ecstatic, thinking about how convenient it would be to order more than just pizza to my door for dinner. But, unfortunately, it was a long time until I lived anywhere that was actually able to use any delivery service.
Since that first commercial experience, though, there are tons of delivery apps, and a couple of them even reach more remote areas outside of large cities. But which delivery service is the best? That’s a harder question to answer than you might think.
I remember the first time I saw a commercial for a delivery service that wasn’t tied to a single restaurant. I was ecstatic, thinking about how convenient it would be to order more than just pizza to my door for dinner. But, unfortunately, it was a long time until I lived anywhere that was actually able to use any delivery service.
Since that first commercial experience, though, there are tons of delivery apps, and a couple of them even reach more remote areas outside of large cities. But which delivery service is the best? That’s a harder question to answer than you might think.
As a customer
The service you get as a customer ordering from a delivery app depends on where you live. Major cities have no problem ordering from any delivery service and will probably have access to a lot of local restaurants delivering on their own. If you live in a smaller area, you just need to take what you can get.
For instance, in my area, I can get DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates but not Grubhub. The price points are more or less the same but can differ slightly depending on a few things: promotions, the monthly premium for free delivery, etc.
It’s worth mentioning that the delivery service industry is starting to eat itself too, which makes it harder to determine which is “the best.” Uber Eats, for instance, purchased and owns Postmates and tried- but failed- to do the same with GrubHub. DoorDash also purchased the higher-end delivery service Caviar too.
That means there aren’t as many choices as you might think. The free market tends to give you the illusion of choice without actually giving you much choice. If there’s money in it, people will still try to grab a piece of the pie.
If it’s sold in a city and you don’t want to go out to get it, there’s probably a delivery service for you. Even marijuana is available for delivery if you live in California. Of course, most people will probably find the grocery store delivery services a little more useful, but it’s crazy to know the weed delivery one exists too.
Instacart is pretty great for grabbing groceries in these socially distant times. I’m sure they were slammed at the beginning of the pandemic. The only problem with Instacart is that drivers for Instacart can’t make decisions on the fly if something on your list is out of stock.
You can also use Instacart to buy things from grocery stores you would ordinarily need a membership to shop in (Costco, I’m looking at you).
The differences in price
We all know that delivery is expensive. Even if the food is a reasonable price, the app you use gets you with all the taxes and fees it doesn’t show you until you’re ready to check out and practically drooling over the burgers in your digital basket. How different are the prices between each delivery service, though?
As an experiment, I ordered the same meal from the same restaurant on DoorDash, UberEats, and Postmates. Postmates was the most expensive, but to be fair, I couldn’t find the same location, so it was from slightly further away. Next was DoorDash which was $3 less than Postmates and at the cheapest price was UberEats which was $3 less than DoorDash.
Even if DoorDash isn’t the cheapest, it is normally what I default to. Postmates is usually pretty expensive, and I’ve heard enough bad press about Uber as a company that I’m not really inclined to order from them unless I have to. Of course, my first choice is to order delivery through the restaurant, but that’s not always an option.
Food delivery apps are great and all but check to see if restaurants in your area offer their own delivery. They usually make more money this way and don’t have to pay 3rd parties high fees. Local businesses have a harder time profiting off 3rd party apps especially and sometimes are added to delivery service sites against their will.
As a driver
There are often promotions for some delivery apps that incentivize drivers to make certain deliveries within a certain time. Usually, things like making $25 after fulfilling three deliveries on top of the tip and other pay.
From personal experience
According to a friend who has worked part-time as a driver for DoorDash, Grubhub, and Instacart, not all delivery gigs are made equal. He claimed to make the most money working for Grubhub, but a little research into other drivers shows the average pay for GrubHub is usually lower than services like DoorDash and Postmates.
According to him, DoorDash was worth it when there was a promotion for drivers, but otherwise, the pay wasn’t great, and it’s tough relying on tips to bolster the base pay. Though that may not be the case everywhere, supposedly, Michigan is a pretty great place to drive for DoorDash.
If you know the layouts of local grocery stores, he also mentioned that Instacart could be worth it. You’re able to maximize the number of orders fulfilled without having to wait for restaurants to cook food. That means you can work more quickly and make more money with your time.
If you’re looking to make extra money, signing up for multiple delivery services means you can take advantage of all the promotions too. If you’re going to sign up, just make sure you do your research ahead of time so you can make the most of your hard work.
The data
Between 2020 and 2021, DoorDash sales increased by 10% and currently makeup over 50% of delivery service sales in the United States. Trailing them is UberEats with about 20% of overall sales, Grubhub with 16%, Postmates way back with just 6%, and all other apps making up only 1% of the market.
If you want a breakdown of the markets and which delivery services control which parts of the country, I highly recommend checking out Bloomberg’s website. They break down the data with helpful graphs and translate the numbers for you.
I know you probably came here expecting a ranked list of delivery services, but there are too many variables for me to rank them properly. So many drivers work for multiple services, too, so it’s not like I can even tell you one has better customer service over another.
Everyone has their own opinion on which service is better. To be real though, the best service is kind of up to you to choose based on what is in your area. The number of drivers, participating restaurants, and incentives offered change daily, so just go with what you know.
If you want a real ranked list, be sure to check out our article on the best fast food French Fries!
Which delivery service do you prefer?
