DoorDash Takes 30%. Should My Restaurant Take Online Orders on Its Own Website?

Let's do honest math. DoorDash typically takes 15 to 30 percent of every order that comes through its app. On a $40 order at the top rate, that's $12 gone before you pay for the food, the cook, or the lights. Multiply that across a week of orders and you're looking at real money — money that used to stay in your register. So the question every independent restaurant owner in the Tri-Cities should ask: what if repeat customers ordered straight from your own website instead?

The commission math on a typical order

Take a $40 order — two entrees and a drink, nothing fancy. At a 30% commission, DoorDash keeps $12 and you get $28. At 15%, they keep $6 and you get $34. Now scale it: say you do just 10 delivery orders a day through the app. At 30%, that's $120 a day walking out the door — roughly $3,600 a month. At 15%, it's still about $1,800 a month. That's not a fee you notice once; it's a second rent payment you never agreed to think about.

What commission-free ordering on your own site looks like

Ordering from your own website doesn't have to mean building something complicated. For most independent restaurants it looks like this: your full menu with prices on your site, a clear "Order" button, and a simple way to take the order — an online order form or ordering system tied to your phone. The customer pays you directly. There is no per-order commission. A pickup order that used to cost you $12 in commission now costs you nothing beyond what you already pay to run your website.

The key detail: it has to be as easy as the apps. Big "Order Now" button at the top of every page, menu with prices, and a checkout that works on a phone in under a minute. If ordering from your site feels like work, customers will drift back to the app.

When DoorDash still makes sense: discovery

Here's the honest counterpoint — DoorDash isn't useless. It's a discovery engine. People who have never heard of your restaurant find you by browsing the app at 6 PM when they're hungry. That's genuinely valuable, especially for a newer spot or one off the main drag. The app also brings its own delivery drivers, which matters if you don't have staff to run food across Kennewick at dinner rush. Think of DoorDash as advertising you pay for per order: expensive, but it puts you in front of strangers.

When your own site wins: repeat customers

Now think about your regulars — the family that orders every Friday, the office that does lunch twice a week. They already know you. They don't need DoorDash to discover you; they're paying the 15–30% markup for convenience they could get from your site just as easily. Every repeat order that moves from the app to your website is pure margin recovered. You don't have to leave DoorDash to win here. Keep the app for new customers and delivery, and steer your regulars to order direct.

• Put "order direct and save" on your receipts, bags, and boxes.
• Make your website's order button impossible to miss — top of every page.
• Offer pickup orders through your site so there's no delivery excuse to use the app.
• Mention it in person: "Next time, order from our website — it's the same food, and we keep all of it."

What it costs to take orders on your own site

This is where the math gets simple. A website with online ordering from Nova Pulse Media is $300 one-time to set up, plus $99 a month for the care plan — hosting, security, updates, fixes, and support. That's it. No percentage of anything. If shifting even a handful of regulars off the apps saves you a few hundred a month in commissions, the site pays for itself and then some. Compare that to the $1,800–$3,600 a month in the example above and the decision mostly makes itself.