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Comment by pavanred | Hacker News Reader

The problem I have with doordash is that though they say the delivery fee is $x, there are a lot of hidden charges. You are actually paying a lot more than that, a markup on food items + a delivery fee + 8% service fee + taxes + 15% tip (optional but selected by default) + a small order fee (if your order is less than a predefined min order value)

For instance, there's a a particular dish served at a local restaurant that I like, and I recently noticed that it is $11.99 at the restaurant but in doordash it's priced $13.99, delivery fee of $4.99, service fees of $1.88 and optional but pre-selected tip of $3.81. And, of course taxes in addition to this. At this point in some cases, its perhaps more economical to take an uber/lyft to the restaurant and back.

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DoorDash doesn't mark up menu prices any more, at least in my market. Supposedly restaurants didnt like the hidden markup, so they moved all of their fees into the delivery fee and the service fee.

Its not terribly fair to consider taxes and tip as "hidden charges", IMO. The taxes you pay even if you go to the restaurant yourself, and the tip is the majority of what the drivers get paid -- they dont work for free. I'd prefer a flat driver's fee, though, its not twice as much work for someone to deliver $50 of food vs $25, so I generally don't make large orders on DoorDash.

Menu prices on DoorDash are definitely still higher here than at the restaurant.

I agree taxes are not hidden charges, but it does sound a little deceitful to me that doordash bundles taxes with their service fee as one line item on their checkout page.

And, I don't share the same sympathy for the doordash drivers. I was already charged a delivery fee and a service fee separately, why is it still my responsibility to make sure the drivers get paid enough and not doordash's. Besides, the idea of tip for me is that I pay extra if I am happy with the service, and now I am expected to mindlessly pre-pay a tip before knowing if the service is going to be good or not. A reason why I prefer ubereatz, its a rating system but after the delivery.

The crazy thing is with all those fees, service charges, and markups they are still just barely contribution margin profitable.

Amazon Prime Now / Restaurants guarantees a delivery driver a certain wage (say $XX/hr, depends on market). However what that really means is while your tip is technically going to the driver, until they exceed $XX/hr, you're just saving Amazon from having to pay them instead. I still tip, but my generosity went down when I realized that most of my tip is really just a handout to Amazon.

Guess that explains why my amazon drivers said they always preferred cash...

I think NY state forced them to hand over tips to drivers (at least they did for GrubHub/Seamless), but I don't know if that has changed in other markets.

What's the difference between the 'delivery' and 'service' fee? Isn't the service literally the delivery with DoorDash?

Agreed, their fees are annoying. The website also always glitches for me the first time I press the final order button. It looks nice but it's making me look at other similar companies more these days. I enjoyed the early days with no fees and no glitches.

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