Introduction
Food Delivery apps like UberEats, DoorDash, Grubhub, Zomato, and Swiggy have become our go-to apps for late-night cravings or Sunday dinners. These apps facilitate the delivery of restaurant-cooked meals to our doorstep, truly adding a sense of convenience to our lives.
But with so many pre-existing food delivery apps on the market, which one should you use?
Which one renders the most earnings to drivers? And which app gives maximum visibility to restaurant vendors?
In this blog, we are doing an in-depth exploration of two such popular food delivery apps: Uber Eats vs DoorDash.
Look out for some comprehensive, side-by-side comparison of Uber Eats vs DoorDash and decide which app is better for you.
So whether you’re toggling between a food delivery app software, a restaurant vendor looking to partner with an aggregator, a delivery partner, or a startup looking to emulate Uber Eats or DoorDash—this blog is for you.
What’s Uber Eats?
Uber Eats is an online food ordering and delivery platform launched by Uber Tech Inc.(a popular cab-booking app) in 2014. It is a spin-off business that came about when the company tried to use Uber’s ride-sharing ecosystem to deliver restaurant-quality food to its users.
Uber Eats has effectively capitalized on its extensive delivery fleet network, including cars, scooters, bikes, and EVs. While the app is exclusively used for ordering food online, users can also order groceries from local convenience stores.
Uber Eats is headquartered in California, where the company first launched its food delivery service under UberFRESH. However, in 2015, the platform was renamed Uber Eats. Within a year of operation, Uber Eats was launched internationally in Canada, London, and Paris.
Cut to today, when Uber Eats is one of the most loved on-demand food delivery apps. Uber Eats has partnered with about 800,000 restaurants and offers services in over 11,000 cities.
Market Share of Uber Eats
Uber Eats has become a household brand. Everyone’s heard of it. Everyone’s using it.
When Uber Eats rolled out internationally in 2016-17, its annual revenue was about 0.6 billion USD. Since then, the company has grown immensely. In 2023, Uber Eats generated revenue worth 3000 million USD in Q4 alone, averaging an annual revenue of 12 billion USD!
This year, in the first quarter of 2024, Uber Eats’ delivery revenue reached a whopping $3.2 billion, exhibiting a 4% year-over-year growth. Uber Eats saw accelerated gross bookings across the board—in mobility, freight, and food delivery.
This confirms that Uber Eats audiences are more engaged with the platform than before.
In November 2020, Uber acquired Postmates to consolidate its market share. At the time, Postmates held about 2% of the US consumer market share.
After the acquisition, Uber Eats had 25% of the food delivery sales in the USA and Canada in 2023.
Uber Eats Business Model
Building a hyper-local food delivery app and scaling it globally is not easy. If you’re starting with your food startup’s on-demand app, we recommend consulting with an experienced white-label food delivery app provider like Deonde.
That being said, there are plenty of nuances in understanding the business model of food delivery apps like Uber Eats. Let’s break it down:
Role of Restaurant Vendors
Uber Eats is an aggregator platform that partners with restaurants in various geographies. These restaurant vendors are important to the functioning of Uber Eats as they fulfill the orders received through the app. Through restaurant partnerships, Uber Eats can serve its consumers various cuisines.
Delivery Fleet
Through its extensive delivery fleet network, Uber Eats can deliver successful meals. Uber Eats drivers pick up food from restaurants and give it to the user who’s ordered the meal. Such timely deliveries are vital for customer satisfaction and business growth.
Revenue Model of Uber Eats
Uber Eats generates a steady income stream by levying a restaurant commission fee, which amounts to 30% to 35% of the average order value.
It also charges a platform service fee and a delivery fee to its users. Delivery fees experience a surge depending on weather, time of the day, and driver availability.
A portion of these delivery fees goes to the delivery drivers. All tips are also directly credited to the delivery partners, which is why tipping delivery drivers is so important!
Additionally, Uber Eats generates revenue through loyalty programs, subscription fees, in-app marketing, and grocery delivery software.
Top Uber Eats Features
All on-demand food delivery features have essential features, such as menu management, delivery management, order tracking, order management, live updates, GPS navigation, in-app comm channels, and payment gateways.
So, today, let’s go beyond these and explore the top Uber Eats features launched this year (2024). Let’s see how these functionalities will help Uber Eats stand out of the crowd:
- SNAP
SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assitance Program. Under this initiative, qualified consumers are reimbursed for their purchases by the government. Uber is trying to make high-quality food more accessible in underserved areas of the world by offering SNAP benefits through their application.
- AI-powered Assistant
This newly launched AI assistant will help users discover new restaurants and place orders. Uber’s AI assistant will also make it easier for consumers to plan their meals, find grocery deals, or even order ingredients for their favourite recipes while staying on budget.
- Sales Aisle
With the Uber Eats Sales Aisle, app users can quickly access a curated selection of the best local cuisines and dishes. The Sales aisle gives consumers direct access to promos and deals in one space—to accelerate the ordering process.
- Healthcare benefit payments
Along with Medicaid and Medicare, Uber Eats is working on a Health Advantage plan, allowing users to focus on healthy, mindful eating. Uber Eats is now accepting alternate payment methods like FSA cards, Flex cards, and relevant waiver payments on Uber Eats.
Pros of the Uber Eats app
- Uber Eats is globally accessible. Because it is so popular, you’ll find the most popular restaurants in any region on Uber Eats. As a result, you’ll find a wide array of meals and dishes on the app.
- Uber Eats enables users to switch seamlessly from Uber to Uber Eats. Again, Uber Eats is capitalizing on consumer convenience by providing a single platform to request rides or piping-hot meals!
- Uber Eats is designed to work and look like the popular ride-booking app Uber. Hence, users who’ve used Uber find Uber Eats intuitive and feature-friendly.
- Uber Eats leverages its existing delivery network to fulfil meal orders.
- Flexible payment options include debit/credit cards, cash, online payments, and FSA cards!
- Allows combining promos with Uber Eats offers.
- Uber Eats is one of the best-paying food delivery companies, making it an excellent choice for delivery drivers looking for a side hustle.
Cons of Uber Eats
- Despite having a well-established network of delivery fleets, Uber Eats has strict restrictions on out-of-state deliveries.
- Uber Eats has experienced massive delivery fee surges, discouraging many users from ordering. Sometimes, the delivery fee alone is more than the cost of the entire meal.
- Uber Eats has partnered with multiple popular restaurant vendors. If you’re a restaurant planning to partner with Uber Eats, you’ll face fierce competition—eventually spending a lot on in-app promos and marketing.
- Uber Eats still has a limited presence in rural areas and small cities.
What’s DoorDash?
Like Uber Eats, Door Dash Inc. is a Nasdaq-listed company based in San Francisco. It was founded in 2013 by Stanford University students Andy Fang, Tony Xu, and Stanley Tang.
Since then, DoorDash has emerged as a key player in online food ordering and delivery. It has surpassed Uber Eats and Grubhub to become the largest food delivery aggregator platform in the United States.
Since 2015, DoorDash has focused solely on increasing its international presence in Canada, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. Following the suite of Uber Eats, DoorDash in 202 expanded its services to grocery delivery and alcohol delivery.
DoorDash acquired Caviar, a food delivery service, to further strengthen its market share in the USA. Consequently, DoorDash was able to bolster its food delivery services and emerge as an industry leader.
Market Share of DoorDash
According to the Bloomberg Second Measure Report, DoorDash, with its subsidiary company Caviar, has scooped 67% of the US meal delivery sales.
Consumers are getting hooked on DoorDash! The Bloomberg report aptly observes a 36% 6-month retention rate and a 28% 12-month retention rate among DoorDash users. In March 2023, 69% of users continued their DoorDash subscription after 1 month.
Additionally, DoorDash has signed partnerships with hot food chains like McDonald’s and Starbucks. It has also partnered with CVS in the US to facilitate the delivery of household supplies and groceries.
While the company faced some internal turbulence at the end of 2022, it underwent major changes to reduce driver turnover. DoorDash accredits its record-high sales in 2023 to these changes. In Q1 2024, DoorDash clocked in $2.5 billion with a net revenue margin of 13.1%
DoorDash’s Business Model
DoorDash’s business model is similar to Uber Eats’. It also operates as an aggregator app, allowing restaurant vendors, app users, and drivers to communicate and conduct business on its interface.
DoorDash hires freelance delivery partners, Dashers, to pick up and deliver food to app users. Its revenue model is also very similar to Uber Eats, as it charges restaurants on a commission basis. Users are charged a delivery fee and a service fee. The company aims to scale its revenue by expanding into new geographies and adding more customers to its subscription program.
Top DoorDash App Features
DoorDash is known for actively incorporating user, vendor, and delivery partner feedback into its application interface.
Consequently, the app has enhanced regular on-demand delivery features to suit its audiences and stakeholders. Let’s take a look at the top 5 features launched by DoorDash in 2023-24:
- Universal Search Bar
DoorDash introduced its famous universal search bar at the top of the interface to help users find anything and everything on DoorDash. With the universal search, finding what you need on the app is easier than ever.
- Retail Tab
This is like a virtual shopping mall for users, who can order anything from snacks, desserts, dinners, house supplies, last-minute gifts, and groceries from a single page. DoorDash also has multiple add-to-cart carts for each category, so users can browse and switch categories without losing progress.
- Managing Scheduled Orders
DoorDash offers restaurant vendors an easy tool to keep track of current and scheduled food orders. The Order Manager module of the restaurant vendor app clearly distinguishes the scheduled and current orders, preventing any confusion. It also moves the scheduled order into the active tab 5 minutes before the prep time so the restaurant doesn’t miss them.
- Streamlined Bulk Onboarding
This new tool is designed to seamlessly onboard all new partners and their multiple restaurant chains with single-location SSIO integration. This optimizes the end-to-end experience for restaurant merchants and provides restaurants with a much-needed back-end infrastructure to onboard and conduct business.
- GenAI Search Tool
Users can save time by quickly finding the information they need with AI. No need to type your search queries manually. Troubleshoot app problems with an AI-driven assistant and enjoy a picture-perfect shopping experience on the DoorDash app.
Pros of DoorDash
- Every DoorDash driver is eligible for a base pay per order, which ranges between $2 and $10. Exceptionally well-performing drivers keep 100% of this amount without any aggregator cut.
- The DashPass, DoorDash’s subscription model, is extremely popular in the United States. It offers numerous benefits, including free delivery, discounts, and promos.
- DoorDash has the fastest compensation rollouts compared to other apps, which is advantageous for Dashers.
- DoorDash is establishing itself to be more than just a food delivery app. It has actively forayed into new industry verticals like grocery, retail, and alcohol delivery software.
Cons of DoorDash
- DoorDash’s global presence is far less than Uber Eats. DoorDash has failed to cultivate its UI/UX to serve audiences outside the United States.
- DoorDash has higher delivery fees than Uber Eats.
- The company doesn’t offer dynamic payments for drivers. Drivers are paid flatly, regardless of rush hour or weather conditions.
- DoorDash heavily depends on independent contracts called Dashers, making its operations extremely vulnerable.
Comprehensive Comparison: Uber Eats vs DoorDash
Now that we know so much about Uber Eats and DoorDash, let’s do a comprehensive comparison to see who’s winning the battle of on-demand food delivery apps:
| Feature/Category | Uber Eats | DoorDash |
| Established since | 2014 | 2013 |
| Global Presence | 45 countries | 30 countries |
| No. of cities captured | 6,000 | 4,000 |
| USA market share | 25% | 67% |
| App ratings | 4.4 – 4.6 (8 M ratings) | 4.6- 4.8 (18.3 M ratings) |
| Service fees | 15% | 10-11% |
| Average delivery times | 30 to 45 minutes | 35 minutes |
| Delivery fees | Starts at 0.49$ per mile | Varies, starting at $1.99 |
| Surge pricing | Yes | Yes |
| Driver Payments | $16.50/ hr | $16.07/ hr |
| Customer Support | Multilingual, 24/7, in-app, email, and phone. | Multilingual, 24/7, in-app, email, and phone. |
| Q1 2024 revenue | $3.2 bn | $2.5 bn |
| Tech stack | Swift, Java, Python, Node.js, MySQL, AWS, Azure, Stripe, and BrainTree | Java, Python, RAILS, Swift, Kotin, React Native, AWS, PostgreSQL, Stripe, and BrainTree. |
Uber Eats vs DoorDash: Which is better?
For app users
Users who are seeking better multi-cuisine options should go with Uber Eats. Uber Eats offers a wide range of menu options and is very conscious of dietary restrictions—thus making a perfect platform to order for a large group of people (i.e., corporate lunches, dinner parties)
While both apps are known for their intuitive UI design, DoorDash seems to have a leg-up on Uber Eats. DoorDash has an easy registration module, intuitive menus, multiple add-to-carts, and a live order tracking facility, making online ordering all the more convenient.
When it comes to pricing, both apps have a similar pricing model. However, Uber Eats may be able to beat DoorDash when it comes to delivering food on time consistently. Users also prefer the customer service of Uber Eats over DoorDash.
For Restaurants Vendors
As a restaurant owner, pricing should be prioritized when partnering with a food delivery aggregate. Now, since both Uber Eats and DoorDash have a similar commission fee, here are some more factors that may help you make the better choice:
Where will my restaurant get better visibility?
If you’re in the United States or Canada, you should go with DoorDash. It has a majority market share in the USA and can potentially deliver to a wider range of customers than Uber Eats.
Check Out This Comparison of the Top 2 Food Delivery Apps: Deliveroo vs. Uber Eats
Which app has a larger consumer base?
Here, we recommend you consider Uber Eats. If your restaurant is familiar with Uber users, you might benefit from leveraging their existing customer base. Besides, Uber users don’t need to download an additional app and can toggle between Uber and Uber Eats as these apps are a part of the same company.
Is there a scope for upselling?
Both apps are slowly expanding their presence to new revenue models, which include groceries, gifting, alcohol delivery, and raw-ingredient shipping. This is exciting news for vendors, as they can tap into these categories and diversify their business.
Who has the best restaurant vendor app?
Here, you must consider DoorDash. You can start with a 0% commission for the first 30 days. DoorDash also offers a storefront that allows online ordering from the restaurant’s website and features to facilitate sales from the restaurant’s own app.
For Delivery Drivers
Uber Eats permits adults over 19 with a valid Driver’s license and at least one year of driving experience to sign up as delivery partners. Drivers must submit proof of identity and copies of their license and car insurance. There are no fixed time slots—drivers can take up deliveries according to availability.
On average, an Uber Eats delivery partner can earn a yearly income of $40,000- $41,000.
DoorDash has very similar guidelines for delivery driver recruitment. Any adult over 18 with a valid driving license and a clean driving record can register as a Dasher. DoorDash conducts its due diligence, and all prospects must pass this background check before working for DoorDash.
DoorDash offers shift scheduling where Dashers can choose the time of their shift. As a Dasher, you can earn $36,600 to $40,000 annually.
Conclusion
The question of Uber Eats vs DoorDash: Which app is better is complex, as several factors must be considered. In this blog, we successfully examined the market position of these apps, mainstream pros and cons, and brand-new features, giving a general sense of how these apps are doing today.
Then, we delved into a side-by-side comparison that allowed us to explore Uber Eats vs. DoorDash regarding their features, pricing, technology, and design. We also looked at how these apps work for different personas: users, restaurants, and drivers.
Choosing the right app ultimately depends on your preferences and needs. But if none of the exciting apps meet your expectations, connect with Deonde.
Deonde can help you create a customized on-demand food delivery app specific to your region of operations. Starting under $100 a month, you get multiple interfaces in Deonde’s foo delivery suite. Never worry about tech infrastructure or updates—kick-start your dream food delivery app with Deonde.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- What’s the cost of building an on-demand food delivery app like Uber Eats or DoorDash?
The cost of developing a food delivery app like Uber Eats or DoorDash can range anywhere from a few thousand dollars (`$10,000) to a whopping several thousand dollars (~ $215,000). Where you fall in this range will depend on factors like the complexity of your UI/UX, the number of features, third-party API, technology stack, IT infrastructure, and app support.
- How do such on-demand food delivery apps make money?
On-demand food delivery apps generate revenue by charging a fixed platform service fee and a dynamic delivery fee on each order. Service fees are about 10 to 15% of the gross order value, while delivery fees vary based on distance and time. They also charge a small order fee on orders less than $10. In addition, restaurant merchants are charged commission fees and marketing fees.
- How do you custom-develop a food delivery app like Uber Eats?
Interested in creating an app similar to UberEats? Explore our comprehensive guide on building an app like Uber Eats.
Start by partnering with a good mobile app development company.
Another easy way out is to connect with food delivery app providers like Deonde. Deonde offers food delivery apps for users, drivers, admins, and vendors on a monthly subscription basis.
Deonde’s customizable food delivery suite can be branded according to your preface. With white-labeled apps, you can launch your online meal-ordering business in less than a week.
While regular development processes may take up to years and require heavy upfront investments, you can start with Deonde for as little as $99.
