Are Food Delivery Subscription Services Worth It?

Food delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats have revolutionized the world of takeout dining. 20 years ago, a menu pamphlet and a restaurant's number in a phonebook were your only options for a quick meal without leaving the house. Today, thousands of establishments are at the tip of your fingers.

From pizzas to pad thai, delivery apps are unrivaled in the choice they offer to the consumer - one of many reasons why they've become so popular. Today, the U.S. is the second-largest market for them in the world behind China, with a revenue of $190bn in 2022. It's also estimated that more than 53 million Americans use their smartphones to order food.

Many popular apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash offer a premium membership service - usually around $10 per month to reward regular customers for dining with them. But are these packages actually worth it? To find out, we've analyzed the cost of ordering takeout through 2023, both with and without premium subscriptions, and also compared it to all coupon codes each platform emailed non-premium users through the year.

Key findings

• Premium delivery services were $174.74 more expensive in 2023 on average when compared to using the same apps with discounts, including the cost of subscription. We tested DoorDash, GrubHub and Uber Eats.

• Premium Uber Eats users who order weekly could have saved $255.24 in 2023 if they'd canceled their subscription and used all discount codes emailed to them instead.

• DoorDash is the most expensive delivery app overall, costing $2,001.78 per year including a premium subscription for an average weekly order.

• GrubHub offered the second most discounts in 2023 (20), but had the lowest average discount value (29%).

• DoorDash offered the highest discount value (42%), but only provided 5 discount codes through 2023, compared to Uber Eats who offered 22 with an average discount value of 41%.

• For weekly users, GrubHub's premium model offers the worst value for money, working out $255 more expensive than non-premium over the course of 2023.

Discount coupons help delivery app users save $175 per year

Circuit's survey shows that around 62% of food delivery app users pay for a premium subscription, and order twice as regularly as non-premium customers. On the face of it, a $9.99 monthly subscription to cancel out delivery fees and enjoy delicious meals from your favorite restaurants seems like an enticing deal.

However, 'hidden delivery costs' can cause meals from the same kitchen to fluctuate by 20% or more, thanks to a combination of local taxes, delivery fees and optional tips to drivers. But does ordering through a premium account save you money in the long run? We decided to put this to the test ourselves.

Using the three most-popular delivery apps - Uber Eats, GrubHub and DoorDash, we compared a year's worth of dining with and without a premium subscription. For each app, we used every possible non-premium discount and/or email voucher code - not specific to any local or national restaurants - to maximize savings and take advantage of every offer.

The results are surprising. In every scenario over a year, the premium subscription proved to be the more expensive option. On average, we found that they were $174.74 more expensive than a standard account.

Uber Eats is the most expensive - costing $255 more per year for subscribers

Against this, we combined the average delivery cost for each app with a base $9.99 monthly fee - common to all three platforms. Additionally, we compared the cost for each app for more casual users, someone who purchases once per week.

	Yearly cost (Non-Premium with discounts)	Yearly cost (Premium)	Yearly Price difference
Uber Eats	$1,697.40	$1,952.64	$255.24
GrubHub	$1,800.89	$1,975.86	$174.97
DoorDash	$1,907.79	$2,001.78	$93.99

Overall, we found that all three apps were cheaper over the course of a year using discount codes and the standard package, while Uber Eats' subscription service was a staggering $255 per year more expensive - equivalent to more than an extra month's worth of orders.

Non-premium User Savings

	Average delivery price per order	Average delivery fee	Average discount for non-premium users	Number of discounts in 2023
Uber Eats	$33.94	$3.15	41%	22
GrubHub	$34.37	$2.61	29%	20
DoorDash	$34.85	$2.48	42%	5

Uber Eats and DoorDash offered the largest overall discounts through 2023, with an average value of 41% and 42% respectively. However, the two platforms were noticeably far apart when it came to the number of discount codes they'd emailed non-premium users through the year, standing at 22 vs 5 respectively.

As a platform, GrubHub offered the largest numbers of discounts between January and December at 20, but the average discount value was below the others, totalling just 29% overall.

How much can coupons save you over a year?

To entice customers and boost sales, delivery apps regularly email customers with discount codes and run promotions. But which app offers the largest saving over a whole year, especially when compared against the app's premium subscription?

Uber Eats			GrubHub			DoorDash
Month (2023)	Discounts	Monthly saving	Month (2023)	Discounts	Monthly saving	Month (2023)	Discounts	Monthly saving
January	3	$34.97	January	0	-$3.06	January	0	-$2.41
February	1	$10.97	February	1	$9.86	February	0	$0.07
March	2	$24.54	March	0	-$0.45	March	0	$0.07
April	1	$7.82	April	1	$14.13	April	0	-$2.41
May	3	$38.12	May	1	$6.55	May	4	$64.54
June	2	$18.00	June	2	$19.28	June	1	$41.15
July	1	$7.82	July	2	$15.84	July	0	-$2.41
August	0	-$2.61	August	4	$37.36	August	0	$0.07
September	2	$27.94	September	3	$25.33	September	0	$0.07
October	1	$11.21	October	3	$27.87	October	0	-$2.41
November	2	$27.94	November	2	$18.45	November	0	$0.07
December	4	$48.54	December	1	$3.81	December	0	-$2.41
Total	22	$255.26	Total	20	$174.97	Total	5	$93.99

Overall, our research shows that Uber Eats gave customers the most discount codes with 22, slightly more than GrubHub which offered 20. However, if we look more closely at the data, we can see the volume of discounts from each app varies each month.

For example, Uber Eats would have been your best bet for December - offering a saving of $48.54, while GrubHub and DoorDash proved pricier.

However, DoorDash ran four separate offer codes during May, which saved $64.54 against a premium account. The savings from this month alone made a standard account cheaper over the course of a year than its premium equivalent.

Clearly then, it pays to shop around when ordering takeout. While delivery apps trade on their premium subscription services to cut out delivery fees, a savvy shopper can always use promotions and offers to their advantage. In some cases, it is even possible to save money on Uber Eats compared to ordering food from scratch.

How to get the best food delivery discounts?

Andy Cooper, money-saving expert at CouponBirds, said "Discount codes and coupons are a great way to save money, whether as a one-time purchase or making regular orders during the year. Businesses promote them for a reason, so why shouldn't you take advantage of them?

"We can see from our research that using coupons saves the consumer as much as $255 per year, and nearly $175 on average over 12 months. But it absolutely pays to shop around and use each app depending on their latest offers. Had you used DoorDash in May for example, you could have saved an extra $64, while Uber Eats offered the best deal in December.

"While premium subscriptions may seem enticing and ultimately save on delivery fees, the true secret to saving on takeout food is discount codes. It pays to regularly keep track of codes and use whichever app offers the best deal at that moment".

Methodology

We analyzed the cost of ordering food from three of America's most popular delivery services - Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub, with and without their respective premium subscription services.

Order values were taken from a survey by Circuit, totalling $34.85 for DoorDash, $34.37 for Grubhub and $33.94 for Uber Eats. With this and the average delivery cost per order, we were able to calculate how much users would save by applying all discount codes sent for each platform through 2023 to the order values.

The order values for non-premium users were calculated to always include a delivery fee. We applied any live discount code based on ordering an average of once per week. Where a code wasn't active in a given week, the calculation included a full-priced order.

For premium users, we used the full order price but took away all delivery costs whilst adding on the cost of the premium subscription.

Data was collected in January 2024.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.