--- title: "Olo takes a flat 5% on delivery where DoorDash and Uber Eats charge restaurants up to 30%" description: "Olo, the software that already processes 3.5 million restaurant orders a day, launched a consumer delivery app on October 20 showing in-store prices with a flat 5 percent fee, going straight at the 15 to 30 percent commissions that fund DoorDash and Uber Eats. The aggregator toll now has an inside attacker." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Platforms" published: 2026-10-21T14:49:50.200Z modified: 2026-10-21T14:49:50.200Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/olo-takes-a-flat-5-on-delivery-where-doordash-and-uber-eats-charge-restaurants-up-to-30 language: en keywords: "Platforms, Food Delivery, Restaurants, DoorDash" --- # Olo takes a flat 5% on delivery where DoorDash and Uber Eats charge restaurants up to 30% > Olo, the software that already processes 3.5 million restaurant orders a day, launched a consumer delivery app on October 20 showing in-store prices with a flat 5 percent fee, going straight at the 15 to 30 percent commissions that fund DoorDash and Uber Eats. The aggregator toll now has an inside attacker. An $85 dinner order came back $19.34 cheaper on the new Olo app than on a traditional delivery marketplace, and that was after Olo's fee [6]. That gap is the business model of [DoorDash](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/doordash) and [Uber](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/uber) Eats getting its first inside attack. On October 20, Olo, the restaurant software company that already powers more than 3.5 million orders a day for over 800 restaurant brands across 90,000 locations, [launched its own consumer app](https://www.aol.com/articles/introducing-olo-app-smarter-way-123000000.html), and its pitch is the menu price you thought was the restaurant's [5][7]. ## The toll inside every delivery order Here is the machine Olo is going after. Marketplaces charge restaurants commissions of [roughly 15 to 30 percent per delivery order](https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/olo-launches-restaurant-ordering-app-145833933.html), and restaurants claw that back by marking up the menu [5]. Olo founder and CEO Noah Glass puts it at 20 to 30 percent, and says customers blame the wrong party [2]. A survey Olo commissioned found 74 percent of Americans expect delivery fees but only 27 percent expect the chicken itself to cost more on an app [7]. On Olo's app, menus match in-store prices and the consumer pays one flat 5 percent network fee, plus delivery and tip when delivery applies [2][5]. Glass calls it "second-party ordering": marketplace convenience, direct-channel economics [6]. ## The disruptor hires its rival's drivers The twist: Olo keeps no couriers. Its Dispatch product, about a decade old, shops third-party fleets such as Grubhub on cost and speed and buys fulfillment per order [1][6]. Restaurants also keep the customer data, which marketplaces guard [5]. The app [launched with more than 250 brands](https://www.qsrweb.com/news/olo-app-launches-to-40-million-users/), Waffle House and Five Guys among them, aimed at 40 million existing Olo account holders [3][5]. Glass says the network has already beaten the chicken-and-egg problem every marketplace dreads [6]. ## What it means for DoorDash's November 4 print At 250 restaurants the near-term revenue risk to DoorDash is small [4][8]. The quarter it reports on November 4 will be judged on the scale that carried [second-quarter revenue of $4.45 billion, up 35.6 percent](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/doordash-to-announce-third-quarter-2026-results-on-november-4-2026-ce785ddcd98ff120) [4][8]. *Chart: **DoorDash revenue has grown every quarter for two years, topping $4.4 billion** Line chart of DoorDash quarterly revenue from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026, rising from $2.7 billion to $4.45 billion.* *DoorDash quarterly revenue, USD billions, Q3 2024 through Q2 2026, from DoorDash's SEC filings. The quarter it reports on November 4 covers the period after Q2 '26. [9]* The real question is take-rate erosion over years, not weeks. [Walmart](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/walmart) began delivering restaurant orders earlier this year, so [markup-free channels are multiplying](https://theinference.org/article/doordash-sent-warning-letters-as-a-chatgpt-ordering-rival-undercuts-it-by-13-56-a-pizza) [1]. Glass's own target, 1 billion orders a year through the app, says the ambition [6]. Watch whether big brands follow Five Guys, and whether fulfillment pricing falls. Deep dive in below to learn more. *Chart: **Olo charges 5 percent where marketplaces charge restaurants 15 to 30 percent** Bar chart comparing Olo's flat 5 percent network fee with the 15 to 30 percent commissions restaurants pay third-party marketplaces, which they recover through menu markups.* *Per-order charge as a percent of order value: Olo's flat consumer fee versus the commission range third-party marketplaces charge restaurants, per Nation's Restaurant Directory via Yahoo Finance; company-reported figures, October 20, 2026. [5]* ## Takeaway Olo's new consumer app shows in-store menu prices and charges a flat 5 percent network fee, undercutting the 15 to 30 percent commissions that drive marketplace menu markups; with 3.5 million daily orders and 40 million account holders already in its orbit, the aggregator model faces its first inside attack just as DoorDash's November 4 print looms. ## Sources 1. [Business Insider, This new food delivery service is trying to take on DoorDash and Uber Eats by offering no menu markups, October 2026](https://www.businessinsider.com/olos-app-offers-in-store-prices-rivals-doordash-uber-eats-2026-10) 2. [WIRED, This New Food Delivery App Could Be the Antidote to Menu Markups, 20 October 2026](https://www.wired.com/story/olo-new-food-delivery-app-could-be-the-antidote-to-menu-markups/) 3. [QSR Web, Olo app launches to 40M users, 20 October 2026](https://www.qsrweb.com/news/olo-app-launches-to-40-million-users/) 4. [MarketScreener/Business Wire, DoorDash to Announce Third Quarter 2026 Results on November 4, 2026, 9 October 2026](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/doordash-to-announce-third-quarter-2026-results-on-november-4-2026-ce785ddcd98ff120) 5. [Nation's Restaurant Directory via Yahoo Finance, Olo launches restaurant ordering app with promise of lower prices, 20 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/olo-launches-restaurant-ordering-app-145833933.html) 6. [QSR Magazine via Yahoo Finance, Olo's New App Could Change How Restaurants Compete for Digital Orders, 19 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/olo-app-could-change-restaurants-175259516.html) 7. [Business Wire via AOL, Introducing the Olo App (Olo press release), 20 October 2026](https://www.aol.com/articles/introducing-olo-app-smarter-way-123000000.html) 8. [Ad Hoc News, DoorDash scheduled third-quarter results, 20 October 2026](https://www.ad-hoc-news.de/boerse/news/corporate-news/doordash-scheduled-third-quarter-results-doordash-stock-costs-eur-173-08/70371582) 9. [DoorDash, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 21 October 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001792789) --- Olo takes a flat 5% on delivery where DoorDash and Uber Eats charge restaurants up to 30% — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/olo-takes-a-flat-5-on-delivery-where-doordash-and-uber-eats-charge-restaurants-up-to-30