Fact or Fiction #14: Free Delivery = Zero Fees

This is Fiction!

Just because you see something mention free delivery, does not mean you won't pay any fees for your meal! There has been a lot of talk in the news throughout the Coronavirus pandemic about food delivery. As seen in China, and now in the U.S., food delivery is nearly an essential service for people to get food safely delivered to their door during this difficult time.

Many of the top food delivery services have also announced what sound like free delivery initiatives, but that doesn’t necessarily mean zero delivery fees for consumers. Read on to see a better explanation about what all the ‘free delivery’ talk is about.

Uber Eats

Uber Eats announced it would waive delivery fees on orders placed to independent restaurants, who face large scale dilemmas due to dine-in restaurant closures across the country. While delivery fees may be waived, this does not necessarily mean that you won’t encounter other charges on the platform. There are many additional fees you might encounter, such as service fees, which you can read about in more depth here.

Grubhub

Grubhub announced a $100 million relief package to help restaurants during this crisis. On the one hand, it seems like a positive step, but many find the move to be “a hollow PR move.” The program only defers payments restaurants must pay to the company by a few weeks. In the meantime, Grubhub has not announced any plan to provide consumers with lower or discounted fees.

DoorDash

DoorDash also has been pushing the idea that you can pay zero dollar fees on delivery, but this only applies to people who purchase DashPass, a monthly delivery subscription. What DoorDash is doing is allowing new restaurants that sign up with DoorDash to pay zero fees for 30 days, and existing restaurant partners will pay no commissions on pick-up orders. In addition, DoorDash says it will add over 100,000 more restaurants available for $0 delivery, but this again refers to DashPass, so without it, you won’t get free delivery.

Caviar

Caviar, owned by DoorDash, is also offering new restaurants a 30 day no commission window as well as no commissions on pick-up orders for existing restaurant partners. Caviar does say it will provide restaurants with the option to participate in a $0 delivery fee service. They do not, however, promise any wide-scale zero dollar delivery option across the site for consumers.

Postmates

Like many other of the services on this list, Postmates started offering contactless delivery a while ago. That said, they have not taken additional steps to provide free delivery to consumers other than continuing to offer discounts for new users who sign up for the service. Like DoorDash, they also offer a monthly subscription for food delivery that does technically provide free delivery, but you have to pay for the service.

While many food delivery services claim to be offering consumers free delivery right now, you have to make sure you check the facts before you place an order. Delivery fees can come in many different forms. Make sure you know what you’re paying. And to know what your whole order will cost ahead of time, use FoodBoss to sort for the cheapest delivery fees and save money every time.