1. Your platform file
Needs an order date or timestamp and a food sales amount (Subtotal or Food sales). Used when present: Commission (or Marketplace fee), Delivery fee / Service fee, Marketing fees / Promotions, Ad spend, Error charges / Refunds, Platform / Channel, Order status, Order ID and a payout column such as Net total (checked against the arithmetic, never used as it). US and day-first dates, comma, tab and semicolon files, quoted fields and UTF-16 exports are read. Rows that cannot be read are listed with their line number and reason. Load one file per platform together if you have several.
2. Your costs and options
Food cost is a percentage of the in-store menu price. Packaging is charged on every completed order. Leave both empty to see platform charges alone; the result then says net is overstated.
The own-ordering fee is what your processor or ordering tool charges you; the defaults are typical card-processing figures, not a quote. Check them against your own statement.
Choose a file or paste the text, then click Analyze.
Result
By platform
| Platform | Orders | Food sales | Commission | Delivery / service | Promotions | Ads | Errors / refunds | Take rate | Net cash | Net / order | After costs / order | Markup needed | Own ordering gain |
|---|
By weekday
| Day | Orders | Food sales | Take rate | Net cash | After costs / order |
|---|
By daypart
| Daypart | Orders | Food sales | Take rate | Net cash | After costs / order |
|---|
Groups under five orders are shown but ignored in the findings.
Ten orders with the lowest profit after costs
| Date | Platform | Order | Food sales | Charges | Take rate | Net cash | After costs |
|---|
The model, and what it leaves out
- Effective take rate is commission plus delivery and service fees plus promotions you funded plus ad spend plus error and refund charges, over food sales. Charges are read as costs whatever their sign in the file.
- Reconciles. The per-platform rows add up to the totals at the top. Net cash is food sales minus those charges; net after costs also takes off food cost and packaging.
- Payout column. If the file has one it is compared with food sales minus charges and any gap is reported, but net cash never uses it: it can include sales tax, tips and adjustments this tool does not read.
- Promo and ad return is profit before the spend per $1 spent, on the orders that carried spend, assuming every one of them was an order you would not otherwise have had. That is the best case; under $1 means the spend lost money even then. The file cannot show which orders were truly new.
- Markup needed is the delivery menu price, over in-store, at which an order earns the same dollars as the same food in-store, treating charges as proportional to price. It assumes volume holds when prices rise.
- Own ordering applies your typed fee to the same sales at the same prices with the same food cost and packaging. It does not include a delivery driver, labour or the customers a platform brings you.
- Weekday and daypart use the file's own clock and are ranked only with five or more orders per group.
- Not modelled: sales tax and tips, pass-through fees you are not charged for, labour, rent, chargebacks disputed after the export, promotions funded by the platform, subscription plans, and anything not in the file.
Common questions
Is DoorDash worth it for my restaurant?
It depends on what each order leaves you after every charge and your own food cost, not on the headline commission. Export your payout or order-level financial report from the merchant portal and drop it here. The tool adds commission, delivery and service fees, promotions you funded, ad spend and error charges, divides by food sales for the effective take rate, then takes off your food cost and packaging to show net per order and the orders that lost money. Nothing is uploaded.
What is my real DoorDash commission rate?
The effective rate is every charge in your file over food sales. It is usually higher than the plan's headline percentage because delivery and service fees, promotions you fund, ads and error charges are added on top. The tool computes it per platform and per order from your own export.
How much should I raise delivery menu prices?
The tool finds the markup at which a platform order earns the same dollars as the same food sold in-store, given your food cost and packaging. Platforms may have rules about pricing parity in your agreement, and customers may order less at higher prices; treat the figure as a starting point to test.
Are the column names right for my export?
They are matched by alias from memory of the three platforms' exports, and no real export was available when this was built. If your file is not read, the page names the rows it skipped and why; a sheet with the headers Order date, Subtotal, Commission, Delivery fee, Marketing fees, Ad spend and Error charges always works.
Is this accounting or tax advice?
No. It applies arithmetic to the file and the costs you type and does not replace your own judgement or a qualified accountant. It is independent of DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.