Delivery marketplaces like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub that take orders and deliver for a commission — commonly 15-30% per order.
Third-Party Delivery (3PD)
Delivery marketplaces like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub that take orders and deliver for a commission — commonly 15-30% per order.
Third-party delivery (3PD) refers to the marketplaces — DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub — that list a restaurant, take the order, handle delivery, and charge a commission. Those commissions commonly run 15-30% per order, and with processing, promotions, and refunds stacked on, the effective cost often reaches 30-40% of the order total.
That take rate, against restaurant net margins of only a few points, is the economic pain behind a whole software category.
- The strategic response: treat 3PD as paid customer acquisition and convert those guests to first-party online ordering — the restaurant's own site or app — to recapture margin and customer data.
- Commission-free ordering is exactly the pitch of vendors like ChowNow, Slice, and GloriaFood.
Operators also wrestle with keeping menus and 86'd items in sync across multiple 3PD tablets, which drives demand for order-injection integrations into the POS.