Writing · · 6 min read
What a $100 Order Costs, by Channel
On a $100 order, the eight US sales channels checked here keep from $3.20 to $30 before any monthly plan fee, and each gives something different back for it. A delivery app's cut pays for its shoppers and a driver. Your own store's fee pays for the software, and you bring the rest. Before you change how you sell, find out what each of your channels keeps, and what you get for it.
This paper is for owners of restaurants, shops and other small businesses who sell through delivery apps or marketplaces today. It covers cost only. It doesn't say what any channel will earn you.
What each channel keeps
DoorDash's commission includes card processing, and Marketplace adds no separate processing fee. Etsy's figure is its 6.5% transaction fee, 3% plus $0.25 for payment processing, and a $0.20 listing fee. The own-store figures are the card rate on one order: 2.9% plus 30¢ on Square's Plus plan and Shopify Basic, 3.3% plus 30¢ on Square's Free plan. Shopify's rate assumes Shopify Payments; with another processor, Shopify adds a 2% fee. Shopify Basic is $39 a month if billed monthly.
What the fee pays for
A bigger cut usually buys more: shoppers who already use the app, a driver, or a wider delivery area. The question is whether you need what it buys.
| Channel | What the fee covers | What you bring |
|---|---|---|
| DoorDash delivery | Your store listed and marketed on DoorDash, the Dasher who delivers, customer support and card processing. Plus and Premier widen the delivery area; Plus adds DashPass members, and Premier adds the widest range and an in-app ad | The food, packed and ready |
| DoorDash pickup | The same listing and card processing, at 6% on every plan | The food and the counter: the customer comes to you |
| Etsy | A listing on Etsy's marketplace and payment processing. Offsite Ads bring outside shoppers for 15% more on the orders they bring (12% for shops past $10,000 a year, capped at $100 an order) | The goods, the shipping and the service |
| Your own store (Square Online, Shopify) | The store software and card processing | The shoppers, the delivery if you offer it, and the marketing |
On your own store, bringing shoppers is your job. That cost doesn't show up as a fee, but it is real, and it varies too much by business to put a number on here.
Monthly plans change the math
An own-store plan charges a card fee on every order and, on paid plans, a flat monthly fee. Spread over a few orders, that monthly fee is a big share of each one. Over many orders it fades.
The chart assumes $100 orders. Smaller orders raise the 30¢ per-order charge as a share of sales: on a $25 order it adds $1.20 per $100. It also counts platform fees only. Building the store, keeping it up and bringing shoppers to it cost more, and those depend on the business.
Who holds the customer
A fee is paid once per order. Whether you can reach that customer again is a separate question, and the channels answer it differently.
- DoorDash Marketplace. DoorDash's privacy policy says it passes merchants the order and, depending on who delivers, some personal details such as name, address and phone number. Its US merchant terms then limit their use: the merchant agrees not to use DoorDash data "except as required to perform under this Agreement." We found nothing in those terms that grants a right to market to those customers.
- DoorDash's own online ordering for your site. A different product with different terms. There, customer data such as name, email address and phone number is yours to use within the law, and DoorDash says it won't use that data for its own marketing.
- Your own store. The customer list sits in your account. Shopify and Square both let you export your customers to a file.
Etsy has its own rules on contacting buyers. Read its seller policy before you add a buyer to a mailing list.
What customers say they prefer
In a blind survey of US consumers in November 2024, a majority (58%) said they prefer to use a restaurant's app or website to order delivery: 29% its app and 29% its website. Another 15% would rather call the restaurant. Asked why they'd order directly, many cited convenience (65%), ease of customization (50%) and earning loyalty points (36%). The survey is NCR Voyix's, as reported by Restaurant Dive on Jan 30, 2025.
That is a stated preference about restaurants, not a count of where people actually order, and no comparable figure turned up for shops. It says customers are open to ordering direct. It doesn't say they will.
Run your own channel check
The figures above are list prices. Your own statements say what each channel actually kept, and three months of them is enough to start.
| Channel | Orders, last 3 months | Sales, last 3 months ($) | Fees, commissions and plan charges ($) | Channel's cut per $100 of sales ($) | Can you reach the customer again? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delivery app | |||||
| Marketplace | |||||
| Your own site or store | |||||
| In person |
The channel's cut per $100 is the fees column divided by the sales column, times 100. Then three questions:
- Which channel brings orders you wouldn't get any other way?
- Which channel keeps the most per $100, and what do you get for it?
- On which channels could you reach last month's customers again tomorrow?
How TresPies works on this
TresPies offers this check as the first step of Own your sales: where your orders come from today, and which of those channels someone else controls. If you go on to a store and customer list of your own, the store sits on your domain, payments land in your own processor account, and the customer list is in your name from the start. The source files are handed over at the end.
Own your sales is marked New: the capability is built, and you would be among the first to buy it. To start, book a 30-minute call.
Sources
Fee pages change. These were read on October 21, 2026, except Etsy's, read on October 12, 2026.
- DoorDash for Merchants: pricing, commissions, what they cover, and the pickup rate
- DoorDash US privacy policy, what merchants receive
- DoorDash US merchant terms, sections 1 to 11, section 11.1 on DoorDash data
- DoorDash Storefront merchant terms, customer data on your own ordering site
- Etsy's fee policy, transaction, processing, listing and Offsite Ads fees
- Square Online plans and Square fees, plan prices and online card rates
- Square: export customer data, exporting the customer directory
- Shopify pricing, plan prices, card rates and the third-party processor fee
- Shopify: import and export customers
- Restaurant Dive, Jan 30, 2025, reporting NCR Voyix's 2025 Customer Experience Report