Grubhub Profit Calculator for Restaurants: Commissions, Fees and Break-Even Math

The Grubhub cost stack, line by line

Every delivery order carries up to seven cost layers, and most operators track only two. Start with the order subtotal before tax, tip, and customer-facing service fees, because commissions apply to the subtotal, not to what the customer paid in total.

The layers are: food and beverage cost of the items (your recipe cost at current supplier prices), packaging (containers, bags, seals, utensils, napkins, and labels — usually $0.80 to $2.50 per order depending on items), the Grubhub commission (a percentage of subtotal set by your plan tier), payment processing fees, any delivery fee portion your plan passes to the restaurant, promotions or discounts you chose to fund, and the incremental labor and tablet time to fire, pack, and hand off the order.

Two layers hide most often. First, funded promotions: a $5-off coupon you enabled is $5 of your margin, not Grubhub’s marketing. Second, packaging for delivery-specific items: a burger that costs $0.40 to plate for dine-in can cost $1.60 to send through delivery with a vented box, wrap, seal, and bag. Measure packaging per order type, not as a monthly average, because single-item and family orders differ sharply.

Record each layer in dollars for one representative order before converting anything to percentages. Percentages hide small-dollar leaks; dollars expose them. A full breakdown for restaurants on any marketplace, including the shared logic behind commission math, is covered in the delivery commission guide at https://restaurantmargin.com/blog/restaurant-delivery-commission-profit-margin — use it alongside this Grubhub-specific worksheet.

Grubhub plan tiers: what to verify in your contract

Grubhub has offered several marketplace plan structures over the years, typically trading a higher commission rate for more marketing exposure and lower or waived customer delivery fees. Plan names, rates, and included services have changed more than once, so treat any third-party rate table as stale until confirmed.

Pull these five numbers from your own contract and monthly statements: the commission percentage applied to your subtotal, the payment processing percentage and any per-order transaction fee, which delivery fees (if any) are charged back to you, the exact funding split of every active promotion, and whether your plan includes any order-volume or marketing-fee minimums. If the statement shows a fee you cannot map to the contract, dispute it in writing before the next payout cycle.

For the worked example below we use illustrative rates — 15% commission, 3% processing plus $0.30 per order, $1.50 delivery fee absorbed by the restaurant, and a $3 funded promotion on some orders — because they sit in the middle of historically observed ranges. They are teaching numbers, not a quote. Replace every one of them with your contracted rates; the method does not change, but your answer will.

• Commission rate on subtotal: from your plan tier, confirmed in writing.
• Processing rate plus per-order fee: from the fee schedule, not from memory.
• Delivery fee responsibility: who pays, on which orders, capped at what amount.
• Promotion funding: your share of every coupon, boost, and free-delivery offer.
• Minimums and extras: marketing minimums, tablet fees, and chargeback rules.

Worked example: a $24.99 order, step by step

Take a representative Grubhub order with a $24.99 subtotal. The dish mix has a combined recipe cost of $7.25 (29% food cost at menu price — realistic for a burger-and-fries ticket at current supplier prices). Packaging for the vented box, wrap, seal stickers, bag, napkins, and utensils totals $1.85. These are the only two costs that exist before the marketplace takes its share: $9.10.

Now apply the illustrative marketplace rates. Commission at 15% of $24.99 is $3.75. Processing at 3% plus $0.30 is $1.05. The absorbed delivery fee is $1.50. No funded promotion applies to this particular order. Marketplace deductions total $6.30.

Contribution per order = $24.99 − $9.10 − $6.30 = $9.59, or about 38% of subtotal. That $9.59 must cover the incremental labor to produce and pack the order plus a share of fixed overhead. At a $16 hourly all-in labor rate, roughly 20 minutes of total touch time ($5.33) leaves about $4.26 toward overhead and profit — a genuinely profitable order.

Now rerun it with a $3 funded promotion and a higher 25% commission tier: commission becomes $6.25, deductions total $8.80 plus the $3 promotion, and contribution falls to $24.99 − $9.10 − $11.80 = $4.09. After the same $5.33 of labor, the order loses about $1.24. Same food, same customer, opposite answer — which is why the plan tier plus promotions decision matters more than the menu price alone.

The break-even rule for any Grubhub order

Generalize the example into a rule you can apply in seconds. Let C be total marketplace deductions as a share of subtotal (commission + processing + absorbed delivery + funded promos, all divided by subtotal), F be food cost share, and P be packaging share. The order contributes positively before labor when 1 − C − F − P is comfortably above your labor share per order.

As a practical gate: if C alone exceeds 30% of subtotal on an order, that order needs food cost under 28% and packaging under 6% just to leave 36% for labor, overhead, and profit — achievable for beverages and high-margin items, punishing for protein-heavy tickets. Use this gate to decide which items belong on Grubhub at all, rather than listing the full dine-in menu by default.

Items with the best delivery economics share three traits: recipe cost under 30% at the listed price, packaging under $1.50 achievable without quality loss, and preparation under 8 minutes of touch time. Price the delivery menu separately from dine-in where your contract allows it; a 10–15% delivery price premium on selected items is the most common way operators restore the equation without touching the dining room.

Test any price or item change against the break-even calculator logic at https://restaurantmargin.com/restaurant-break-even-calculator and the margin calculator at https://restaurantmargin.com/restaurant-profit-margin-calculator before pushing it to the tablet.

Weekly Grubhub control checklist

Run this review every Monday using last week’s Grubhub statement, not estimates:

• [ ] Subtotal, commission, processing, delivery fees, and promotions reconciled line by line to the contract.
• [ ] Contribution per order computed for the top 10 items by volume.
• [ ] Packaging cost per order type updated with current supplier prices.
• [ ] Funded promotions reviewed: which ones paid for themselves in incremental profitable orders.
• [ ] Bottom 3 items by contribution flagged for repricing, resizing, or delisting.
• [ ] Chargebacks and refunds logged with cause; repeat causes fixed at the pass.
• [ ] Delivery menu prices checked against current food cost — no item drifting above 32% delivered food cost unnoticed.

Limitations and assumptions

This guide is a planning method, not a quote of Grubhub’s current rates: commission tiers, fee names, and promotion mechanics change, and only your signed contract plus monthly statements describe your costs. Food costs used here are illustrative teaching figures; substitute your recipe costs at current supplier prices. Labor treatment depends on whether delivery volume requires incremental staffing or absorbs into existing shifts — the worked example assumes incremental touch time, which flatters restaurants with spare capacity and understates costs for those adding shifts. Validate every number with your own records before changing prices, plans, or marketplace presence, and confirm how price differentiation between dine-in and delivery is treated under your agreement. For the broader pricing picture, the plans at https://restaurantmargin.com/pricing show how operators systematize this review weekly.