It has become incredibly easy to get restaurant-quality food in just a few clicks or taps. You have all the restaurants in your area sorted out in a convenient app. This means that you don’t have to leave your apartment to order the most delicious meals.

Midnight Craving or Each day Supper-Meals dwelling supply apps ought to supply the perfect service and the perfect style. And now, as these food delivery apps are rising in popularity, the competitors are intensifying for the perfect food delivery apps.

If you’re considering delivery tonight, you have many options. But how do Grubhub or DoorDash compare?

Unlike most other delivery services that compete with DoorDash, Grubhub is almost identical. So, choosing between the two comes down to your specific preferences. Other factors like where you live, what your favorite restaurants are, and what features you prefer also come into play.

All the best places, starting with smaller cuisines and ending with luxurious restaurants, are available 24/7. The possibilities are truly limitless. In this article, we have chosen to compare two of the most popular services. In this battle of DoorDash vs. Grubhub, we will take a closer look at the quality of services, customer support, app possibilities, and many more crucial aspects. In the end, we will identify the winner.

Whether you are a hungry user trying to get your lunch, a vehicle owner eager to make some extra cash or a restaurant owner wanting to expand your business, this article provides everything you need to know about these apps.

The History

When it comes to age, Grubhub beats DoorDash out. The company was founded back in 2004 when there were fewer options out there for food delivery.

Founded in Chicago, Illinois, Grubhub has since made its way around the country, connecting diners with local restaurants.

DoorDash came almost a decade later from another coast. Founded in 2013 in Palo Alto, California, the app made up for the lost time by rising in popularity.

It won the title of the top on-demand food delivery service in 2019. As of January 2020, DoorDash had the largest food delivery market share in the United States.

DoorDash is an app where subscribers can order food from local restaurants at any time of the day, depending on the restaurant’s schedule. The huge monthly revenues and incredible daily booking rates are bringing a lot of profit – around $625 million.

Grubhub’s service has created a large base of partners. Around 85,000 restaurants have decided to join the app and provide their meals for the subscribers. The number of orders per day exceeds 450,000 and already more than 17 million have subscribed to this app.

Availability: Grubhub Offers Wider Choice in Rural Areas

Grubhub is more widely available than DoorDash, although DoorDash is quickly expanding. If you are in a major U.S. city, you should have no problem getting your order through either platform. Smaller towns are usually where there may be an issue.

As a result of Grubhub being around a little longer, it has a broader reach than DoorDash. Grubhub services over 4,000 cities in the United States, as well as London.

DoorDash has had exponential growth. In 2018, they were servicing over 850 cities. In 2019, they were delivering in all 50 states and could reach 80% of Americans. They reach roughly the same number of cities as Grubhub, but their reach is in the United States, Australia, and Canada combined.

If you live in a smaller town, you might have better luck with Grubhub. If you are outside the United States, DoorDash may be a better bet where you are.

The type of food available to you through DoorDash or Grubhub is specific to where you live and the surrounding restaurants. Overall, both DoorDash and GrubHub have about 300,000 restaurants featured.

The availability of restaurants will basically be the same for most locations covered by both services. Grubhub does have larger area coverage. The quality of food suppliers will not differ here, and because the difference is not substantial here, the coverage is the deciding factor.

Costs: Fees and Prices are Nearly Identical

Fees are the biggest downside to using a service such as Grubhub or DoorDash. These apps will require you to pay a service fee, delivery fee, and tip. With DoorDash, you’ll more often pay a service fee to both DoorDash and the restaurant you’re ordering from.

Grubhub typically does not include restaurant service fees, but more often requires minimum order amounts. Both services allow you to enter a custom tipping amount if the preset ranges aren’t satisfactory.

Grubhub has a higher number of national partners than DoorDash, allowing them to offer more competitive pricing. The company also offers a wider range of special promotions.

On the Perks page of Grubhub’s app, you can find several offers for free delivery and cash off. Switching from the “Redeem” to “Earn” tab, you can also earn other rewards by spending a minimum amount at eligible restaurants.

DoorDash also routinely offers special promotions. Several of their featured restaurants offer $0 delivery on your first order or on an order over $10, but Grubhub’s comes with more savings in the long run.

If DoorDash is your preference, and you’re trying to squeeze out more savings, look into getting a Cash App debit card. Cash App offers a number of Boosts, including one that unlocks 10% off on each DoorDash order. This can really add up.

All in all, when it comes to costs and fees, it’s mostly a matter of which restaurants you prefer and how you choose to use each app.

Subscription Service and Membership Benefits

In February of this year, Grubhub finally released a subscription service to directly compete with DoorDash’s. Grubhub+ offers unlimited free delivery and 10% cashback. It comes with a free 14-day trial and then bills at $9.99/month after.

DoorDash’s DashPass has been around for much longer and offers free delivery on orders of $10 or more. Its free trial is twice as long, at 30 days.

Both services provide free delivery only at select restaurants. With Grubhub having a much wider selection of restaurants, you’ll get more mileage out of Grubhub+. Grubhub+’s 10% off is especially good if you aren’t a Cash App debit cardholder and can’t unlock the 10% off DoorDash Boost. Otherwise, both services are nearly the same.

Due to more perks and restaurants eligible for free delivery, Grubhub+ shines over DashPass.

Both DoorDash and GrubHub have membership programs. For a monthly membership, both platforms cost $9.99.

Grubhub has Grubhub+, which gives you a free two-week trial before the $9.99 kicks in.

Both platforms’ monthly membership perks are directly correlated to their delivery fees.

For the DashPass, your monthly membership gets you $0 delivery fees on orders from select restaurants. For the restaurants that are not part of the select, if your order is over $12, your service fees are lowered.

In addition, DashPass offers free delivery for any order over $12, whether the restaurant is part of the select or not.

For Grubhub+, the monthly membership gets you unlimited free delivery from eligible restaurants for orders over $12.

At times, Grubhub+ also has a cashback initiative for every $100 that you spend on the app, you get 10% cashback.

User Friendliness

Grubhub mobile app is super user-friendly and easy to navigate. The additional features such as real-time delivery tracking make it super useful for users. The app also includes other additional features such as marking favorite restaurants or food, discounts, push notifications, and more. At the time of writing this blog, the Grubhub app has 5 stars on the Google Play Store and 4.7 on the Apple App Store.

DoorDash has almost the same features as the Grubhub app. You can choose contactless delivery options, explore restaurants, check ratings, and use offers as well. You can also schedule your order for a specific time to pick that up later with DoorDash. Other features such as real-time tracking and notifications are the same as Grubhub. The app is rated 4.5 on the Google Play Store and 4.8 out of 5 on the Apple App Store.

In contrast, DoorDash just displays the restaurant name, delivery time and fee, only giving you more information when scrolling down. However, DoorDash’s interface has an intuitive, user-friendly menu. Both use an infinite scroll with a navigation bar at the top, but DoorDash also allows you to switch into a category view that sorts items into groups like “Appetizers” and “Dinner”. This display allows customers to quickly find items, without having to scroll through an entire menu.

Food variety

Over the years, Grubhub has added a larger variety of food categories than DoorDash offers. These include ethnic food options, as well as choices like Healthy, Donuts and Bagels, Wraps, and Southern, among others.

DoorDash, by contrast, offers about half as many food categories. DoorDash also lets you sort and filter restaurant listings by delivery time, delivery cost, convenience, meat type, and much more.

Grubhub highlights the delivery time on listings and as a primary filter, which seems to indicate they view this as what they believe their customers care most about. DoorDash, on the other hand, highlights how much each restaurant’s delivery cost is.

Customer Service

Even though apps are really convenient, the customer support aspect of it should not be overlooked. It doesn’t matter if you’re using Grubhub or DoorDash, as long as you’re fully aware of what you’re getting in terms of assistance. If you’re having any issues with delivery or payment, you have to be able to resolve them fast.

When it comes to customer service, GrubHub has quicker response times. They have taken the crown here because the service provides a phone number for 24/7 assistance. This means that any customer will be able to reach the service at any convenient time. This is not the only method by which you can contact the company. Grubhub customer service can be contacted by phone, chat, and social media and representatives are available 24/7.

With DoorDash, the Customer Support Department works differently. They have an email address, but the downside is that there are no options for a live-chat, and the customer will probably have to wait for a long time to receive an answer from the expert. The request will take a while to be processed, but we have not encountered any serious issues while testing the app.

While DoorDash customer service can also be contacted in similar ways, Grubhub provides better customer service overall, especially when it comes to resolving order issues including refunds.

If you are dealing with an error in your order for Grubhub, you can deal with issues all within the app.

However, if you want to get in touch with Grubhub customer service, you can find common answers in their FAQs or contact them via phone at 1 (877) 585-1085 or use an email service.

Many people, however, have voiced concerns with Grubhub’s customer service team, which is not as good as expected by some customers.

When you are dealing with an error in your order for DoorDash, they make refunds painless and simple. You simply use the app to select what’s wrong with your order, and you offer your DoorDash credit to compensate you.

If you do need more assistance, then you can use the DoorDash FAQs or contact them via phone on 1 (650) 681-9470 or email ([email protected]).

Of course, it would be better to hope for the best, and perhaps you won’t ever need to apply for help. But all in all, Grubhub does a better job here.

If you’re interested in driving for one of them, here’s a thorough comparison of both companies.

Who Pays Drivers More?

Numerous factors are taken into account to calculate how much each platform pays its drivers.

Grubhub

• Mileage per order: Distance traveled per order
• Time driving: Time spent on the road per order
• Time waiting: Time waiting for pickup
• Special offers: Rewards for completing “Missions” or completing deliveries in a certain amount of time, participating in sweepstakes and receiving bonuses
• Tips: Additional earnings provided by customers

When drivers receive an offer with multiple orders, the mileage is calculated for all orders together. Additionally, if a new order comes in before the driver has completed the current delivery, the estimated time will start running when the current delivery has been finalized.

The variables may change by market depending on driver demand, location and ease of pickup and delivery. Grubhub doesn’t offer a base pay, and the hourly minimum depends on the market as well. However, drivers get to keep 100% of the tips they earn. This way, Grubhub ensures all drivers get paid fairly and competitively.

DoorDash

DoorDash has its own payment scheme: The Dasher Pay Model. This sums base pay with promotions and tips. Dashers also keep their tips in full.

With DoorDash, base pay ranges from $2 to $10 and is calculated by time and distance. In addition, earnings with this courier may be increased with special promotions, such as:

• Peak Pay: Offers drivers $1 to $4 extra per delivery during peak hours
• Challenges: Give Dashers rewards when completing a certain number of orders in a specific amount of time; challenges may be combined with Peak Pay incentives
• Drive: Pays drivers more when completing more extensive hours
• Guaranteed Earnings: A pay incentive for select Dashers to earn at least a specific amount within a set number of days. These variables depend on the offer Dashers were sent via email or SMS. Guaranteed earnings don’t include tips, challenge payments or referral payments.

Dashers and Grubhub drivers are considered independent contractors. Therefore, partners are responsible for their own tax withholding when driving with either company. Before adding tips, Dashers are set to make over $15 per hour, while Grubhub pays drivers around $12 to $15 per hour.

From the drivers’ point of view

Both of these apps offer almost the same rewards to their drivers. Grubhub and DoorDash allow drivers to keep 100% of the tip that they gain from the user. Moreover, challenges such as the number of deliveries within a specific amount of time are offered to give drivers an option of the extra earning.

Some other elements such as distance, number of orders, peak hours, weather, and waiting time among others also affect the earning of drivers. For instance, peak hours are usually extra costly for users. Thus, drivers make the most money during that time.

DoorDash vs. Grubhub: Best For

Grubhub is best for deals, and DoorDash is best for its reputation.

While each platform provides the same service – food delivery – they have different reputations among customers. Grubhub is known for its deals when it comes to ordering food.

If you are looking to get more for less, especially with a large order, checking Grubhub could be the way to go.

DoorDash has a better reputation. As we mentioned before, it is the highest food delivery app in consumer spending market share.

Plus, DoorDash was rated the top on-demand food delivery service. This is based on a lot of different factors already discussed above.

Lastly, both platforms have delivery options outside of meals from your favorite restaurants. GrubHub also delivers alcohol, requiring proof of age upon delivery.

DoorDash, on the other hand, delivers not only alcohol, but groceries as well.

Some of GrubHub’s notable partnerships include:

• Applebee’s
• IHOP
• Taco Bell
• Shake Shack
• Dunkin’ Brands (Dunkin’ Donuts)
• Yum Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, etc.)

And DoorDash features some of the following partner restaurants:

• The Cheesecake Factory
• Chipotle
• Cracker Barrel
• Wendy’s
• Wyndham Hotels

What makes DoorDash a Little Different from Grubhub?

In a way, Grubhub is a sales-driven company that focuses more on revenues and creates demand for restaurants that operate in the delivery infrastructure. They work more in cities than in the rural areas.

DoorDash is mainly a technology and logistics driven company. It manages the delivery of restaurants in suburbs and cities. Both of the services are different in their core competencies.

As a national brand, Grubhub has most markets in the U.S. as it charges a flat delivery fee of $2.99 to 4.99. Mostly Grubhub is much cheaper than 40-68% than DoorDash.

Both the services are safe and with plenty of precautions. You will have more luck with Grubhub as it has the largest market share with over 85,000 local restaurants that approve takeout.

Conclusion

DoorDash and Grubhub are both food delivery services that allow you to order from local restaurants and have the food delivered to your door.

They’re similar in a lot of ways, but there are some key differences that may make one or the other better for you depending on your needs, including the customer and driver’s experiences.

While DoorDash and Grubhub serve users meals from both local restaurants and national chains, Grubhub has a more extensive reach than DoorDash. Also, Grubhub offers its users multiple payment methods than DoorDash.

These two food delivery services are the titans of its industry, and you can’t go wrong using either service.

Generally, DoorDash is coming out on top amongst consumers. For an app born almost a decade later, it makes its way as a leader in the food delivery universe.

However, the service that works better for you depends on a lot of factors. There are advantages to both, and factors such as your location if you want to order groceries or the membership perks you want all play a part.

While we always hope that a food delivery runs smoothly, sometimes there is an issue with your order. The customer service for these two platforms differs, which may have a deciding factor on which you choose. If you have any issues with your order, the Grubhub customer service is more accessible. They have live chat and phone line to call that is available 24/7 with quicker response times.

This is one place where DoorDash is still catching up. If you have an issue with your DoorDash order, you may have to wait longer to get it resolved.

Now, as other reputed services such as Uber Eats are existing in the market as well, it might be a little difficult task to become a monopoly or even a duopoly as a brand. However, by keeping up with the trends, maybe in the future, Grubhub will lead the way as it has the potential.

Grubhub offers a complete package that comes at a very competitive price. DoorDash on the other hand is showing decent numbers and its performance will increase for sure, but Grubhub tops it at every single aspect. DoorDash is a good, safe choice nonetheless. Perhaps it will conquer the food delivery industry one day!

In the end, it is all about your personal taste. DoorDash may lead you to discover new and exciting cuisines, or the selection of available restaurants may be more interesting for your area. In addition, you can use promo codes offered by the company.