The food delivery apps make it look simple: tap a few buttons, and dinner appears. What they make considerably less visible is what that convenience actually costs.
Start with the menu price. Restaurants typically inflate their app listings 15 to 25 percent above what you would pay walking in, that markup exists to offset the hefty commissions apps charge them. Then comes the service fee, often 10 to 15 percent. Then the delivery fee. Then the tip. By the time a basic Chick-fil-A order that costs $9.85 in person reaches your door via GrubHub, according to a FinanceBuzz analysis, you may have paid $23, an increase of 134 percent. A McDonald's order that runs $37 at the counter averages $58 when delivered through a third-party app.
Multiply that across a week, a month, a year, and the Washington Times, in a February 2026 report, put the average American's annual food delivery spending at $1,850. For younger Americans who order several times a week, the figure climbs considerably higher.
The comparison to cooking at home is almost not fair. A home-cooked meal averages $4 to $6 per serving by most estimates. A delivered meal for one person, fees and tip included, routinely runs $25 to $35.
The apps are convenient. But convenience has always come at a premium.