Money: DoorDash cutting commission fees.

Savings estimated at $100M for ravaged hospitality industry

In a move that may provide a little relief to some South Florida restaurants, food-delivery app DoorDash will chop its commission fees by 50 percent for all restaurant partners, the service announced Friday.

The program, kicking off Monday, April 13, affects orders placed on Doordash and Doordash-owned Caviar and lasts through the end of May. Cutting its usual fees in half would save $100 million for the 150,000 U.S., Canadian and Australian eateries hosted on its app, per DoorDash’s own estimates.

DoorDash defines a “local restaurant” as having five or fewer locations.

Here’s what that means: If a restaurant once paid $5 in fees before the COVID-19 pandemic, the commission DoorDash charges will now be $2.50. CEO and co-founder Tony Xu says in a Thursday Twitter post that the savings amount to an “injection of up to $100 million.”

DoorDash spokesperson Cat McCormack told the Sun

“If you’re a new DoorDash partner, it will be zero commission fees for pickups and deliveries for the next 30 days.” Cat McCormack, DoorDash spokesperson

Sentinel Friday that the halved commission fees are meant for restaurants already using DoorDash’s delivery service.

(For customers ordering pickup, DoorDash won’t charge restaurants any fees through May.) New restaurants signing up for the platform would save even more, she says.

“If you’re a new DoorDash partner, it will be zero commission fees for pickups and deliveries for the next 30 days,” McCormack says.

This isn’t the first time the San Francisco-headquartered service began waiving fees amid the coronavirus, which has ravaged South Florida’s hospitality industry, laid off thousands of restaurant employees and forced others to seek emergency relief from food pantries.

On March 17, DoorDash announced they would waive fees through the end of April. Restaurants already using DoorDash’s subscription-based DashPass for delivery, at the time, received an extra “small reduction” in commission fees, McCormack says. She declined to say how much of a discount.

Restaurants are not expected to pay back DoorDash, unlike rival GrubHub, which is only delaying fees until the pandemic ends.

UberEats is also waiving fees entirely. Commission fees usually range from 15% to 30% per order.

What about DoorDash drivers, the frontline workers venturing out in public to deliver hot meals? The service is offering couriers up to two weeks of sick pay if diagnosed with COVID-19, along with hand sanitizer, gloves, wipes and face masks to take on delivery routes.

AP Food-delivery service DoorDash is chopping commission fees by 50% for all South Florida restaurants through May.