I Tested the Best Food Delivery Service Apps, & I’ve Chosen a Clear Winner
We tried all the best food delivery apps so you don’t waste your money or time on your next order!
The best meal is one you didn’t have to cook… or is it?
Find out if the best food delivery service is Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, or Postmates! I tested, rated, and reviewed them all so you’re informed next time hunger strikes.
We live in a world where getting your favorite restaurant foods delivered to your doorstep is just a few taps away but each one comes with a cost. To save you the hassle of knowing which one is worth your hard-earned cash, I vetted these free apps for you!
My plan to determine the best food delivery service was to order the same meal, from the same place, and all at the same time to see which one performed best and had the best price.
Here’s how each food delivery app ranked based off my recent experiences:
1. Postmates
Postmates allows you to order groceries and food from many different restaurants and nearby stores. Delivery and service fees will vary depending on the restaurant. For my location, the delivery fees ranged from $0.49 to $2.49 (without a membership) with the majority being just 49¢ to 99¢. 👏🏻
Here’s how you can save at Postmates right now:
- New customers use code FEAST to get 50% OFF their first 5 orders of $50+ or more.
- Join Postmates Unlimited for free delivery + get your first month of Postmates Unlimited FREE (regularly $9.99/month or $99/year). You’ll receive a $0 Delivery Fee, plus 5% OFF eligible orders from participating restaurants. Orders must be over $15 or over $30 for grocery orders, excluding taxes and fees.
My Postmates delivery app experience:
I immediately took notice of the wider selection of chain restaurants in my area on Postmates compared to when I first tried them 3+ years ago. However, I still found them to be lacking many of the smaller local eateries in my area.
Overall the Postmates app is easy to use, but I thought navigating through some of the selections could use improvement for a more seamless experience, such as changing the size of a drink or adding dipping sauces to your order. I was still able to find everything I needed despite this small inconvenience.
My order from Postmates was one of the fastest delivery times and one of the cheapest. 👏🏻
From the time I placed my order to my doorbell ringing, my food took just 22 minutes which was seriously impressive! However, I was originally quoted 30-60 minutes for delivery so my food could have been sitting for a while had I not been home. After my order, I received two different coupon codes to save on my next order which none of the other services did.
My Postmates ratings:
- Packaging: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Freshness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Hotness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Order process: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Selection: ⭐⭐…many of my favorite local eateries are not available.
- App experience: ⭐⭐⭐…some features could be more seamless to use.
- Delivery Time: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Price: ⭐⭐⭐⭐…second cheapest of the 4 tested.
My overall Postmates rating: 4.25 out of 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Would I order from Postmates again? 👎🏻
No. Sorry, Postmates, but I was pretty disappointed with the selection of restaurants in my area. Although they’ve added some common restaurants like Panera, they still don’t offer staples like my favorite sushi and breakfast spots. That said, this will vary everywhere, so make sure you vet your delivery area before committing to a membership.
2. Uber Eats
Uber Eats gives you the ability to order food from hundreds of different restaurants and stores, but I found the variety of selections to be even more limited for my area than Postmates.
Delivery and service fees will vary depending on the restaurant and, for my location, range between $0.49 and up to more than $5.49. Some places offer $0 delivery fees without a membership which they’ll display on a green banner in the app.
Here’s how you can save at Uber Eats right now:
- Get $15 OFF your order of $20+ when you invite a friend to join Uber Eats and they place their first order. They’ll also score $15 OFF their $20 order when using your unique link.
- Join Uber One for free delivery + get your first month of Uber Eats FREE (regularly $9.99/month or $99/year). You’ll receive a $0 Delivery Fee on food and groceries, plus 10% OFF eligible pickup and delivery orders from participating restaurants. You’ll also get 5% off and top-rated drivers on eligible rides, $5 credit for late deliveries, and cancel without fees or penalties.
My Uber Eats experience:
My Uber Eats food delivery was right on time and arrived in just 25 minutes. Since I was quoted 22-45 minutes, I was pleased with this turnaround. Just like Postmates, my order was correct and still hot.
However, Uber Eats was the most expensive service I tried and was nearly $2 more than Postmates.
Over time that can really add up! My favorite feature of this food delivery app is that you can adjust your driver tip amount up to 1 hour AFTER delivery, but I also found the customizations to be a little less than user-friendly.
My Uber Eats ratings:
- Packaging: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Freshness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Hotness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Order process: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Selection: ⭐…many of my favorite local eateries are not available.
- App experience: ⭐⭐⭐…some features could be more seamless to use.
- Delivery Time: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Price: ⭐⭐…was the most expensive order.
My overall Uber Eats rating: 3.87 out of 5 ⭐⭐⭐
Would I order from Uber Eats again? 👎🏻
No. Overall, I was pleased with my experience with Uber Eats. They seem to have made drastic improvements in delivery times from the last time I placed an order 3 years ago, but the restaurant selection left a lot to be desired. Since numerous restaurant favorites are missing from their list and it was the most expensive order I placed, I wouldn’t personally consider this the best food delivery service.
3. DoorDash
DoorDash offers numerous options to order food from smaller local and big chain restaurants, flower boutiques, retailers, catering, and so much more! Delivery and service fees will vary depending on the restaurant, however, I found most of the delivery fees near me to be free with a minimum purchase order. Plus, they had some fast delivery quotes under 20 minutes available.
Here’s how you can save at DoorDash right now:
- Get a $20 DoorDash credit when you invite a friend to join DoorDash and they place their first order of $15 or more. They’ll also score $30 OFF ($10 off each of their first 3 orders).
- Check for promo codes in your area and potentially score freebies, $0 delivery on eligible orders, and even get discounts on groceries.
- Join DashPass for free delivery + new customers get your first month FREE (regularly $9.99/month or $96/year)! You’ll score $0 delivery fees and reduced service fees on orders for $12 or more, 5% DoorDash credits for pick-up orders, on-demand grocery delivery, and other exclusive offers. Cancel anytime. It pays for itself in just two orders!
My DoorDash ordering experience:
I want to preface my DoorDash experience and share that I personally use DoorDash regularly and have had multiple amazing experiences. That said, they really let me down on the day I was specifically testing this service. 😫
I was stoked to place my order because I’m already a DashPass holder so my delivery and service fees were waived and I happened to see Chick-fil-A was offering a brownie freebie with $12+ orders.
With my membership, my order total was only $14.99 delivered which was significantly cheaper than the rest!
However, if I wasn’t a member, this food delivery service would have actually been the most expensive at $22.98! 😐
Sadly, after my order was picked up, it was canceled for unexpected reasons (see photo above). Definitely not ideal for anyone in a time crunch. However, this has never happened to me before and I always found DoorDash to be the most reliable and best food delivery service of all.
I immediately received a full refund to my DoorDash account in lieu of not receiving my order, which made it feel like less of a hassle, but when replacing my order I was unable to use the same brownie freebie since there was a 1 per customer limit. 😣 Strike two DoorDash! Since I was ordering solely for this review, I opted to cancel it altogether and had to call customer service to reroute my refund to my credit card, rather than my DoorDash account. It was a quick and painless request via phone nonetheless.
Since I’ve ordered through DoorDash numerous times and 8 times just in the last month alone, I still felt confident to rate their services. I also felt like what happened recently wasn’t typical of their service and I don’t anticipate it happening again.
*Pictured above is a recent DoorDash order from my favorite sushi place!
My DoorDash ratings:
- Packaging: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Freshness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Hotness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Order process: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Selection: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- App experience: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Delivery Time: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Price: ⭐⭐⭐⭐…lost some points for being the priciest without a membership.
My overall DoorDash rating: 4.88 out of 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Would I order from DoorDash again? 👍🏻
Yes. Although I didn’t receive my intended order this time around, I’ve had countless seamless transactions through DoorDash with speedy delivery every other time. I also find their app to be the easiest to use out of all of them with the most user-friendly features. On top of that, they have the widest selection of restaurants to choose from in my area including my favorite sushi and breakfast places.
4. Grubhub
Grubhub offers the ability to order food from many local restaurants and convenience stores just like all the other best food delivery service apps I’ve tested. Delivery fees in my area range from $1.99 to $7.99 making them the priciest fees of the ones I tested, but they also offered some of the fastest turnaround times at just 15 minutes which I found to be true! 👏🏻
However, a major downside to this food delivery service is they’re missing staple restaurants (at least in my area) and Chick-Fil-A was one of them! 😳😱
Here’s how you can save at Grubhub right now:
- Join Grubhub+ for free delivery + new customers get your first month FREE (regularly $9.99/month)! You’ll receive unlimited $0 delivery fees on orders $12 from GH+ restaurants and exclusive perks and rewards with every order.
My Grubhub ordering experience:
I was filled with so much disappointment when browsing my area’s restaurant selection. As I stated already, Chick-fil-A wasn’t even an option which was shocking! To get the closest meal to my other orders, I went with Popeyes’s nugget meal. I also signed up for their Grubhub+ free trial so delivery was waived and I only paid $17.61 for my order which included an extra side and biscuit to top it off. If I hadn’t received free delivery my order would have been over $20 making it about the same as every other food delivery service app I tested.
I couldn’t believe how quickly my order was delivered and it was the speediest of all the best food delivery service apps I tested.
From the time I ordered to the time the Grubhub delivery was dropped off, it was exactly 16 minutes! 😱 That said, I specifically requested for my food to be hand delivered when ordered, and instead, it was left at my door. I did receive an alert on my phone once it arrived, but I wasn’t a fan of my food sitting on the ground next to leaves and debris. Maybe that’s how they are so speedy? 🤔
My Grubhub ratings:
- Packaging: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Freshness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Hotness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Order process: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Food Selection: ⭐⭐⭐…missing many of my favorite local spots.
- App experience: ⭐⭐⭐…left food at door despite requesting a handoff.
- Delivery Time: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Price: ⭐⭐⭐…delivery fees are the most expensive.
My overall Grubhub rating: 4.25 out of 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Would I order from Grubhub again? 👎🏻
No. Customer service is everything to me so being underwhelmed by my delivery wasn’t a win in my book. I also can’t get past the lack of options and solely, for this reason, would pick other food delivery services. On top of that, I can’t believe how much some of the delivery fees are and even with a membership, you’ll still be paying for some delivery at select locations.
So what’s the best food delivery service of all?
🏆 My pick for the overall winner: DoorDash ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I know, I know. This is a shocking verdict considering I was empty-handed at the end of the day. However, the countless other seamless orders I’ve made since then and previous to my review more than make up for this one mishap.
It was the cheapest meal I purchased with my membership, the easiest app to navigate, on-time deliveries, and fast and reliable customer service. What more could you ask for?!
Dining out? We’ve got restaurant deals for days.
I use Doordash at work to deliver Dunkin Donuts or Cinnabon as a little surprise some mornings. Delivery has always been free and quick. Very highly recommend! I generally do the lowest amount of tip possible (I believe it’s $3) and then hand them an additional cash tip at delivery so I know they’re actually receiving something. Always makes me nervous they might not be getting most of the tip through the app!
Do you need to tip on the food delivery services? I tip a lot for Shipt groceries. Thanks
DoorDash pays drivers around $2.50 no matter the distance. Drivers are independent contractors using their own cars and gas so rely heavily on tips. I deliver for DoorDash, Uber eats and grubhub. DoorDash definitely pays the absolute worse in my area so I hardly ever take any orders while Uber eats is the best paying.
I signed up and did one earlier today because I am home sick. I got my first month of door dash deliveries for free. Great experience
DoorDash is superior. My order has never been wrong. It has been on time 99% of the time. Grubhub has terrible customer service. I have not received food and they have charged me double. Postmates can be a joke. They hardly cover anywhere. Their pricing is as high as Grubhub. I have had money on hold the them for days. They refused to refund my order after they took an order for a restaurant that was really closed.
This is great! I was actually JUST wondering which service is best because I hate to cook and o would utilize this a lot!! Thank you so much for the research!!
You’re so welcome, Elissa! Glad this has been helpful!
Question: if you purchase a gift card for a delivery service, does it only go towards the fees? Or can you use it to purchase the food as well?
Hi there, Elissa! Gift cards for food delivery service apps will go towards your entire order, including the cost of food and the fees as well. Hope that helps!
I suppose it depends on where you live but I have had really bad experiences with doordash. Multiple times of wrong orders or the last three times I have tried they have done a no show. Their customer service really isn’t all that great either. They will refund or redeliver but by the time my original order was placed and they would redeliver…sometimes it’s anywhere between 2-3 hours later. Is used to manage retail and if we clearly made a mistake then I made sure we did the right thing and more than made up for it. Meaning giving people a free meal so that they will return or extra money on their account. Doordash has never done this for the many mistakes they have made. They just will return your money or replace the order.
Oh no! Sorry to hear that, Saraediger! Thanks for the honest feedback!
This is my usual DoorDash experience. I don’t understand how others can love it & get such great service when my orders NEVER arrive correctly or on time. The refund is always less than it costs to reorder it (making it extra expensive), while a family member always has to watch us eat while they wait an extra hour for their redeliver. DoorDash is a nightmare but the other apps have very little to choose from.
I used DoorDash all the time for a long time 3-5 times a week. Invariably, something was wrong or missing. It was so easy to fix until it wasn’t. The last time I used it – I repeatedly asked multiple levels of customer service for my $3.89 back when I didn’t get my 2 kids drink pouches while on vacation in Miami and we used DoorDash. They said that it was against their policy – that I was no longer eligible to receive a refund since I had so many refunds (basically because almost every order was missing something – I could no longer get my money back when I was missing something). They denied it. Then, randomly a few months later I got a $5 credit with a note saying they incorrectly messed up a refund. I still don’t use them… Don’t want to have to fight for a larger refund. Glad I learned my lesson with missing $3.89….
Makes me wish I didn’t live in the country….. almost….. LOL
I got a promo with my Chase Freedom Unlimited credit card for 3 months of free deliveries with DoorDash, then a discounted monthly membership fee. After that, I plan to continue my membership! My food deliveries have been pretty quick and yummy!
WOOHOO! So happy to hear that you were able to snag some savings on DoorDash! Happy reading!
Have no complaints with any of my Door Dash or Grubhub deliveries. Uber Eats is another story.
I agree with Sara. I love Doordash and I think they’re the best. I’ve been using them for years. I use the service one or two times a week. I’ve tried the others when they’ve had offers and have had issues with them. Only use Doordash now. Doordash is easier to use, has more restaurants in my area and getting a refund is so simple. Customer service, which I’ve only had to use a couple of times has been great too. Highly recommend Doordash. I always snag those $10 or $20 off a $100 gift card when H2S posts those deals and add the gc to my account.
Awesome! Thanks for the recommendation, Mary! I’ve had great experiences using DoorDash too! 💞🙌