How Much Does Uber Eats Charge Restaurants? Australian Fees in 2026
The short answer: what Uber Eats charges restaurants
Uber Eats charges Australian restaurants a percentage of every order, which it calls a marketplace fee. The rate depends on one thing: who gets the food to the customer. These are the rates on the Uber Eats merchant pricing page, checked in September 2026.
| How the order is fulfilled | Marketplace fee | On a $40 order |
|---|---|---|
| Uber Eats delivers it | 30% | $12.00 |
| You deliver it with your own staff | 16% | $6.40 |
| Customer picks it up | 6% | $2.40 |
New locations also pay a one-off activation fee of $700 excluding GST, deducted from your payouts, and $350 for each additional location.
Most independent restaurants use Uber Eats for its drivers, so 30% is the number that matters for most owners. On a $40 order that is $12 gone before you have paid for ingredients, staff, rent or electricity. The rest of this guide covers what that fee pays for, the charges that sit on top of it, and what it adds up to across a year.
What the marketplace fee pays for
Uber Eats bundles several services into the one percentage. Uber's fee explainer covers the app, order routing, payment processing and customer support, plus the driver when Uber Eats handles delivery.
The gap between 30% and 6% tells you what the driver network costs. On a delivered order, roughly 24 percentage points are paying for logistics. On a pickup order there is no driver, and the fee drops to match.
That is worth keeping in mind when you look at your own order mix. If a large share of your Uber Eats orders could have been pickup, you are paying for a driver the customer did not need.
Charges that sit on top of the marketplace fee
The marketplace fee is the biggest line on the statement, but it is rarely the only one.
- Activation fee. $700 excluding GST for a new location, taken out of your first payouts.
- Promoted listings. Paying to rank higher in search and category pages is a separate spend on top of the marketplace fee. You set the budget, so the cost varies, but as more restaurants pay for promotion, unpromoted listings get pushed further down. It can become a cost you pay to hold your position, not to grow.
- Refunds on disputed orders. When a customer reports an order as wrong, missing or late, the refund can be deducted from the restaurant payout. Disputing a deduction takes time most owners do not have on a Friday night.
- Device damage fee. $200 excluding GST per device if the Uber Eats tablet is damaged.
Promotion and refund costs differ for every restaurant, so treat any average you read online, including the examples below, as a prompt to check your own statement line by line.
A worked example: one $35 delivered order
Here is a single $35 order delivered by Uber Eats, for a restaurant that also spends on promoted placement. The 8% promotion figure is an assumption for illustration; yours will depend on the budget you set.
| Charge | Rate | Amount on a $35 order |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplace fee, Uber delivery | 30% | $10.50 |
| Promoted listing (assumed) | 8% | $2.80 |
| Total to Uber Eats | 38% | $13.30 |
That leaves $21.70 from a $35 order, before food cost, wages and rent. The same order as a pickup would cost $2.10 in marketplace fee.
What it adds up to over a year
Take an independent restaurant doing $8,000 a week through Uber Eats delivery, which is modest for a busy venue. The promotion and refund rows are assumptions for illustration.
| Cost item | Weekly | First year |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplace fee (30%) | $2,400 | $124,800 |
| Promoted listings (assumed 5%) | $400 | $20,800 |
| Refund deductions (assumed 2%) | $160 | $8,320 |
| Activation fee (one-off) | $700 | |
| Total to Uber Eats | $2,960 | $154,620 |
That is about 37% of the revenue those orders brought in.
The margin maths that matters
A typical independent restaurant runs on net margins of 5% to 10% according to ABS industry data. Say yours is 8%.
On a $40 order at your normal menu price, your costs are $36.80 and your profit is $3.20. Put the same order through Uber Eats delivery at 30% and you receive $28. You are $8.80 behind on that order.
The only ways to close that gap are to raise your prices in the app, or to rely on Uber Eats bringing in enough extra orders to make up the difference. Most restaurants do the first.
What your customers pay on top
The restaurant fee is one side of the cost. Your customers pay on the other side: a delivery fee, a service fee, sometimes a small basket fee, and surge pricing on busy nights. They also pay your marked-up app prices.
The Australian Financial Review reported that delivery apps cost diners about 36% more than ordering the same meal directly. Customers notice. A thread on r/AusFinance compares Uber Eats prices with a restaurant's own ordering page, item by item.
These two costs are the same problem seen from opposite ends. Uber Eats takes 30% from the restaurant. The restaurant raises its app prices to protect a thin margin. The customer pays the higher price plus the app's own fees. Nobody in that chain is being unreasonable, but the total is higher than any of them intended, and a customer who feels overcharged tends to blame the restaurant, not the app.
Your fee can change
Uber Eats revises its fees from time to time and tells restaurants through a marketplace fee changes notice. The notice usually arrives as an email or an in-app message. Check the fee in your merchant dashboard every few months, and read the notice when it arrives.
How Uber Eats compares with DoorDash
Menulog closed its Australian operations in November 2025, which leaves DoorDash as the other large delivery app. We cover both in their own guides: what DoorDash costs restaurants and what the Menulog closure means for restaurants. The pattern is the same on both remaining apps. The fee is highest when the platform supplies the driver, and promotion and refunds sit on top.
What you can do about it
Uber Eats earns its 30% on orders that need a driver. Delivery logistics are hard to build yourself, and for many venues those orders would not exist without the app.
The avoidable cost is everything that does not need a driver. Three options, from least to most effort:
1. Push pickup. A pickup order through Uber Eats is 6%, not 30%. If your regulars live close by, tell them.
2. Take pickup and table orders on your own page. A direct ordering page means the customer orders from you, at your normal menu prices, and you keep their details for next time. Windsor Digital charges 2% per transaction plus standard Stripe processing fees, with no monthly fee. It covers pickup and dine-in, and does not supply drivers. Paid orders print on the Epson or Star printer already in your kitchen, so nobody has to watch a tablet.
3. Deliver yourself. At 16%, self-delivery through Uber Eats is roughly half the cost of Uber delivery, if you have the staff for it.
| Uber Eats | Windsor Digital | |
|---|---|---|
| Delivered order | 30% (Uber driver), 16% (your driver) | Not offered |
| Pickup order | 6% | 2% plus Stripe processing |
| Monthly fee | None listed | $0 |
| Set-up cost | $700 activation fee (excl. GST) | $0 |
| Menu prices | Often marked up to cover the fee | Your normal prices |
| Customer relationship | Sits with the app | Sits with you |
To run your own numbers, use the delivery commission calculator. For a step by step plan to move orders off the app without losing the customers who found you there, see how to reduce Uber Eats commission.
The bottom line
Uber Eats charges Australian restaurants 30% when it delivers, 16% when you deliver and 6% for pickup. With promotion and refunds on top, a delivery-heavy restaurant can see more than a third of its app revenue go to the platform. For orders that need a driver, that may be a cost worth paying. For pickup and table orders, it is worth checking what you are paying for.
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Get started free →Frequently asked questions
Uber Eats publishes three marketplace fees for Australian restaurants: 30% of the order when Uber Eats delivers it, 16% when the restaurant delivers with its own staff, and 6% for pickup orders. New locations also pay a one-off activation fee of $700 excluding GST. These are the rates on the Uber Eats merchant pricing page as of September 2026.
Yes. Promoted placement in the app is a separate spend, refunds on disputed orders can be deducted from the restaurant payout, and new locations pay a one-off activation fee of $700 excluding GST. The amounts for promotion and refunds vary by restaurant, so the reliable number is the one on your own statement.
Yes. Uber Eats revises its fees from time to time and tells merchants through a marketplace fee changes notice. Check the fee shown in your Uber Eats merchant dashboard every few months instead of relying on the rate you were quoted at sign up.
Customers pay a delivery fee, a service fee and sometimes a small basket fee, and menu prices in the app are often higher than in the restaurant. The Australian Financial Review reported that delivery apps cost diners about 36% more than ordering the same meal directly.
The 30% fee pays for the Uber Eats driver network, so it is hard to avoid on delivered orders. Pickup and dine-in orders do not need a driver. Many restaurants keep Uber Eats for delivery and take pickup and table orders through their own ordering page. Windsor Digital charges 2% per transaction plus standard Stripe processing fees.