Toronto-based food ordering app Ritual launched a new feature dubbed ‘MenuIQ‘ that highlights how much more expensive it is to order from delivery apps like Uber Eats or DoorDash.
In an email sent to customers announcing MenuIQ, Ritual shared several reports from publications like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal highlighting how ordering through delivery apps can increase food prices significantly. The root issue is that restaurants often mark up menu prices for delivery apps to help cover the high cost of commissions for using said apps.
For example, back in 2020, former Toronto Mayor John Tory asked food delivery companies to reduce commissions to help restaurants that were struggling during the pandemic. At the time, some companies had already reduced commissions, such as DoorDash, which claimed it reduced commissions by 50 percent. Skip the Dishes offered restaurants a 25 percent rebate on commissions, while Uber Eats continued charging a 15 percent commission, though it did reduce fees for pick-up orders and for restaurants that use their own delivery people.
Though it’s been several years, things haven’t changed much. Uber Eats offers various pricing plans with fees ranging from 15 to 30 percent for delivery orders and six percent for pickups. Doordash offers plans with fees ranging from 20 to 29 percent. I wasn’t able to find anything concrete about Skip the Dishes’ commissions, but a Reddit thread from four years ago suggested it charged 25-30 percent commissions.
It’s worth noting that while Ritual highlights the high commissions of other food ordering apps, it also charges a commission for its ‘Grow’ plan, although Ritual says it’s under 10 percent and only for new customers. Other Ritual plans charge a flat monthly fee and have no commissions.
MenuIQ highlights savings you get with Ritual
Ritual says that despite requiring restaurants to provide menus with in-store pricing, some point of sale and menu management systems only provide a menu with marked-up delivery prices. So it investigated “millions of menu items from tens of thousands of restaurants across many cities” and created the MenuIQ system to highlight the difference between delivery prices and in-store prices. Moreover, Ritual says MenuIQ is transparent about when Ritual’s pricing isn’t better than other services.
On its website, Ritual says that MenuIQ is in beta and that the team “uses AI technology to match menus across various sources,” though it admits that sometimes the system “makes mistakes.” Ritual says it pulled the data in 2024 from across Uber Eats and Doordash in North America, though MenuIQ is only available in Canada.
It’s worth noting that MenuIQ can also include other savings, such as Company Discounts, in the MenuIQ calculation.
Fat Bastard’s hot sauce doesn’t have a markup, but the burritos do.
MenuIQ is live in Ritual’s app now. To use it, simply look at the pricing while ordering — you’ll see Ritual’s price in a white rectangle with a blue rectangle next to it sporting either a blue checkmark or another price along with an ‘i’ logo. If you tap the price, you’ll see a pop-up comparing the in-store price to Doordash and Uber Eats delivery pricing.
I took a quick glance at the restaurants near MobileSyrup’s Toronto office and saw savings of between 10 and 30 percent, depending on the restaurant, with most falling in the 15-20 percent range. On actual menu items, this works out to a few dollars in savings, depending on what you order.
Overall, MenuIQ seems like a handy addition to highlight higher prices and possible savings. My only real gripe with it is Ritual is that it’s usefulness can be limited based on where you want to use it. For example, I frequently use it while in Toronto since there are usually tons of restaurants within walking distance, but when I lived in Whitby, it was tough to find restaurants that worked with Ritual, let alone ones in walking distance. Still, MenuIQ is great and I hope it helps more people realize just how much pricier delivery apps are, both for customers and restaurants.
You can learn more about MenuIQ here.
