Put in your deliveries, distance and driver pay. See what a month of delivery costs with your own drivers, with DoorDash Drive, with Uber Direct, and with your drivers plus Uber Direct on busy nights, and how many deliveries it takes for your own drivers to pay off.
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Example numbers with US rates. Put in your own.
Cheapest at these numbers
Uber Direct
$4,794 a month · $7.99 a delivery
240 driver hours, 3,000 miles$12.30 a delivery
480 by your drivers, 120 by Uber couriers$11.53 a delivery
Flat fee per delivery, no monthly fee$9.75 a delivery
Fee per delivery, no monthly minimum$7.99 a delivery
Your own drivers, a month
When do your own drivers pay off?
Each delivery by your own driver costs $11.83 in wages, taxes and mileage before insurance and software. To match DoorDash Drive at 600 deliveries a month, a driver needs about 3.7 deliveries an hour. To match Uber Direct, about 5.4 an hour.
Pro is $39 a month after the 7-day trial: your ordering site, the rider app for iPhone and Android, live tracking for customers and no per-delivery fee from Menuthere. Uber Direct connects on your own Uber account. Compare plans
How many delivery orders you send out a month, and the average distance to the customer. The calculator counts the drive back.
Hourly wage, payroll taxes, deliveries per paid hour, mileage paid back, insurance and software. Each starts at a sourced US figure you can change.
See the four models side by side, per month and per delivery, and the number of deliveries a month from which your own drivers cost less.
| Input | Starts at | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Driver's hourly wage | $18.64 | BLS: driver/sales workers, median pay $38,770 a year (May 2025), divided by 2,080 hours |
| Payroll taxes | 7.65% | IRS: employer social security 6.2% + Medicare 1.45% |
| Mileage paid back | 76¢ a mile | IRS business standard mileage rate, July 1 to December 31, 2026 |
| Insurance | $245 a month | Insureon: median commercial auto premium of its small-business customers. A reference, not a quote |
| DoorDash Drive | $9.75 a delivery | DoorDash Drive API base rate within 5 miles; DoorDash's merchant page lists $6.99 to $10.99 |
| Uber Direct | $7.99 a delivery | Uber's US page: "as low as" $7.99. A floor, not an average |
| Software | $39 a month | Menuthere Pro: ordering, the rider app and live tracking |
| Deliveries a month, distance, deliveries per hour | 600, 2.5 miles, 2.5 | Examples. Use your own |
At these starting numbers your own drivers cost more per delivery than either courier, mostly because of mileage and the hours drivers wait between orders. They catch up when deliveries are short and frequent, when a driver does more runs an hour, or when your drivers use a car whose costs you already carry. The in-house delivery guide walks through when to run your own drivers and when not to.
Questions owners ask
Checked against
Ordering, the rider app for iPhone and Android, a live map and customer tracking on Pro, $39 a month after a 7-day free trial.