Postmates says it has launched in 1,000 new cities since December, now operates in 3,500 cities across all 50 states, and that it reaches 70% of US households
Kate Clark / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
Postmates' growth curve has steepened sharply: after a July 2018 push that added another 100+ US cities for 50M more people, it now claims 1,000 new cities since December alone — a tenfold acceleration in launch cadence — taking it from 385 cities across the US and Mexico to 3,500 across all 50 states.
The company's earlier arc sets up why this matters: it crossed 1M monthly deliveries and launched the $9.99/month Plus Unlimited subscription in 2016, and leaked financials that year showed gross margins above 20%. A 70% household-reach claim converts that subscription from a dense-city perk into a nationally marketable product.
First-order effects
- Merchants and customers in the 1,000 newly covered cities — mostly outside the metros where Postmates built its base — gain on-demand delivery overnight, while Postmates' courier network must stretch into low-density markets where each delivery covers more ground than in its original urban footprint.
Second-order effects
- Plus Unlimited's fixed $9.99/month price now buys access to a 70%-of-households network, raising the subscription's value proposition and pushing Postmates to subsidize thinner-market deliveries out of the same pool that funded profitable dense-city orders.
Third-order effects
- If the land-grab pace holds, US on-demand delivery competition shifts from winning individual metros to claiming national coverage maps first — a structure that pressures margins in sparse markets and makes further capital raises, following the $50M round at a $400M valuation, a precondition rather than an option.
The trend: US on-demand delivery is entering a coverage land-grab phase in which platforms race to claim national footprints before proving unit economics outside their dense-city strongholds.