Analysis shows DoorDash has added supplemental local fees in 57 of the 68 locations that imposed caps on the size of commissions it could charge restaurants
hours apart. https://www.nbcnews.com/... https://twitter.com/... Cyrus Farivar / @cfarivar : Here in Oakland, @DanKalb lead the political charge to bring about a commission cap last year. But even he didn't know that DoorDash was adding on a new $2 “Oakland Fee” until I told him. https://www.nbcnews.com/... https://twitter.com/... Cyrus Farivar / @cfarivar : THREAD: While I knew that some cities had imposed commission caps — like here in Oakland, at 15% — going back nearly a year, I didn't know how often DoorDash had imposed new extra fees nationwide, payable by customers. Here's what that looks like. https://www.nbcnews.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
When San Francisco's mayor imposed the 15% pandemic commission cap in April 2020, delivery startups warned it would show up in customer fees — and this NBC News analysis confirms they did, systematically. Reporter Cyrus Farivar found DoorDash added supplemental local fees payable by customers in 57 of the 68 capped locations, including a $2 "Oakland Fee" that even the councilmember who led the city's 15% cap effort didn't know about until told.
The finding reframes what a cap actually does: DoorDash later said fee caps in cities like New York and LA cost it $26M (Q2 2021 results), and within weeks of that disclosure it rolled out three-tier restaurant pricing spanning 15–30% commissions — while New York and San Francisco moved to make their caps permanent, with NYC settling on 23%. The platforms' response escalated to court, as DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats sued NYC over its law.
First-order effects
- Customers in capped cities now pay the difference directly — the analysis shows DoorDash converting 84% of commission-cap jurisdictions into new per-order local fees like Oakland's $2 add-on, restoring revenue without breaking the restaurant-facing cap.
Second-order effects
- City councils drafting permanent rules are forced to close the loophole, not just set a ceiling: NYC's move to a permanent 23% cap and the ensuing lawsuit by DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats make fee pass-through the central battleground rather than the commission rate itself.
Third-order effects
- If caps hold only when loopholes close, delivery platforms face regulated pricing structures end-to-end — pushing them toward tiered subscription-style plans for restaurants (as DoorDash already adopted) and toward courts and ballot boxes rather than city-by-city negotiation as the arena where take rates get decided.
The trend: Local regulation of delivery-app economics is converging on permanent commission caps, with the decisive fight shifting from the headline rate to how platforms reprice around it.