'Doordash Tried To Scam Me': The Dubious Fees Shoppers Are Paying More Attention To

Decades ago, if you wanted to have dinner delivered to your home, your only choice was pretty much pizza (props to Pizza Hut for inventing online delivery). These days, with the creation of food delivery services, it's easier than ever to have a meal promptly delivered. Over the years, many companies like Uber Eats and Grubhub have stepped into this space. But, right now, the most popular food delivery service is, without a doubt, Doordash.

Most customers know using Doordash will be more expensive than visiting the restaurant itself. The menu markup is around 20% when using Doordash according to Splitty, an app that allows customers to easily split restaurant bills. Then there's all those additional fees — and that's where customers and Doordash workers themselves are starting to get perturbed, to say the least. More customers are taking note of how questionable some of these fees are, and Doordash has implied that even more fees could be around the corner — which, ultimately, might lead some to think twice about using fast food delivery at all.

The company said in July 2026 that it "is in the process of updating how we calculate fees so they better reflect how far an order travels and how much effort it takes to deliver it, in addition to the size of your order." One "dasher" on TikTok (@DoorDashWithTae) recently shared in a post that he believed Doordash would pocket these fees, and the workers would never see any benefit from the upcoming increases. One customer on TikTok (@TheJuneiverse) asserted that "Doordash tried to scam me," and told the story of placing an order through Doordash from a Winn-Dixie grocery store for $11.78. On the order, Doordash wrote that it charges a service fee of 5% of the order — which basic math tells you would be 59 cents. The actual charge was was $3.42, prompting the customer to say, "Can you look me in the eyes and tell me five percent of 11 is three f***ing dollars?"

It's not just a TikToker here and there who has complained about these Doordash fees. In 2023, the company was hit with a class action lawsuit alleging that Doordash uses hidden and misleading fees in a fraudulent pricing structure — an allegation Panera Bread has faced as well. (This is just one of many high-profile suits against the company over the years.) The lawsuit also stated that customers weren't aware that many of the fees had nothing to do with deliveries themselves, and that the company pockets these fees and doesn't pass them along to its delivery drivers — a sentiment that seems shared with the aforementioned dasher on TikTok. (That case's outcome isn't clear and has been made public, but Doordash has been known to sometimes settle cases similar to this one through confidential arbitration.)

On its website, Doordash lists all the fees that it says go directly to the company, some of which you may see depending on your order. These include: service fee, delivery fee, long distance fee, regulatory response fee, small order fee, weather impact fee, and an optional express delivery fee. Doordash goes on to say that you may see other factors impact the overall cost of your order, including the estimated tax, optional dasher tip, and legally-required bag and bottle fees.

So, are all these Doordash fees shady? As of summer 2026, it appears that the company is pretty upfront about the fact that it keeps most of these fees without passing them along to its dashers, though the company doesn't seem too eager to showcase it front and center on its app. Ultimately, it's up to customers to decide whether that sits right with them. If you want to pass along a little love to the dasher the next time you make a Doordash order, be sure to tip them well — because it sure seems like the company itself isn't doing them many favors.