How to Price Delivery Fees Without Scaring Off Customers

You finally decided to offer delivery. You know it will make life easier for your customers and bring in more orders. But now you are staring at your ordering page wondering what to charge, and a quiet fear creeps in: if I add a delivery fee, will people stop ordering?

Our pricing calculator works out your cost per unit before you add a delivery fee on top.

That fear is real. Nobody wants to watch a customer fill their cart with a dozen cookies and a loaf of banana bread, then bail the moment they see a delivery charge tacked on at checkout.

But here is the mistake that costs small food vendors the most. Not charging enough for delivery is far more dangerous than charging too much. When you eat the cost of gas, time, and vehicle wear on every order, you burn out fast. A few weeks of "free delivery" and you are doing the math on whether delivery is even worth it. It is worth it, but only if you price it right.

This guide is not for restaurants or DoorDash drivers. This is for the home baker, the cottage food vendor, the small-batch jam maker doing 5 to 20 local deliveries a week out of a home kitchen. Let's figure out exactly what to charge.

Why Are Delivery Fees So Tricky for Small Food Vendors?

Customers have been trained to expect free delivery, but you are not Amazon. Years of Prime memberships and free shipping thresholds have created an expectation that delivery should cost nothing. The difference is that Amazon spreads shipping costs across billions of orders. You are spreading yours across maybe ten deliveries on a Saturday afternoon.

The psychology is working against you. When a customer sees a $4 delivery fee on a $20 order, that fee feels like 20% of the order. When they order $200 of groceries from a big box store and see the same $4 fee, it barely registers. Small vendors deal with smaller order sizes, which makes the fee feel proportionally bigger.

The real cost of "free" delivery is that you pay for it. Every delivery costs you gas, time, packaging, and wear on your vehicle. When you offer free delivery, those costs come straight out of your profit margin. Say a $35 order leaves you $17.50 after ingredients and packaging, and $16.19 after card processing. A single drive 5 miles out and back costs you $19.27 in car and time (worked out in the next section), so that "free" delivery turns $16.19 into a $3.08 loss. Do that ten times in a week and you have paid to work.

> The biggest mistake small food vendors make with delivery is not charging for it at all. Free delivery sounds generous until you realize you are paying customers to let you drive to their house.

Undercharging leads to burnout and quitting delivery altogether. This is the pattern: you start offering delivery, you keep the fee low or nonexistent because you are afraid of losing orders, you realize delivery is eating your profits, you stop offering delivery entirely. Your customers lose a convenient option, and you lose the extra revenue delivery was supposed to bring. Pricing delivery correctly from the start prevents this cycle.

The three things that make delivery pricing hard for a small vendor:

• Small orders. A $4 fee is 20% of a $20 order, so it feels big even though it covers only part of the drive.
• One driver. You cannot spread the drive across a fleet, so every mile is your mile.
• No clear number to copy. Restaurants and apps publish their fees, but their costs and order sizes are nothing like yours.

Every example below uses the same numbers from start to finish, so you can swap in your own and follow the math.

Ready to put a delivery fee on a real ordering page? A Homegrown storefront lets you set a flat delivery fee, a minimum order and how far you will drive. Customers see the fee and minimum before they pay, and only addresses inside your radius get a delivery option. It is $10/mo billed annually with 0% commission, plus 2.9% + $0.30 card processing. Or compare the best platforms to sell food from home first.

How Much Does Delivery Actually Cost You Per Order?

One delivery 5 miles from your kitchen costs you about $19.27 when you count the car and your time, and $9.71 at 2 miles. It is easy to guess, and easy to guess low. The real cost includes four things: gas, your time, vehicle wear and tear, and packaging.

Here is the formula:

(Round-trip miles x $0.76 IRS mileage rate) + (Minutes spent ÷ 60 x your hourly rate) = true delivery cost

The IRS business mileage rate of $0.76 per mile applies from July 1 to December 31, 2026, according to the IRS standard mileage rates page, which we checked on September 30, 2026. It was 72.5 cents for January through June 2026. The IRS sets that rate to cover the whole cost of running a car for business, not just gas: depreciation, insurance, repairs and fuel. Your hourly rate should be whatever you think your time is worth. If you would not do a task for less than $20 an hour, use $20 an hour. Do not forget to include loading time, driving time, and the time it takes to get back home. If you track your real car costs, you can use them instead of the IRS rate: add up a year of gas, insurance, repairs and the car's loss in value, then divide by the miles you drove that year.

Swipe left to see the total cost of each trip.

Mileage uses the IRS business rate for July through December 2026, 76 cents, checked on the IRS standard mileage rates page on September 30, 2026. Times are our worked example for one delivery driven on its own; time yours once and swap them in.

Those numbers might surprise you. A delivery that feels like "just a quick drive" to a house 5 miles away actually costs you over $19 when you account for everything. This is why calculating your real cost per item matters so much. You cannot price delivery correctly if you do not know your true costs.

> A single 10-mile delivery can cost over $30 in real expenses when you factor in mileage, time, and vehicle wear. Know your numbers before you set your fee.

Gas is the smallest part of it. EIA's weekly survey put U.S. regular gasoline at $4.465 a gallon for the week of September 28, 2026 (checked September 30, 2026). A car that gets 25 miles to the gallon burns about 18 cents of gas per mile at that price, so the 10-mile round trip above uses about $1.79 of gas. The other 58 cents of the IRS rate is the car wearing out, getting insured and getting fixed. That is why "it's only a gallon of gas" undercounts every delivery.

The simple version of the formula: total delivery costs divided by number of deliveries equals your cost per delivery. If you batch multiple deliveries into one route, your cost per delivery drops significantly. Say five orders all sit inside your 5-mile zone, and the loop to all five is 18 miles and 80 minutes including loading and handoffs. That route costs $13.68 in mileage plus $26.67 of your time, $40.35 in total, or $8.07 per stop. Driven one at a time, the same five deliveries would cost up to $19.27 each, the price of a trip to the far edge of the zone.

What goes into your number:

• Mileage. Round-trip miles times 76 cents. Count the drive home.
• Time. Loading the car, driving, the handoff at the door, and the drive back.
• Packaging. Boxes, bags and cold packs that only delivery orders need. Our guide to packaging food for local delivery prices the common ones.
• Card processing on the fee. If customers pay the fee by card, the processor takes its cut of the fee too.

How Do You Calculate a Delivery Fee Step by Step?

Work out your cost per stop, subtract what your minimum order leaves you, and the fee only has to cover the gap. Everything in this guide uses one rule, so you can check any fee you see against it.

In this guide, "margin" means the share of an order left after ingredients and packaging. A 50% margin on a $35 order is $17.50.

Here is how to calculate a delivery fee for a small business in five steps:

• Time one real delivery. Drive to an address at the edge of your zone and back, at the hour you would actually deliver, and write down the miles and minutes, including loading.
• Price the drive. Multiply the round-trip miles by $0.76 and the minutes by your hourly rate divided by 60. At 10 round-trip miles and 35 minutes, that is $7.60 + $11.67 = $19.27.
• Price a batched stop. If you will deliver on a set day, divide one full route's cost by its number of stops. Our five-stop route works out to $8.07 a stop.
• Subtract what your minimum order leaves you. With a 50% margin, a $35 order leaves $17.50, and $16.19 once card processing comes out.
• Set the fee to cover the gap and round it. On the single 5-mile trip, $19.27 minus $16.19 leaves a $3.08 gap, and the fee pays a little card processing of its own, so a $4 fee covers it with room to spare. On a batched route, the minimum alone covers the stop, and the fee is extra.

The worked numbers for the 5-mile zone:

Slide the table sideways to see the fee you need.

Cost per stop prices each mile at the IRS's $0.76 (checked September 30, 2026) and each hour of driving at $20. The 50% share is an assumption; use what your own orders leave after ingredients and packaging. Card processing is 2.9% + $0.30 on the whole charge, so the break-even fee ($3.18) also pays processing on itself.

Why not just charge the full $19.27? Because a fee that big on a $35 order is more than half of the order, and customers who see it will choose pickup or not order. The minimum order does the heavy lifting quietly. The fee only has to close the gap, and on a batched route there is no gap at all.

Treat the rule as a floor, not a target. The margin on an order also has to pay you for the baking and for costs like insurance and your storefront. The rule tells you the least you can charge without the delivery itself losing money. It does not tell you the order is worth making, so check your product prices with the calculator linked at the top of this guide. If you want the whole margin to go to your baking, charge the full cost per stop instead: about $8 on a batched route day, which is close to what a courier charges.

How Much Should You Charge Per Mile for Delivery?

At least $1.52 per mile of distance from your kitchen, because every mile out is a mile back, and the IRS rate is 76 cents for each one. That covers the car only. If you want the fee alone to cover your time on a single trip too, the full cost from the table above is $3.85 per mile of distance at 5 miles and $3.35 at 10 miles.

Per-mile pricing is how many caterers price delivery (three of the seven caterer menus in our catering guide charge by the mile: one for the whole drive and two past a set radius), and it shows up in searches like "how much to charge for delivery per mile." It is fair, because a customer 2 miles away pays less than one 10 miles away. It is also harder for a home vendor to run, because you have to measure every address before you can quote a price.

Swipe to compare car cost with the full cost per mile.

IRS mileage rate for the second half of 2026 ($0.76), checked September 30, 2026. Full cost uses the same drive times and $20 an hour as the cost table above. A fee at $1.52 a mile covers the car only, so it still needs a minimum order: $35 covers the trip at 2 and 5 miles, and at 10 miles you need the $60 minimum from the fee table ($15.20 plus what a $60 order leaves is $42.72 against $33.53; with a $35 minimum it is $30.94).

A few ways to use per-mile pricing without making it complicated:

• Charge per mile only past a set distance. A flat $4 inside 5 miles, then $1.52 for each mile beyond, keeps most quotes simple. Past 5 miles, raise the minimum to $60, as in the fee table below: at 10 miles the fee is $11.60, and with a $60 order you keep $39.22 against a $33.53 trip. With a $35 minimum you would keep only $27.45.
• Round to a clean number. "$1.50 a mile" reads better than "$1.52," but it leaves a few cents of car cost uncovered on every mile, so let your minimum order pick that up.
• Quote from your kitchen, not the route. Customers understand "8 miles from us." They cannot check your route.
• Do not charge per mile on a batched route. Five stops share one loop, so per-mile pricing would charge each customer for miles they did not cause.

The per-mile fee covers your car, and the rule still decides the rest. On a 5-mile single trip, $7.60 at $1.52 a mile ($7.38 after its own card processing) plus the $16.19 a $35 order leaves you after card processing is $23.57, which covers the $19.27 cost. Caterers often charge more per mile than this because their drive includes setup: among the seven caterer menus we checked for our catering delivery fee guide, one charges $1.75 a mile and another $2 a mile beyond its first 10 miles.

What Are the Most Common Delivery Fee Models?

There are four main ways to charge for delivery, and a flat fee inside one zone is the simplest for a home vendor. Here is how they compare:

Slide sideways to compare all four fee models.

Every fee in this table follows the rule in this guide once it is paired with its minimum order: $35 for the $4 flat fee, $25, $35 and $60 for the three distance tiers, and $45 for free delivery or prices with delivery built in. Car costs are priced at the IRS mileage figure for late 2026 (76¢ per mile, checked September 30, 2026).

The flat fee model is the easiest to run for a small food vendor because it is dead simple. You pick a number, you tell your customers, done. No one has to calculate which zone they are in or wonder if their order qualifies. Price it for the far edge of your zone, and every closer address is covered automatically.

Tiered pricing works if you deliver across a large area. For example, $3 for deliveries within 3 miles, $4 for 3 to 5 miles, and $7 for 5 to 10 miles, each with its own minimum order (the next section has the full table). This protects you from losing money on long-distance deliveries, but it adds complexity to your ordering process.

Free delivery over a minimum order is a great hybrid approach. You set a threshold, $45 in this guide's 5-mile example, and orders at or above that amount get free delivery. This pushes customers to add one more product to their cart, which increases your average order value and helps cover the delivery cost.

> A flat delivery fee of $4 inside 5 miles, or $3 under 3 miles, each paired with its minimum order, is simple to communicate and easy for customers to accept.

Building the fee into your prices is the stealth option. You raise every product by $1 to $2 and advertise free delivery. The customer pays the same total, but they never see a line item for delivery. Three products at $1.50 more each add $4.50 to an order, about the same as a $4 fee. Keep a $45 minimum for delivery, the same one as free delivery over a minimum, so a delivery driven alone still pays for itself. The downside is that pickup customers also pay the higher prices, which can feel unfair if you offer both options.

How to choose between the four:

• Most orders are close to you: flat fee.
• Customers are spread across a county: tiered by distance.
• Your average order is just under a round number: free over a minimum set just above it, as long as that minimum is at least $45.
• Nearly everyone gets delivery: build it into prices.

What Delivery Fee Should You Actually Charge?

Charge a flat $4 inside 5 miles with a $35 minimum order, $3 with a $25 minimum under 3 miles if you tier it, and $7 with a $60 minimum out to 10 miles. Each of those passes the rule in this guide on a delivery driven on its own, which is the worst case. Batch the deliveries and every one of them leaves you more.

There is outside evidence for keeping the fee small. Owner.com, a company that sells online ordering software to restaurants, says in a January 2025 post on its blog that it had 100 restaurants drop their customer delivery fee from $7 to $4 and that all 100 saw more online orders. We read that post on September 30, 2026. It is a seller's own test of two prices on restaurant food, not an independent study, and it says nothing about $5 or $6. But it points the same way as common sense: a lower fee and a minimum order beat a high fee.

Here is a breakdown of recommended fees based on your delivery radius:

Swipe left to see the minimum order for each zone.

Car cost uses the IRS figure of $0.76 per business mile (checked September 30, 2026); time is valued at twenty dollars an hour. "What the minimum leaves you" is a 50% margin minus 2.9% + $0.30 card processing on the order plus the fee.

The $4 fee keeps the fee small and the minimum does the rest. It is low enough that customers do not balk, and together with the $16.19 a $35 order leaves you after its margin and card processing, it covers even a one-off 5-mile drive. The $4 fee keeps $3.88 after its own card processing, so you have $20.07 against $19.27. On a $35 order, $4 is about 11% of the order.

> Charge $4 inside 5 miles and set a $35 minimum. The fee stays easy to accept, and the minimum makes sure every stop pays for itself.

Does $4 cover your full delivery cost on its own? No, and it does not need to. On a batched route, what the minimum order leaves you covers the $8.07 stop by itself, which is one more reason to set up a weekly baked goods subscription or batch multiple deliveries into a single route.

Do not apologize for your delivery fee. You are providing a real service. You are saving your customer a trip. That has value, and $3 to $7 depending on distance is a fair price for that convenience.

When to charge more than this table says:

• Your margin is lower than 50%. At 30%, a $35 order leaves $10.50 before card processing and $9.19 after, so a $4 fee ($3.88 after its own processing) no longer covers the 5-mile trip driven alone ($13.07 against $19.27).
• Your drive times are longer. Time one real delivery in your own traffic and redo the math.
• You value your time above $20 an hour. Every $5 an hour adds about $2.92 to a 35-minute trip.
• The order needs special handling. Cakes that must ride flat, cold packs, or a set delivery window cost more of your time.

What Should Your Minimum Order Be for Delivery?

Set your minimum so that what it leaves you, plus your fee, covers your cost per stop: $25 under 3 miles, $35 inside 5 miles and $60 out to 10 miles in this guide's example. A minimum order (also called a delivery minimum) is the smallest order you will drive to someone's door. It is the part of your delivery policy that protects you the most and annoys customers the least.

Here is the quick math for your own minimum:

• Find your single-trip cost at the edge of your zone. $19.27 at 5 miles in our example.
• Subtract your delivery fee. $19.27 minus $4 leaves $15.27 for the order to cover.
• Add card processing. On a $35 order with a $4 fee, 2.9% + $0.30 is about $1.43, so the order has to leave $16.70.
• Divide by your margin. $16.70 divided by 0.5 (a 50% margin) is $33.40.
• Round up to a clean number. $35 is easy to remember and leaves room for days when traffic is bad.

If your products are $5 to $7 each, a $35 minimum is five to seven products, which fits a family order or a small office treat. If your products are $25 cakes, two products clear it. Our guide to setting a minimum order value for food delivery covers how customers react to minimums and how to word them.

What is the minimum food delivery order on the big apps? DoorDash does not publish one fixed minimum. Its help center says a small order fee may be charged when the subtotal is below a certain amount, which works like a minimum with a penalty instead of a hard stop. As a home vendor you can do it either way: refuse delivery under the minimum, or charge a higher fee below it.

How Do You Offer Free Delivery Without Losing Money?

Make free delivery start at $45 inside 5 miles, or offer it only on a batched route day where a $35 order already covers the $8.07 stop. Free delivery is possible for small vendors, but only if you build in safeguards so you are not losing money on every order. Here are four strategies that work:

• Set a minimum order threshold. This is the most straightforward approach. Orders under the threshold pay the delivery fee. Orders at or above it get free delivery. Many customers will add an extra product or two to hit the threshold, which increases your revenue per order. A $45 order leaves you $22.50 at a 50% margin, or $20.90 after card processing, which covers a 5-mile trip driven alone ($19.27) or a batched stop ($8.07).
• Build delivery cost into your product prices. Raise each product by $1 to $2 across the board. A $12 jar of jam becomes $13. A $24 cake becomes $26. The delivery fee disappears from the checkout, and customers see "free delivery" as a perk. Keep a $45 minimum for delivery, because a single $13 jar driven 5 miles leaves you about $5.82 against a $19.27 trip. This works best if all your customers get delivery. If you also do pickup or farmers market sales, those customers end up paying slightly more.
• Batch deliveries to reduce your per-order cost. Instead of delivering orders one at a time as they come in, pick one or two delivery days per week and group all orders into an efficient route. Five deliveries on a single Tuesday afternoon loop of 18 miles and 80 minutes cost you about $40.35 in total, which is $8.07 per delivery instead of up to $19.27 each if you drove them one at a time.
• Run a "free delivery day" on a fixed route. Pick one day per week where you offer free delivery along a set route. You announce the route in advance, customers along that route can order with free delivery, and you hit every stop in one efficient loop. With a $35 minimum, the $16.19 each order leaves you after card processing covers its $8.07 stop with $8.12 left.

The easiest way to enforce a minimum is to build it into your ordering page so customers see the threshold before checkout. Homegrown lets you set a flat delivery fee and a minimum order right in your storefront, so the math is done before an order ever reaches you. One limit to know: Homegrown's minimum is the floor for delivery itself, not a free-delivery trigger. To run "free over $45" there, you set the fee to $0 and the minimum to $45, and smaller orders choose pickup.

> Batching five deliveries into one route can cut your per-order delivery cost from as much as $19.27 to about $8. That is the difference between losing money and making it.

If you want to learn more about running efficient delivery routes, check out how to offer local food delivery as a one-person operation.

One warning about free delivery: it only works when you batch or set a threshold. Free delivery on a $35 order driven alone leaves you $16.19 against a $19.27 trip, a $3.08 loss. That is small once, and it adds up to a lot over a busy season.

How Do You Tell Customers About Your Delivery Fee?

Be upfront, be clear, and show the fee, the minimum and the zone before checkout. The worst thing you can do is surprise customers with a delivery charge at checkout. That is when cart abandonment happens. Show your delivery fee clearly on your ordering page, in your social media posts, and anywhere you advertise delivery.

Frame the fee positively. Instead of "there is a $4 delivery fee," say "we deliver right to your door for just $4 with a $35 minimum." The word "just" does real work here. It signals that the fee is small, reasonable, and worth it.

Here are more ways to frame your delivery fee:

• "Skip the drive. We deliver for $4 when you spend $35 or more."
• "Fresh to your door, $4 delivery, $35 minimum."
• "Spend $45, and delivery is on us."
• "$4 delivery within 5 miles on orders of $35 and up, free at $45 and up."
• "Delivery Saturdays only: order by Wednesday at 8 pm."

Do not apologize for charging. Phrases like "unfortunately we have to charge a small fee" make the fee sound like a problem. It is not a problem. It is a service. You are driving products to someone's home so they do not have to drive to you. That is worth $4.

> Frame your delivery fee as a convenience, not an apology. 'Fresh to your door for $4' sounds a lot better than 'sorry, there is a $4 delivery charge.'

Compare it to the alternative. If a customer drives 15 minutes each way to pick up their order, that is about 10 round-trip miles in town and 30 minutes of their time. Priced at the IRS's $0.76 per mile, the drive alone costs them $7.60 in car costs, and about $1.79 of that is gas at September's $4.465 a gallon. A $4 delivery fee saves them time and money. That is an easy value comparison to make on your ordering page.

When you create a pre-order system, you can include your delivery fee details right in the ordering flow so customers always know what to expect.

How Do You Set Up Delivery Zones That Make Sense?

Start with a 5-mile radius from your kitchen and expand only when you have the volume to justify it. A tight delivery zone keeps your costs low, your routes short, and your deliveries fast. You can always expand later once you have a steady flow of orders.

Here is how to set up your delivery zone:

• Open Google Maps and search your home address.
• Use the "Measure distance" tool (right-click your address to start it) to check how far your farthest likely customers are from your kitchen.
• Identify natural boundaries like highways, rivers, or town lines that make your zone easy to explain.
• List the neighborhoods or zip codes inside your zone so customers can quickly check if they qualify.

Keep your zone description simple. Instead of listing exact mile limits, say something like "we deliver in Cedar Park for $4, $35 minimum" or "free delivery in 78613 on orders of $45 and up," as long as that town or ZIP code sits inside your 5-mile zone. Neighborhood names are easier for customers to understand than mile radiuses.

> A 5-mile delivery radius is the right place to start for a small food vendor. It keeps your costs manageable and your routes fast.

Consider time, not just distance. A 5-mile delivery in a rural area might take 10 minutes. The same distance in a busy downtown area might take 25 minutes with traffic and parking. Factor in realistic drive times when setting your zone boundaries. Catering orders stretch that math further: on seven small caterers' published menus, a 10-mile drop-off costs the customer $17.50 to $75, with $50 in the middle, and our guide to catering delivery fees and setup charges shows how to price your own.

For a deeper look at managing deliveries as a solo operation, read our guide on how to offer local food delivery as a one-person operation. And if you want tips on drawing smarter delivery zones and picking delivery days, check out our guide on setting up delivery zones and a delivery schedule for cottage food businesses.

Each zone change is a pricing change. If you stretch from 5 to 8 miles, your far-edge trip cost goes up, so your fee or minimum has to go up with it. Redo the five steps in the minimum order section every time you move the line.

What Is the Average Delivery Fee Customers Pay?

There is no single published average: small vendors in Homegrown's catalog charged $0 to $5, this guide recommends $3 to $7, and couriers charge the vendor $6.99 and up per trip. What a customer pays depends on who does the driving. An app stacks several fees on top of the food, a courier charges a flat price per trip, and a home vendor sets one number.

Swipe the table to see who pays for each drive.

Checked September 30, 2026 on each page named. Courier prices are what the vendor pays per trip; the vendor can pass all, part or none of it to the customer.

On the apps, the delivery fee is only one line. DoorDash's help center lists a delivery fee that is fixed per store, plus a service fee that varies with factors like distance and order size, and a small order fee when the subtotal is under a set amount. DoorDash said on July 23, 2026 that it was changing its consumer fees to match delivery effort, with a long distance fee for a small number of deliveries, typically those over 10 miles. That stack is why a customer can pay more in fees on an app than your whole $4 charge.

What is a delivery fee for? It pays for the drive: the car, the gas and the time it takes someone to bring the order to the door. On an app, it is one of several fees that go to the app. On your own ordering page, it goes to you, and the $4 in this guide covers part of a $19.27 single trip or half of an $8.07 batched stop.

How do customers avoid high delivery fees? Three ways work: ordering direct instead of through an app, choosing pickup, or adding enough to reach a free-delivery threshold. All three favor a small vendor over an app: your fee is lower, your pickup is free, and a $45 free-delivery line nudges the order size up.

The courier price is the real benchmark for your fee. If paying a stranger to drive the order costs $6.99 to $10.99 on DoorDash Drive (whose self-serve signup is open only to restaurants) or $7.99 and up on Uber Direct, a $4 fee from you is a bargain. Owner.com's post on delivery fees says the same drivers cost its restaurants about $7 a trip. Your own batched stop in this guide's example costs $8.07, right in that range, and you get to hand the order over yourself.

What Do Caterers Charge for Delivery?

Seven small caterers' published menus put a 10-mile catering delivery between $17.50 and $75, with $50 in the middle. Catering delivery fees run higher than a bakery box because the drive often comes with setup, chafing dishes and a fixed arrival time. Those numbers come from our guide to delivery for a catering business, where each caterer's menu was loaded on September 29, 2026.

How the seven caterers in that guide charge:

• A flat fee inside a radius. One deli charges $35 anywhere within 10 miles.
• A per-mile rate from the kitchen. One caterer charges $1.75 a mile, which makes a 10-mile drop-off $17.50.
• A flat fee plus miles past a radius. One charges $53 within 10 miles and $2 a mile beyond.
• Distance zones. One steps from $50 at 0 to 10 miles in $25 jumps every 5 miles.

The same rule works for catering, with bigger numbers. A catering order might be $300, so even if only a quarter of it is left after ingredients, that is about $75 before card processing to cover the drive and setup. What changes is your time: a 10-mile drop-off with 30 minutes of setup is 85 minutes of your day, not 55. Price the setup as its own line so a customer who wants a drop-off only does not pay for it.

If you also cater, set your catering delivery fee separately from your everyday fee. A $4 fee built for a box of cookies will not cover a 10-mile buffet setup, and customers expect catering fees to be higher.

Should You Deliver Yourself or Use a Third-Party Service?

For a small food vendor doing 5 to 20 deliveries a week, self-delivery is the option that makes financial sense. Third-party delivery apps take 15% to 30% of your order subtotal. DoorDash's merchant pricing page lists 15% on its Basic plan, 25% on Plus and 30% on Premier for delivery orders, and Uber Eats lists 20%, 25% and 30% on its marketplace plans and 15% when you deliver with your own staff (both checked September 30, 2026). On a $35 order, that is $5.25 to $10.50 gone before you factor in your own product costs.

Here is how the two options compare:

Scroll sideways to see every column.

App commissions from the DoorDash and Uber Eats pricing pages for merchants, checked September 30, 2026. DoorDash's page says its commission covers card processing; DoorDash pickup orders are 6% and Uber Eats pickup orders are 7%.

Customers who order from you directly cost you far less than app customers. On a $35 order, DoorDash's Basic plan keeps $5.25 and Premier keeps $10.50. The same order plus a $4 delivery fee on your own ordering page costs you about $1.43 in card processing at 2.9% + $0.30. A direct order also keeps the customer's name and number with you instead of with the app.

Third-party apps also create a branding problem. Your customer's experience ends with a DoorDash driver handing over a bag. They do not see your smile, your branded packaging, or your handwritten thank-you note. That personal touch is one of the biggest advantages you have as a small vendor. Do not outsource it.

> Third-party delivery apps take 15% to 30% commission on every delivery order. For a small food vendor, that is the difference between a profitable delivery and a money-losing one.

The exception: If you are in a dense urban area with very high order volume and you cannot physically handle all the deliveries yourself, a third-party service might make sense for overflow orders. But for a cottage food vendor doing 5 to 20 deliveries per week, the numbers above make self-delivery the clear winner. Our comparison of in-house delivery and third-party apps goes deeper on when an app is worth it.

What Platform Should You Use for Self-Delivery Orders?

Pick the tool that shows your fee, minimum and zone before the customer pays; you handle the driving. Once you decide to handle your own deliveries, you need a way for customers to place orders, pay, and choose a delivery window.

Google Forms + Venmo costs no subscription but creates work. Customers fill out a form, you manually match Venmo payments, and there's no way to set delivery windows or enforce minimums. A Venmo business profile charges 1.9% + $0.10 per payment received, and a personal account charges 2.99% on payments marked as goods and services (Venmo's fee page, checked September 30, 2026). It works for your first few deliveries but falls apart at ten orders per week.

Square Online has a free plan with delivery features: Square's help center describes a delivery area by postal code or radius, distance-based fees, free delivery over a minimum, and a minimum order amount. Online card payments on the free plan cost 3.3% + 30¢, and the Plus plan at $49 a month per location lowers that to 2.9% + 30¢ (Square's pricing page, checked September 30, 2026). The setup is designed for restaurants and stores with full menus, so it can be more than a 5-to-20-delivery-a-week vendor needs.

Homegrown costs $10/month billed annually ($12.50 billed monthly), plus 2.9% + $0.30 card processing, and lets you set a delivery fee, a minimum order and a delivery radius right in the ordering flow. Customers see the delivery fee before they order, pay when they place the order, and you get a clean list of what to make and where to deliver it. No commissions, no per-listing fees.

Slide sideways to see the full fee stack for each platform.

Checked September 30, 2026 on findhomegrown.com/signup, Square's pricing page and delivery help article, Venmo's fee page, and DoorDash's and Uber Eats' merchant pricing pages. Order math: a $35 order plus a $4 delivery fee is a $39 charge, before sales tax. App commissions apply to the $35 subtotal. Homegrown's monthly figure uses annual billing; on monthly billing it is $41.12.

Homegrown does not handle real-time delivery tracking, multi-driver dispatch, or nationwide shipping logistics. It handles the ordering side (product catalog, payment, delivery fee, scheduling) so you can focus on making the food and running the route.

Charging for delivery is far easier with a real storefront. The easiest way to take local orders and get paid is an online storefront: see the best platform to sell food from home, or set up a Homegrown storefront in about 15 minutes ($10/mo billed annually, 0% commission, plus 2.9% + $0.30 card processing).

Set Your Fee, Minimum and Radius Once, and Let Checkout Enforce Them

The hard part of delivery pricing is not picking $4. It is making sure every order follows the number. When orders come in by text, someone always asks for "just one loaf" across town, and you end up deciding fee by fee. A Homegrown storefront puts your delivery terms into the checkout itself. It is $10 a month billed annually with no percentage fees beyond standard payment processing (2.9% + $0.30, paid by you, not passed to the customer).

What it does for the pricing in this guide:

• A flat delivery fee you keep. You set the fee, and you keep 100% of it minus card processing.
• A minimum order. Delivery only turns on once the cart reaches your minimum, so a $35 minimum enforces itself.
• A radius from 1 to 25 miles. Shoppers inside it get a delivery option at checkout, and everyone else still gets pickup.
• A delivery route screen. You see each stop for the day, mark it delivered, and the customer gets notified.
• Sales tax calculated and remitted for you, and payouts to your bank the next business day.

Compared with the alternatives above: Google Forms and Venmo cost less per order but enforce nothing, so the minimum is only as strong as your willingness to say no by text. Square Online's free plan can do more with delivery (distance-based fees and free-over-a-minimum are built in) but charges 3.3% + 30¢ on online cards and is built for restaurants and stores. DoorDash and Uber Eats take 15% or more of every delivery order and keep the customer.

What Homegrown does not do, so you can decide honestly:

• One flat fee only. There are no distance tiers or per-mile pricing inside Homegrown, so price your fee for the far edge of your radius.
• No free-over-a-minimum switch. You can set the fee to $0 and the minimum to $45, but then smaller orders choose pickup.
• No couriers or driver dispatch. You, your staff or your household make the deliveries.
• Customers create a Homegrown account the first time they order.
• A reserve: 20% of each order is held for 30 days, then released automatically.
• No drops feature, and no release date for one.
• Marketplace listing, not guaranteed traffic. Your storefront is listed on Homegrown's marketplace, but plan on most orders coming from people you send to your own link.

If your delivery math is done, the last step is a checkout that holds the line. Start a Homegrown storefront with a 7-day trial (no charge until day 8), set your fee, minimum and radius, and send the link to the regulars who already ask you to drop things off.

Can You Use a Courier for Cottage Food Delivery?

Not in the two states we checked: Texas requires you, an employee or a household member to deliver anything sold online, and Washington bans couriers. Before you price DoorDash Drive or Uber Direct into your fee, read your state's cottage food rules on delivery. Cottage food is food made in a home kitchen under a state's home-food law, and the two state pages we read both say who may hand the food to the buyer. Washington's agriculture department spells it out on its cottage food permit page: no mail, no courier.

What this means for your delivery pricing:

• Your own time is the delivery cost. If a courier is not allowed, the $20 an hour in this guide's math is the real price of the drive.
• Batching matters more. With no courier to fall back on, a fixed delivery day is how you keep each stop near $8.
• Temperature rules travel with the food. Texas says foods that need time and temperature control must be stored and delivered at 41°F or below when cold and 135°F or above when hot, so cold packs belong in your packaging cost.
• Your zone can also be a legal line. Washington's page lists sales outside the state as prohibited, so check your own state before you take an order from across a border.

Our cottage food delivery playbook covers how vendors set up delivery days and subscriptions once the rules are clear.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best delivery fee pricing for a small food vendor?

A flat $4 delivery fee inside 5 miles with a $35 minimum order is a good starting point for a small food vendor, with $3 and a $25 minimum under 3 miles if you tier your zones. That pairing passes this guide's rule: the $4 fee ($3.88 after its own card processing) plus the $16.19 a $35 order leaves at a 50% margin, after card processing, is $20.07, which covers a single 5-mile trip that costs about $19.27. Owner.com says 100 of its restaurants got more online orders after cutting their delivery fee from $7 to $4 (its own test, restaurant food only), which is another reason to keep the fee low and let the minimum do the work.

Should I offer free delivery as a cottage food vendor?

You can, but only if you protect your margins. Make free delivery start at $45 inside 5 miles, offer it only on a batched route day, or build the delivery cost into your product prices by raising them $1 to $2 each. Free delivery on a $35 order driven on its own loses about $3.08 in this guide's example, so never offer it on every order without a threshold or a route.

How do I calculate my delivery cost per order?

Use this formula: (round-trip miles x $0.76) + (total minutes ÷ 60 x your hourly rate). The 76 cents is the IRS business mileage rate for the second half of 2026. A single delivery 5 miles away costs roughly $19.27 when you include the car and 35 minutes of your time valued at $20 per hour, and a stop on a five-stop route costs about $8.07. Knowing those two numbers lets you set a delivery fee pricing strategy that actually works for your food vendor business.

How far should I deliver as a home baker?

Start with a 5-mile radius. This keeps your delivery costs manageable and your routes efficient. You can expand to 10 miles later if demand justifies it, with a higher fee and minimum ($7 and $60 in this guide's example), but anything over 10 miles is rarely worth it for small-batch food vendors, so offer pickup there instead.

Can I charge different delivery fees based on distance?

Yes. Tiered delivery fee pricing is common among food vendors who cover a larger area. For example, $3 under 3 miles with a $25 minimum, $4 for 3 to 5 miles with a $35 minimum, and $7 for 5 to 10 miles with a $60 minimum. The tradeoff is added complexity for you and your customers, and some ordering tools (Homegrown among them) only take one flat fee.

Is it worth using DoorDash or UberEats as a small food vendor?

Usually not for a vendor making 5 to 20 local deliveries a week. DoorDash takes 15% to 30% of the order subtotal on delivery orders and Uber Eats takes 15% to 30% depending on the plan, which is $5.25 to $10.50 on a $35 order. In Texas, home-kitchen food sold online must be delivered by you, an employee or a household member. In Washington, delivery must go directly from you to the customer. Neither allows a courier. Self-delivery lets you keep the fee (minus card processing) and the personal connection with your customers.

How do I tell customers about a delivery fee without losing orders?

Be upfront and frame it positively. Say "fresh to your door for just $4" instead of apologizing for the charge. Show the fee, the minimum order and your delivery area clearly on your ordering page so there are no surprises at checkout. A customer who would otherwise drive 10 round-trip miles to pick up spends $7.60 in car costs at the IRS rate, so a $4 fee is an easy trade.

Related Reading

Six guides go deeper on the pieces of delivery pricing above, each with its own numbers:

• Setting up delivery zones and a delivery schedule: how to draw a first zone of about 5 miles and group stops onto set delivery days.
• Minimum order value for food delivery: how customers react to a minimum, and how to word yours so a $6 order does not send you across town.
• In-house delivery vs. a third-party app: when an app's reach is worth a 15% to 30% commission, and when it is not.
• Delivery vs. pickup for a small food vendor: whether to add delivery at all, and how to run both side by side.
• Mileage deductions for food vendors: how to log the delivery miles that the 76-cent IRS rate applies to at tax time.
• Packaging food for local delivery: kraft boxes at $0.50 to $1.50 each, bags and cold packs, priced for a home vendor.

Start Delivering With Confidence

Delivery is one of the best ways to grow your cottage food business. It makes ordering easier for your customers, it opens up sales beyond the farmers market, and it sets you apart from vendors who only offer pickup.

The key is pricing your delivery fee so it works for both you and your customers. Charge $3 under 3 miles and $4 out to 5 miles, each with its minimum order, keep your delivery zone tight, batch your deliveries into efficient routes, and be transparent about your fees. Do that, and delivery becomes a reliable source of extra revenue instead of a money pit.

Your checklist before you post your delivery terms:

• Time one real delivery to the edge of your zone.
• Price it at 76 cents a mile plus your hourly rate.
• Set a minimum order whose margin, with your fee, covers that cost after card processing.
• Pick a delivery day so stops share one route.
• Post the fee, minimum and zone where customers see them before they order.

You do not need a complicated setup to get started. A simple ordering page with clear delivery options and pricing is all it takes. The vendors who price delivery correctly from day one never have to take it away later.