(Last Updated May 2025)
Take a simple example: a popular Salmon O.G. poke bowl from Fishbowl in Sydney costs $15.90 in-store, but the very same bowl is listed at $19.90 on Uber Eats. Add a $5.99 delivery fee and a $1.99 service fee, and you’re handing over a bit under $28 for that bowl. The table below shows how quickly the costs stack up:
| Meal (Sydney) | Price if you pick up | Price via delivery app |
|---|---|---|
| Salmon poke bowl (Fishbowl) | $15.90 (menu price) | $27.88 ($19.90 + $5.99 delivery + $1.99 fees) |
| Flat white + banana bread (café) | ~$8 (in café) | $21 (with $3.99 delivery + $1.60 service fee + app markup) |
Even a humble coffee run can turn into a wallet-buster. One Sydney writer noted her $8 coffee and banana bread habit ballooned to $21 delivered, once a $3.99 delivery fee, $1.60 service fee, and inflated app pricing were factored in. And that’s before any tip for the driver. In other words, you’re paying a premium of 150% or more just for staying on the couch.
It’s not just these one-off examples. Broadly, research shows that ordering from a restaurant is almost five times more expensive than cooking at home. Of course, not every delivery is that extreme – but by the time you’ve paid a 10% service charge (Menulog caps this at $4, Uber Eats often has no cap) and a delivery fee (usually around $5–$7 in major cities), the fees can eclipse the cost of the food itself. What started as a $20 pad thai can easily end up costing $30-$35 delivered. In Sydney or Melbourne, those fees tend to be on the higher side of the range, but even in Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide you’ll shell out a similar ~$5 extra per order on average.
For us Aussies living on tight budgets, this “convenience tax” on food is a real worry. Every $10 in fees is $10 not going toward groceries, rent, or savings. To put it in perspective: Aussies who regularly order takeaway spend about $71 a week on it – around $3,700 a year – and using delivery apps for all of that would add roughly another $1,200 on top in fees. That’s over $5,000 annually drained by takeaway, much of it thanks to delivery mark-ups. In 2025’s cost-of-living crisis, those numbers are confronting.
A Nation Hooked on Home Delivery
Despite the costs, Australia’s appetite for food delivery is huge – and still growing. More than 60% of Australians had used Uber Eats by 2022, with New South Wales and Victoria leading the pack