Figures checked October 30, 2026
The typical restaurant keeps less than 5 cents of every sales dollar. The National Restaurant Association's 2025 median is 2.8% before tax for full-service and 4.0% for limited-service.
Average restaurant profit margin by type
The National Restaurant Association (NRA) surveys real operators. Its public summary gives medians for two groups only. Toast and Restaurant365 publish wider ranges by type. We show all three side by side, read on October 30, 2026, so you can see which number comes from where.
| Restaurant type | NRA 2025 (median, before tax) | Toast (July 28, 2026) | Restaurant365 (updated Oct 28, 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-service (table service) | 2.8% median | 3% to 5% | 3% to 5% |
| Limited-service (counter, quick service, fast casual) | 4.0% median | Quick service 6% to 9%; fast casual 6% to 9% | Fast casual and quick service 6% to 9% |
| Fine dining | Not in the public summary | 4% to 9% | Counted in full-service, 3% to 5% |
| Food trucks | Not in the public summary | 6% to 9% | Not listed |
| Catering | Not in the public summary | Not listed | 7% to 8% |
| All restaurants | Roughly 5% for a typical restaurant (NRA inflation page) | 3% to 5% average; 0% to 15% range | Not given as one figure |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone. The NRA figure is income before taxes. Toast and Restaurant365 say “net profit margin.” The full NRA Abstract ($99 for members, $199 for nonmembers) breaks results down by check size, sales volume, location and community size. We used only what the NRA makes public.
A median is the middle restaurant in the survey, not a target. About half of the full-service restaurants in the NRA data kept 2.8 cents or less per dollar before tax. The 3% to 9% ranges describe what Toast and Restaurant365 call typical or healthy, not what the middle operator earned.
Labor is one reason. The NRA says payroll and benefits were a median of 36.5% of sales at full-service restaurants. Restaurant365 points to lower labor and faster table turns at counter-service concepts.
Why restaurant margins are so low
The NRA's inflation page breaks a typical sales dollar into four parts. Food and labor take about two thirds. Rent, utilities, supplies, repairs and card fees take most of the rest. About 5 cents is left before tax.
The formula
Use the same months for every number. A full year evens out slow seasons.
Net profit ÷ total sales × 100. Net profit is sales minus every cost: food, labor, rent, utilities, repairs, card fees, marketing and delivery app commissions. Example: $1,000,000 in sales and $28,000 in pre-tax profit is a 2.8% margin, the NRA's full-service median.
(Sales − food and beverage cost) ÷ sales × 100. It shows how well your menu is priced against ingredients. At the NRA's typical 33 cents of food cost per dollar, gross margin is about 67%.
(Food and beverage cost + labor) ÷ sales × 100. The NRA's 2025 median for limited-service was 65 cents per dollar. Toast calls keeping it near 60% a widely used benchmark.
The NRA reports income before taxes. If you compare your own number with it, use your pre-tax profit, not what is left after income tax.
Profit per order, by channel
Start with the NRA's typical 5% margin: $1.75 on a $35 order. That margin already pays a normal card fee, which on Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ is $1.32. Anything a channel charges above $1.32 comes out of the $1.75. Rates are each company's own published rates, read on October 30, 2026. The $35 order and the 5% start are our example.
| Channel | Profit left of $1.75 | Fee on $35 | Fee as % of order | What the fee is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your own ordering site, pickup (card paid through Stripe) | $1.75 | $1.32 | 3.8% | Only the card fee you pay on every card sale. The site's flat monthly plan is not charged per order. |
| DoorDash pickup | $0.97 | $2.10 | 6% | 6% on every DoorDash plan, if your pickup menu prices match in-store prices. |
| Uber Eats pickup | $0.62 | $2.45 | 7% | 7% with validated in-store pricing; 10% without it. |
| DoorDash Basic delivery | −$2.18 | $5.25 | 15% | DoorDash says its commission covers card processing, so the $1.32 card fee is credited back. |
| Uber Eats Lite delivery | −$3.93 | $7.00 | 20% | Lite starts at 15% in New Jersey and 12 other listed markets. |
| Grubhub Basic + Grubhub Delivery | −$3.55 | $6.62 | 18.9% | 5% marketing commission + 10% delivery fee + $0.30 + 3.05% processing. |
| DoorDash Plus or Uber Eats Plus delivery | −$5.68 | $8.75 | 25% | Uber Eats Plus adds 5% on Uber One members' orders. |
| DoorDash Premier or Uber Eats Premium delivery | −$7.43 | $10.50 | 30% | The highest published delivery plans on both apps. |
| Grubhub All-access + Grubhub Delivery | −$8.80 | $11.87 | 33.9% | 20% marketing commission + 10% delivery fee + $0.30 + 3.05% processing. |
| Your own site, delivered by Uber Direct | −$6.24 before any delivery fee you charge | $9.31 | 26.6% | Card fee + Uber Direct from $7.99. On your own site you set the guest's delivery fee, so a $7.99 fee brings you back to $1.75. |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone. The math treats every order as costing the same food, labor and overhead. It leaves out ads, promotions, tablet fees and any menu markup you set on the apps.
Pickup through an app still leaves most of the margin. Delivery through an app, at any published plan, turns a typical $35 order into a loss before ads or promotions. Your own site keeps the full $1.75 on pickup, and on delivery you choose the guest's delivery fee.
DoorDash's pricing page answers “30% commission will kill my margins” with “This is the right question to ask.” It argues that many app orders come from guests who would never have found you. Then the real choice is a thin order or no order. That holds for new guests. It does not hold for regulars who would have ordered from you directly.
Restaurant profit margin calculator
Start with the NRA's typical cost split, then type in your own. With $1,000,000 in sales and 15% of it on a 25% delivery plan (our example), profit falls from $50,000 to about $18,136. That is a 5.0% margin becoming 1.8%.
NRA typical: about 33%.
NRA typical: about 33%.
Rent, utilities, supplies, repairs, card fees. NRA typical: about 29%.
Our example: 15%. Use your own app payout reports.
DoorDash Plus and Uber Eats Plus delivery: 25%.
Sets the 30¢ part of the card fee the commission replaces.
Profit before app fees
$50,000
A 5.0% margin, before tax, with your cost split.
Extra cost of app orders
$31,864
$37,500 in commission, minus $5,636 of card fees you would pay anyway (Stripe 2.9% + 30¢ on about 4,286 orders).
Profit after app fees
$18,136
A 1.8% margin. Every app order moved to your own site at card fees only puts its share back.
This is a planning estimate, not accounting advice. It treats app orders as costing the same food, labor and overhead as your other orders. It leaves out ads, promotions and tablet fees.
How to improve your restaurant profit margin
Each one ties to a number in this guide, so you can check whether it worked.
Close each month with net profit ÷ sales. Compare it with your type's median: 2.8% full-service or 4.0% limited-service before tax (NRA, 2025).
Food plus labor is the biggest line on the bill. Track it as one percent of sales against the NRA's 65-cent limited-service median, or Toast's near-60% benchmark.
DoorDash's 6% pickup rate requires pickup menu prices that match in-store prices. Uber Eats charges 7% on pickup only with validated in-store pricing, 10% without. DoorDash also says you can set different prices for delivery orders.
Published delivery plans run 15%, 25% and 30% on DoorDash and 20%, 25% and 30% on Uber Eats. Uber Eats Lite starts at 15% in New Jersey. Every 5 points less keeps $1.75 more on a $35 order.
A guest who already knows you does not need an app to find you. On your own site, the per-order cost is the card fee: Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ is $1.32 on a $35 order.
Uber Direct delivers orders from your own website from $7.99 a delivery. Uber says you set the delivery fee guests pay on your site. Charge enough to cover the courier.
The NRA estimates restaurant expenses rose 36% from 2019 to 2026. Review menu prices against food cost on a schedule, not only when a supplier raises prices.
Commissions, delivery fees, ads, promotions and tablet fees belong in your costs. If they are netted out of payouts, add them back so your margin shows the true cost of each channel.
The figures behind this guide
Each figure links to the page it was read from.
Fullservice restaurants reported a median income before taxes of 2.8% of sales in the NRA's 2025 Restaurant Operations Data Abstract. The survey covered more than 900 restaurants.
Source: National Restaurant Association (August 20, 2025) · 2025Limited-service restaurants reported a median income before taxes of 4.0% of sales in the same NRA report.
Source: National Restaurant Association (August 20, 2025) · 2025Prime costs (food, beverage and labor) were a median of 65 cents of every sales dollar in the limited-service segment.
Source: National Restaurant Association (August 20, 2025) · 2025Labor is the largest single operating expense: payroll and benefits were a median of 36.5% of sales in the fullservice segment.
Source: National Restaurant Association (August 20, 2025) · 2025The NRA estimates total expenses for an average restaurant jumped 36% between 2019 and 2026. Food and labor each take about 33 cents of every sales dollar, leaving roughly 5% before tax.
Source: National Restaurant Association: Inflation · 2026DoorDash's marketplace delivery commission ranges from 15% on Basic to 30% on Premier; pickup is listed separately at 6%.
Source: DoorDash Merchant Pricing (public site) · 2026Stripe's standard online card processing fee is 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction — the platform-agnostic baseline cost of accepting card payments online.
Source: Stripe Pricing · 2026How we built this guide
Margins and cost shares come from the National Restaurant Association's public pages, read on October 30, 2026. Toast's and Restaurant365's ranges are shown beside them and labelled as theirs, because neither names a primary source.
DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub and Stripe rates were read from their own pricing pages on October 30, 2026. No fee comes from a comparison site or affiliate list.
The Orderitto team at INVASSO LLC in Parsippany, New Jersey. Orderitto sells online ordering websites and apps for restaurants, with zero per-order commissions. We use no customer's numbers on this page.
Ads, promotions, tablet fees, menu markups on the apps, taxes and tips. The $35 order, the 15% app share and the 5% starting margin are examples; your own reports will differ.
Built in Parsippany, New Jersey
Orderitto builds online ordering websites and apps for independent restaurants. Orderitto does not take a per-order commission on direct orders. Starter is $799 setup and $149 a month; Pro is $1,299 setup and $249 a month. You pay Stripe's card fee, typically 2.9% + 30¢, on each order.
See what card fees take from each order, in dollars, on the major systems.
Setup, monthly software, card processing and delivery fees, separated so you can compare like for like.
What DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub charge, and why those fees outrun restaurant margins.
Enter an order and a plan to see what DoorDash keeps and what reaches you.
Starter, Pro and Founders plans, setup fees and what each includes.
The National Restaurant Association's 2025 Restaurant Operations Data Abstract covers more than 900 restaurants. It puts the median income before taxes at 2.8% of sales for full-service restaurants and 4.0% for limited-service. The NRA's inflation page describes a pre-tax margin of roughly 5% for a typical restaurant. Toast and Restaurant365 both publish 3% to 5% for full-service and 6% to 9% for fast casual.
A useful test is whether you beat the median for your type. That means above 2.8% before tax for full-service and above 4.0% for limited-service (NRA, 2025). Toast's guide calls a net margin between 3% and 9% healthy for most independent restaurants.
The NRA reports a 4.0% median income before taxes for limited-service restaurants, the group that includes counter-service, quick service and fast casual. Toast and Restaurant365 both publish a 6% to 9% range for fast casual and quick service, without naming a primary source.
Toast publishes 4% to 9% for fine dining. Restaurant365 counts fine dining inside full-service, at 3% to 5%. The NRA's public summary does not split fine dining out from full-service, where the median is 2.8% before tax.
Net profit margin = net profit ÷ total sales × 100. Gross profit margin = (sales − food and beverage cost) ÷ sales × 100. Example: $1,000,000 in sales and $28,000 in pre-tax profit is a 2.8% margin. Use the same months for both numbers. For the net figure, include every cost: food, labor, rent, utilities, card fees and delivery app commissions.
Prime cost is food and beverage cost plus labor. The NRA's 2025 data puts the median at 65 cents of every sales dollar for limited-service restaurants. Toast calls keeping prime cost near 60% of revenue a widely used benchmark. Restaurant365 says food and labor together often take 60% to 70%.
On a typical cost split they can. Start from the NRA's roughly 5% margin. A $35 delivery order on a 25% plan costs $8.75 in commission. That is $7.43 more than a normal card fee, and more than four times the $1.75 profit. Pickup on DoorDash (6%) or Uber Eats (7%) still leaves a profit. DoorDash's own pricing page argues that many app orders are new business you would not get otherwise. That is the fair case for keeping the apps for discovery.
Orderitto does not take a per-order commission on direct orders. Its pricing page lists Starter at $799 setup and $149 a month, and Pro at $1,299 setup and $249 a month. You pay Stripe's card fee, typically 2.9% + 30¢, on each order.
Bring your menu and your app payout reports. In 15 minutes we will show how your ordering site would look and what it costs on Orderitto's flat plans.