Is pizza delivery profitable? What one delivery really costs a US pizzeria
Running your own pizza delivery pays when four things line up: an average ticket of roughly $30 or more, two to three drops per driver-hour, a delivery area you can cover in about ten minutes, and a delivery fee or order minimum that covers the gap. Miss those and delivery grows your sales while your profit stays flat or falls. The alternatives, DoorDash Drive at a flat fee per order or a marketplace at 15% to 30%, are worth pricing against your own drivers before you choose.
Pizza is the food Americans expect delivered. The national chains trained customers to want a hot pie at the door in thirty minutes, tracked on a phone. That expectation makes it tempting to say yes to every order. But a delivered pizza costs exactly what a carryout one does, plus a car trip, and this page puts a number on that trip.
What one delivery really costs
The driver is most of it
The federal minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour, but most states and many cities set higher minimums, and many pizzerias pay well above them to keep drivers. Some states let you count customer tips toward the wage of a tipped employee (the federal tipped cash wage is $2.13 an hour), others don’t allow a tip credit at all, and you must follow whichever rule protects the employee more. On top of the wage, you pay the employer’s share of payroll taxes, unemployment insurance and workers’ comp.
The only number that matters is that hourly cost divided by drops per hour. At $16 an hour all-in, three drops is about $5.30 each; one drop is $16.
The car, and the insurance trap
Most pizza drivers use their own cars, and you reimburse them. The IRS standard mileage rate for business use is 76 cents a mile from July 1, 2026 (72.5 cents for the first half of the year), and many employers use it. Under federal wage law, vehicle costs you don’t reimburse can’t push a driver’s pay below minimum wage. A four-mile round trip at 76 cents is about $3.04.
The costs nobody budgets
- Idle time. Nobody wants a two-hour Friday shift, so you schedule three or four. Paid hours with no drops double your cost per delivery.
- Gear: insulated bags, a car topper, a phone and a card reader, plus card fees on every payment.
- Prank orders. A fake address, a blocked number, three large pies in the trash. Taking payment online at the time of the order removes most of the problem.
- Cash. Drawer shortages after cash runs are a classic. Less cash, fewer arguments, and fewer drivers carrying money at night.
A worked example
| Item | Working | Per drop |
|---|---|---|
| Driver | ≈ $16/hour all-in ÷ 2.5 drops/hour | ≈ $6.40 |
| Mileage | 4 miles × 76¢ | ≈ $3.04 |
| Bags, card fees, sundries | allowance | ≈ $0.60 |
| Total | ≈ $10.04 |
Illustrative wage; use your own state and city minimums. Mileage at the IRS business rate from July 1, 2026.
So budget around $8 to $12 per delivery with a busy driver. At 1.5 drops an hour, you are past $13. On a $20 order, that eats most of what the pizza earned.
Your own drivers vs. the alternatives
| Option | Cost to you | Who owns the customer |
|---|---|---|
| Your own driver, busy night | ≈ $8 – 10 | You |
| Your own driver, slow night | $13 and up | You |
| DoorDash Drive (on-demand courier for your own orders) | $6.99 – 10.99 flat | You |
| Uber Eats self-delivery plan (your driver, their app) | 15% = $4.50, plus your driver | Shared |
| DoorDash Plus marketplace (Dasher delivers) | 25% = $7.50 | The app |
| Uber Eats Premium marketplace (Uber delivers) | 30% = $9.00 | The app |
DoorDash and Uber Eats US merchant pages, October 2026.
Compare your numbers with a platform commission
What order minimum and delivery fee should you set?
Keep delivery cost under 20% to 25% of the ticket. With a $10 cost per drop, that means a $40 to $50 minimum, or a lower minimum (say $20) plus a delivery fee of a few dollars.
Should you charge for delivery?
Yes, below a threshold. Customers used to the chains accept a small delivery fee; what kills your margin is absorbing it on one medium pie. A common setup: a fee under a set ticket, free above it. Say clearly that the delivery fee isn’t a tip for the driver, and in states where delivery fees are taxable, tax it.
Zone by drive time, not by radius
A 3-mile circle on a map ignores the freeway, the river, the one-way grid and the subdivision with one way in. Draw your zone by what you can reach in ten minutes at 7pm on a Friday, and offer pickup to everyone beyond it.
Batch the drops
Two orders to the same neighborhood in one trip halves the mileage and the driver time. Quoting a slightly longer delivery window lets you batch without breaking a promise.
Employees or independent contractors?
Lunch, slow nights and when to switch delivery off
Lunch delivery to offices can pay well: big orders, short distances, payment up front. Residential lunch delivery rarely does. On slow weeknights, many pizzerias switch to pickup only, or hand the occasional delivery to an on-demand courier instead of paying a driver to wait. Your own ordering page can switch delivery on and off by day and hour, so the menu never promises what the schedule can’t deliver.
Deliver every night, some nights, or not at all?
If your Friday and Saturday nights fill a driver at two to three drops an hour, deliver those nights with your own staff. If weeknights don’t, use a per-order courier or go pickup only. And if most of your trade walks in from the neighborhood, there’s no shame in being a great carryout shop. The online orders guide compares the costs per order.
FAQ
How much does one pizza delivery cost a pizzeria?
Around $8 to $12 with a busy employed driver reimbursed at the IRS mileage rate, more on slow nights. Your local minimum wage and your drops per hour decide most of it.
What order minimum should I set for delivery?
Enough that delivery stays under about a quarter of the ticket, or a lower minimum with a delivery fee. Test it for a month and look at the numbers.
Do tips cover the driver’s cost?
Tips belong to the driver. Whether any of them can count toward the minimum wage depends on your state. Price delivery as if tips didn’t exist.