Why Food Delivery Discounts Keep Using the Same Numbers
Food delivery discounts have a familiar vocabulary: $5 off, $10 off, 20% off, 25% off, then the same numbers again at another restaurant. DealMeal analyzed 253,204 distinct offers observed across Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub from July 25 through September 2, 2026, to measure how concentrated those values really are.
The pattern is strongest in the 79,532 percentage-off offers. Nearly every rate was a multiple of five, and two rates accounted for three quarters of the observations. Dollar discounts allowed more variety, but they still overwhelmingly used whole-dollar amounts.
Quick answer
Food delivery discounts cluster because platforms appear to build promotions from a standardized menu of rates, dollar amounts, and minimum-order thresholds instead of selecting freely from every possible value. That is an inference from the observed concentration, not a claim about any platform’s internal decision process. In DealMeal’s data, 99.92% of percentage discounts were multiples of five, while 20% and 25% together represented 75.13% of percentage-off offers. On the dollar side, 98.08% used whole dollars, and $5 alone accounted for 42.97%.
Key findings
Only 23 distinct rates appeared across 79,532 percentage-off offers.
Just 60 percentage offers, or 0.08%, used a rate that was not a multiple of five.
20% and 25% were effectively tied: 29,873 versus 29,878 offers.
$5 appeared in 42.97% of 89,937 dollar-off offers, while seven whole-dollar values covered 91.76%.
When a dollar amount and minimum were both available, 64.4% of offers produced one of seven recurring effective rates.
Percentage food delivery discounts come from a tiny menu
Percentage promotions show the clearest concentration. The five leading rates covered 98.00% of the 79,532 percentage-off offers. Despite the appearance of endless promotions, the numerical choices were remarkably narrow.
Rate | Offers | Share | Cumulative share |
|---|---|---|---|
25% | 29,878 | 37.57% | 37.57% |
20% | 29,873 | 37.56% | 75.13% |
15% | 9,319 | 11.72% | 86.85% |
30% | 6,189 | 7.78% | 94.63% |
40% | 2,679 | 3.37% | 98.00% |
The five-offer gap between 25% and 20% is too small to treat one as meaningfully dominant. The daily results reinforce that point: 20% led on 22 of the 39 observation days, while 25% led on the other 17. No third rate finished first on any day.
The median was 20%, even though 25% had the largest individual count. Those statements measure different things: the mode identifies the most frequent value, while the median marks the midpoint of the ordered distribution.
Dollar discounts cluster differently
The original intuition that dollar deals simply cluster around $5 and $10 needs one correction. Those two amounts were important, but dollar promotions clustered more broadly around whole dollars. Of 89,937 dollar-off offers, 98.08% used whole-dollar amounts, while 59.05% used multiples of five.
Amount | Offers | Share |
|---|---|---|
$5 | 38,649 | 42.97% |
$10 | 11,503 | 12.79% |
$3 | 10,381 | 11.54% |
$6 | 8,197 | 9.11% |
$4 | 5,324 | 5.92% |
$8 | 4,599 | 5.11% |
$7 | 3,872 | 4.31% |
This is almost the reverse of familiar menu pricing. Only 0.344% of the dollar discounts ended in .99 or .95. Restaurants may price an item at $12.99, but platforms usually express the promotion as $5.00 off.
The rare irregular amounts also came from the platform with the widest vocabulary. Uber Eats produced observations such as $17.27 off select items, while DoorDash used only 22 distinct dollar amounts across its 53,681 dollar-off offers.
The complete deal repeats more than the headline number
A discount rate is only one part of an offer. The minimum order can change the real value, so the most useful unit is the complete pair: the advertised saving plus the spending threshold.
Offer shape | Offers | Share of eligible offer type |
|---|---|---|
25% off $12+ | 10,257 | 15.04% |
20% off $15+ | 10,231 | 15.00% |
25% off $15+ | 6,894 | 10.11% |
$5 off $25+ | 11,055 | 12.78% |
$5 off $35+ | 9,031 | 10.44% |
$10 off $50+ | 8,354 | 9.66% |
The pairings reveal why differently worded promotions can lead to the same economic result. Among 86,520 dollar-off offers carrying both an amount and a minimum, 64.4% produced one of these recurring effective rates: 10%, 12.5%, 15%, 16.67%, 20%, 25%, or 33.3%. An exact 20% effective rate was the most frequent result, appearing in 32,391 offers.
DealMeal data insight
A dollar-off offer is often a percentage offer in another form. Both $5 off $25 and $10 off $50 equal a 20% advertised saving at the minimum. The larger headline number does not automatically create a better deal; it may simply require a proportionally larger basket.
Each platform has its own favorite numbers
The overall distribution leans toward DoorDash because it supplied 60.0% of the 253,204 current distinct offers. Platform-level results therefore give a more useful view than a pooled number alone.
Platform | Modal dollar-off | Modal percentage | Modal minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
Uber Eats | $5 (30.1%) | 20% (39.3%) | $20 (18.4%) |
DoorDash | $5 (54.0%) | 25% (41.8%) | $15 (21.6%) |
Grubhub | $10 (45.3%) | 20% (51.9%) | $50 (36.3%) |
DoorDash showed the shortest numerical menu: 22 dollar amounts and nine percentage rates. Uber Eats used 135 amounts and 21 rates on much lower dollar-off and percentage-off volumes. Grubhub’s pattern was different again, combining a $10 modal discount with a $50 modal minimum and a distinctive concentration of 40%-off offers.
These are observed platform patterns, not guarantees about the next promotion on an account. Signed-in, member-only, and personalized deals were outside the logged-out data.
The pattern is stable, but the mix can change
$5 was the leading dollar amount on all 39 observation days in the current series. The older DealMeal archive points in the same direction: 20% was the leading percentage rate in every one of 13 months, and at least 99.63% of percentage values were multiples of five in each month.
That does not mean the pooled mix stayed constant. The historical data was more heavily weighted toward Uber Eats, while DoorDash contributed the majority of the current set. Because those platforms favor different rates, comparisons over time should be made within each platform rather than by treating the combined totals as an unchanged market sample.
A separate DealMeal dataset containing 12,268 offers observed over three days also reproduced the main pattern: all 3,010 percentage values were multiples of five, and the same four rates—15%, 20%, 25%, and 30%—led the distribution. That smaller dataset confirms the clustering but is too short to estimate its prevalence on its own.
How to compare familiar-looking discounts
Start with the basket you intended to buy. Do not add items merely to unlock a familiar discount number.
Convert dollar-off deals into an effective rate. Divide the discount by the required minimum. $5 off $25 and $10 off $50 both equal 20% at the threshold.
Check the cap and eligible items. A headline percentage may apply only to selected products or stop saving money after a stated maximum.
Compare the final cart value. The same 20% or $5 label can sit beside different menu prices, minimums, fees, and availability. This dataset measures advertised promotions, not checkout totals.
Look across platforms. Their preferred values and minimums differ, so the best fit depends on the size of the order you already planned.
For a deeper comparison of the two formats, see DealMeal’s analysis of percentage-off versus dollar-off deals. The minimum-spend analysis explains why reaching a threshold can erase the practical value of a promotion.
Compare the complete offer, not only the familiar number
DealMeal helps shoppers discover and compare available food deals without treating every $5 or 20% headline as equivalent. Learn how to compare deals with DealMeal, or get the DealMeal app to explore available offers.
Methodology and limitations
The primary analysis covers 253,204 distinct USD offers observed from July 25 through September 2, 2026, across Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub. Records were deduplicated by date, platform, store identifier, and offer title; six non-USD offers were removed. Current dollar amounts, percentages, and minimums came from structured promotion fields.
The detailed samples include 89,937 dollar-off offers with an amount, 79,532 percentage-off offers with a rate, and 175,931 offers with a minimum. Complete-pair calculations used only the 86,520 dollar offers or 68,198 percentage offers containing both the discount and threshold fields.
Historical context comes from 376,719 USD offers observed between July 13, 2025, and July 2, 2026. Historical values were extracted from offer titles and checked against current records where both textual and structured values were available. A separate three-day dataset of 12,268 offers was used only as a replication check.
The observations are geographically concentrated in Northern Virginia and are not a random sample of every US market. The data does not establish city-level differences, offer duration, realized checkout savings, or the internal reasons platforms choose particular values. It also excludes promotions visible only to signed-in or member accounts. Because platform representation differs between current and historical datasets, pooled trend comparisons can be misleading.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most common food delivery discount?
20% and 25% were effectively tied among percentage-off offers, differing by only five observations out of 79,532. For dollar-off deals, $5 was the clear leader at 42.97% of 89,937 offers.
Why do delivery apps use 20% and 25% so often?
The data shows that platforms rely on very small sets of promotion values, which is consistent with standardized deal construction. It does not reveal the platforms’ internal motives, so explanations involving psychology or operational policy would require additional evidence.
Is $10 off better than $5 off?
Not necessarily. $10 off $50 and $5 off $25 both equal a 20% advertised saving at the minimum. The better offer depends on the basket you planned, eligible items, any savings cap, and the final checkout total.
Are percentage discounts always multiples of five?
Almost, but not literally always. In this dataset, 99.92% were multiples of five; 60 of 79,532 percentage offers used another value.
Which platform uses the biggest recurring dollar discount?
Grubhub’s modal dollar discount was $10, compared with $5 on Uber Eats and DoorDash. Grubhub also had a $50 modal minimum, so its larger headline amount was commonly paired with a larger required basket.
Do these figures include personalized or member-only offers?
No. The dataset reflects offers visible without signing in. Account-specific, member-only, and other personalized promotions may use a different mix of values.
Conclusion
Food delivery discounts look repetitive because, in the observed data, they were built from a remarkably small numerical vocabulary. Percentage offers were especially concentrated around 20% and 25%, while dollar deals favored whole-dollar amounts led by $5.
For shoppers, the recurring headline is less important than the complete offer. Compare the discount with its minimum, cap, eligible items, and final cart value. DealMeal can make that comparison easier when several familiar-looking promotions compete for the same order.
