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There’s a new takeout app in town — and it wants to eat the competition.
Launched on Oct. 20, Olo is a new ordering platform offering pickup and delivery with one major promise — no sneaky fees. The debut comes as the app’s Goliath-sized rival, DoorDash, snapped up Instacart for $17B — which experts warn could lead to even higher prices.
Olo currently has over 250 national and regional restaurant brands with names like Five Guys, Waffle House and Dave’s Hot Chicken — small fry compared to DoorDash, which brags roughly 615,000 partnerships.
Olo’s shtick is convenience without the markup. No inflated prices, they promise — no added charges, no sponsored ads. What you see on the menu when you’re at the actual restaurant is what you see when you’re ordering through the app.
To make money, the brand promises just one flat fee of 5%, called the “network fee.” Plus, users will still need to pay a delivery fee on delivery orders. However, creators say the app eliminates the main cost driving up customer prices.
It’s called the commissions fee — where apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats charge restaurants anywhere from 15% to 30% commissions on delivery orders. This fee makes the restaurants raise prices to cover costs — but the Olo App is commission-free.
So what’s the catch? While Olo may offer lower prices, The Post did a deep dive and found two problems consumers may face — transparency and convenience.
Over the past year, consumers have been hearing two phrases — dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing. While they’re used interchangeably, there’s a bit of a difference.
Dynamic pricing changes costs based on market conditions; surveillance pricing changes cost or offers based on what a company knows about you.
Either way, it’s using data behind the scenes to work against you.
While higher prices might be off the table with Olo, it is still acting like its rivals — serving up your data on a metaphorical silver platter.
According to its press release, the Olo App is “free of sponsored ads and content.” That may be true on its surface — but its privacy policy says something else.
The brand says it gives certain data to advertisers so its partners can “market or sell their services to you,” and “deliver targeted advertisements through the services and on third-party platforms.”
Translation — your data is given to advertisers so they can sell you things. So, while you may not see ads on the Olo platform, you will most likely get served ads somewhere else based on the data Olo collects.
Of course, DoorDash is hardly known as a beacon of consumer goodwill.
The popular delivery app has publicly been accused of surveillance pricing and hidden fees. In fact, Groundwork Collaborative president and CEO Lindsay Owens, testified in an August 2026 Senate hearing which exposed a now-abandoned patent.
The DoorDash patent would have measured user agitation — designed to detect when a customer was frustrated, hungry, impatient or in a hurry — and was ominously titled “Detecting User Agitation Application Interaction.”
The patent was recently abandoned and now cannot be used.
While Olo might not have any sneaky tricks up their digital sleeve just yet, can the new app beat its competitors and dominate the delivery game?
Rich Pleeth is the CEO and co-founder of Finmile — a company providing operational superintelligence for logistics and complex physical operations. He told The Post that in order for the brand to take on its rivals, it needs to deliver on price and convenience.
“The comparison needs to happen at checkout. Olo says it removes menu markups, but delivery fees still apply. Compare the same basket, to the same address, including fees and any offers or membership benefits,” Pleeth told The Post.
To serve journalism — and our stomachs — The Post did just that and downloaded the new app, comparing it to the most-used delivery app, DoorDash.
Right off the bat — it’s clear Olo does not have many options. Try and type in most major fast food spots and you won’t find them. When you do find one, get ready to walk — not all places will deliver.
That’s because the New York City-based app does not have the network of delivery drivers DoorDash boasts — now up to over seven million independent contractors, known as Dashers.
Another feature that’s notably missing is the restaurants page. While it’s a small factor — it’s felt. Customers are used to dedicated spots on Uber Eats and DoorDash showing hungry customers which restaurants to choose from.
But Olo’s saving grace — the price.
The Post ordered two identical items from both Olo and DoorDash — a cheeseburger, fries and a drink from Five Guys.
Olo charged just $24.81 — a $1.09 Network Fee and $1.93 for tax but did not have delivery available. Meanwhile the same order from DoorDash was $40.87 — nearly double what Olo was charging.
Pleeth told The Post that while DoorDash will likely remain top dog, Olo could pull users away for at least one night of week.
“I think Olo has a better chance of winning someone’s regular Friday takeaway than persuading them to abandon every other delivery app,” Pleeth said.
“If your favorite restaurant is there and the same order costs less, that’s a concrete reason to try it. When you’re browsing for something different, restaurant choice and an app you already know may matter more,” he continued.
