Grubhub's pandemic $10-off promo made restaurants fund the discount and full commission

In late March 2020, with dining rooms shut across the US, Grubhub announced that customers would get $10 off orders of $30 or more between 5pm and 9pm under its 'Supper for Support' program. The terms and conditions said restaurants that opted in would fund the full cost of redeemed promotions, and that Grubhub's commissions could be charged on the non-discounted product total rather than the amount the customer actually paid — roughly 30% of an order if the customer just met the $30 minimum.

Opting out required a form for every location and two days of processing while the promo ran. Critics called it profiteering from partners surviving on takeout and delivery alone. Grubhub called the effort optional and said participating restaurants had on average seen a more than 20% increase in orders and sales — but did not explain why restaurants, not Grubhub, funded the discounts. It said it would postpone commissions for independents in select cities, eventually still collecting them at an undisclosed time.

The promo came days after Yelp was criticized by restaurant owners for setting up GoFundMe fundraisers for small businesses without informing or getting consent from them, and capped a year in which Grubhub had drawn complaints for tactics including registering domains that resembled real restaurants, listing restaurants that hadn't agreed to partner, and swapping in Grubhub-affiliated phone numbers to bill higher commissions.

Restaurants funded each $10 discount — about 30% off a $30 order — plus commission on the pre-discount total; opting out took a form and two days

The promo's generosity was cosmetic: the restaurants, not Grubhub, funded every $10 discount it advertised.

Grubhub charged commission on the pre-discount total, so its own take did not shrink with the discount.

Opting out took a per-location form and two days of processing — friction that kept restaurants in while orders were live.

It priced a crisis: restaurants had lost their dining rooms and depended on the platform's pipeline to sell anything at all.

A promotion the platform doesn't pay for isn't generosity — when the partner funds both the discount and the commission, a support program reads as extraction.

Grubhub defended the program as an optional sales driver, citing the 20%-plus average lift for participating restaurants, and said it would postpone commissions in select cities while still collecting them at an undisclosed later time. The Verge reported no change to the discount-funding terms.