I never checked whether the same order was cheaper somewhere else, because checking is miserable. You’d have to build the same cart three times, in three apps, with the same sizes and the same add-ons, then get to the checkout screen on each one just to see the real total. Nobody does that for a burrito.

So we built an app that does it for you. Then we started looking at the numbers, and they were bigger than we expected.

Three real orders

These are real comparisons from the Fooze app: the same order, at the same restaurant, at the same moment, on all three apps. The totals include everything you’d actually pay: delivery fees, service fees, taxes and any promotions.

Five Guys: $20.72 apart

Two bacon cheeseburgers and a large Cajun fries.

• Uber Eats: $37.64

• Grubhub: $54.53

• DoorDash: $58.36

The same bag of food cost 55% more on DoorDash than on Uber Eats, and this was with a DashPass membership. That’s $20.72 for nothing.

Shake Shack: $8.85 apart

Two double ShackBurgers with bacon and a Spicy Fries with Ranch.

• Uber Eats: $39.72

• DoorDash: $44.92

• Grubhub: $48.57

sweetgreen: $10.78 apart, and this time Grubhub wins

Two Harvest Bowls, a Hummus + Focaccia and two Spindrift Lemons.

• Grubhub: $54.88

• Uber Eats: $64.65

• DoorDash: $65.66

DoorDash was the fastest here, at 14 to 24 minutes against Grubhub’s 22 to 37. That’s a fair trade if you’re starving. But it’s worth knowing that the faster delivery costs $10.78 before you decide.

What the numbers show

No app is always cheapest. Uber Eats won two of these orders. Grubhub won the third. If there were one app that was always cheapest, you could just use that app. There isn’t.

The gaps are big. These three orders were $8.85, $10.78 and $20.72 apart, which is 20% to 55% on the same food. Order delivery a couple of times a week and that adds up to real money over a year.

Memberships don’t settle it. All three orders above were placed by someone with DashPass and Grubhub+. Both memberships were applied, and in two of the three orders, the app with the membership still wasn’t the cheapest.

Why the same food costs different amounts

The price on the menu is the smallest part of the story. What you actually pay depends on:

• Delivery fees, which every app sets differently and changes often.

• Service fees, usually a percentage of your order, and different on each app.

• Small-order and regulatory fees, which show up on some apps and not others.

• Menu prices. Restaurants often charge different prices for the same item on different apps.

• Promotions, which come and go, and differ by app, restaurant and account.

• Memberships like DashPass, Uber One and Grubhub+, which cut some fees but not all of them.

None of that is visible on the menu. You only find out at checkout, and you only see one app’s checkout at a time.

What Fooze does

Fooze is a free app for iPhone and Android. You connect the delivery accounts you already have, set your address and browse nearby restaurants. Build your cart once, and Fooze shows you the full checkout total and delivery time on each app, side by side. Then you order on whichever one wins, under your own account, with your own payment method and memberships.

That’s the whole idea: one cart, three real prices, and you pick.

Download Fooze on the App Store · Get it on Google Play

Fooze is independent and not affiliated with DoorDash, Uber Eats or Grubhub. Prices are from real comparisons in the Fooze app and change constantly. The point isn’t that one app is cheaper; it’s that you can’t know which one is without checking.