No one likes to pick up the phone and call for delivery or take-out anymore. Instead, more and more food delivery is shifting to online, where you can order from just a few taps in an app.
The question is: Which app do you choose?
Business Insider put seven apps to the test to see which could bring us the freshest, fastest, and cheapest lunch.
There's a lot of options out there, but after trying seven head-to-head, we've ranked the ones we're most likely to use again.
In the US, analysts estimate that only 10% of restaurants take online orders. Having 90% of the market left to conquer has caused a gold rush of companies trying to cash in. Right now, GrubHub is the market leader in terms of ordering share. But is it really the best service?
San Francisco is a test bed for the biggest market leaders in food delivery, so we decided to try and find out. We ordered from seven different services — GrubHub, Eat24, Caviar, DoorDash, Postmates, UberEats, and Amazon Prime Now — in the ultimate delivery showdown.
Who are all these contenders?
You've probably heard of GrubHub, which operates in more than 900 cities and owns Seamless as well as a few other smaller delivery companies.
Yelp-owned Eat24 is often the default ordering option on the reviews site, but it has a standalone app, too, so that it can serve up hot dishes in over 1,500 cities.
Caviar is owned by Square, the payments company. It's only available in about a dozen US cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
DoorDash just celebrated its third birthday, making it the youngest independent company on this list. In that short time, it has already expanded into 26 cities around the country.
Postmates, which has raised around $130 million, specializes in on-demand delivery for lots of stuff, not just lunches. You can check out the app in about 40 cities around the US.
Think Uber is just for cheap rides? Think again. Right now, its speedy food service, UberEats, is available in more than a dozen cities.
Amazon has long been a go-to place for buying pretty much everything — except hot food. Now it's trying to change that. Its lightening-fast Now service is reserved exclusively for Prime members and includes a boatload of essential shopping items as well as restaurant delivery.
We couldn't find one restaurant that appeared on every app, so we chose two equidistant from our office and selected similarly priced menu items. The menu: $6 worth of tacos from one and $6 worth of avocado toast from the other.
All the delivery services had to compete on total cost versus delivery time versus taste. It's hard to do all three well! Now that the orders are in and we chowed down, here's how they all stacked up:
7. Postmates
Postmates lost out in this lunch test mainly because of its slow delivery and sloppy presentation. The high delivery fee ($6) and hidden tip didn't help either.
Since Postmates can handle your other delivery needs — like cold medicine from Walgreens or beauty supplies from Aesop — and we were impressed with its sophisticated tracking and friendly delivery, we wouldn't write it off completely.
But lunch orders? Never again.
6. Amazon
We loved how fast Amazon's delivery was, but the sky-high delivery minimum and the need for Prime make it less useful for the average lunch.
(Though, like Postmates, Amazon lets you order nonfood items, making the service better suited for a Target shopping spree than a midday meal.)
5. Caviar
Caviar was the only site to upsell us, even if it was only $0.30. The delivery minimum didn't leave the best taste in our mouths either, and the app's tendency to sacrifice a useful user interface for a pretty one lopped off some street-cred points, too, despite its fast delivery.
4. GrubHub
What to say about GrubHub? It wasn't bad. The $10 delivery minimum was bearable, we weren't that put off by the slightly squished box, and the $5 delivery fee was average.
A solid fourth-place finish.
3. Eat24
Eat24 had the worst delivery estimate, making us think we'd wait more than an hour for our food. Even though it surprised us in the best way possible by getting there 20 minutes early, that incorrect estimate could be an inconvenience.
Think you have time for a quick phone call before pigging out? Think again.
Still though, the price here was comparatively cheap, cinching a third-place finish.
2. UberEats
Uber wins points for making it easy to track the status of an order and keep tabs on where your delivery is at all times. Plus, it was the cheapest and third fastest.
But you couldn't tip, which was a bit of a bummer. We'd prefer the option to be able to add a few bucks in-app, especially if our driver is going out of the way to meet me in my office or risk his life running across traffic.
And the winner is ... DoorDash!
This service ended up being the fastest and barely more expensive than Uber. Hard to argue with results like that.
Ultimately, this was only one test. Maybe Postmates can really shine or DoorDash isn't always so zippy. But the challenge for these companies is that it takes one experience to make or break someone's opinion when there are so many other options to choose from.
They have to compete not only on price, but on restaurant selection and how fast they can get the food to you. It's not easy.
But that's just the way the cookie crumbles!
Want the full walk-through?
Click here for the full breakdown of each company's app and how they stacked up against each other.
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