How Grubhub's Fees Turn a $24.99 Order Into $39.47, and What Virginia Law Says About It

What is drip pricing, and why is Grubhub under investigation?

You open the Grubhub app, browse a restaurant's menu, and pick out $24.99 worth of food. By the time you reach the checkout screen, the price has changed. A service fee appears, then a delivery fee, then a small order fee, and sometimes an "expanded range" fee if the restaurant is a little farther away. None of these charges were part of the price you saw when you decided what to order.

This tactic is called drip pricing: a company advertises one price, then adds mandatory fees one screen at a time. By the time you see the real total, you have already spent ten minutes building your order, and most people finish the purchase rather than start over somewhere else.

This is what it looks like on a typical Grubhub order, using fee amounts documented in our investigation:

In the order above, mandatory fees added $14.48 on top of a $24.99 food price - a 58% increase, none of it shown in the menu price you used to make your decision.

Since July 1, 2025, this may be illegal in Virginia.

Virginia's price transparency law

Virginia Code § 59.1-608, part of the Virginia Consumer Protection Act, took effect on July 1, 2025. The rule is simple: if a fee is mandatory, it has to be in the price you're shown up front. A company may not advertise or display a price for goods or services unless that price includes all mandatory fees and charges. Taxes and shipping calculated at the end are fine. But a "service fee" that every customer must pay is not a tax. It is part of the price, and Virginia law says it belongs in the number you see first.

The fees Grubhub adds at checkout

Grubhub's checkout adds several distinct mandatory charges after you've seen menu prices:

• Service Fee - a per-order charge Grubhub keeps, separate from anything paid to the restaurant or driver.
• Delivery Fee - charged on delivery orders, varying by restaurant and distance.
• Small Order Fee - an extra charge for orders under a minimum amount.
• Expanded Range Fee - an additional charge when the restaurant is outside the standard delivery radius.

Each of these is mandatory: you cannot decline the service fee and still place your order. Under Virginia's law, a mandatory charge belongs in the first price you see, and the menu prices in the app don't include any of them.

What you could recover

The Virginia Consumer Protection Act gives consumers real remedies. You can recover the hidden fees you actually paid: Virginia law allows recovery of your actual damages or $500, whichever is greater, along with your attorney fees, and if the violation is found to be willful, the court may award up to three times your actual damages, or $1,000, whichever is greater. If you ordered regularly, those fees add up quickly. Someone paying $14.48 in fees per order, twice a month, pays over $340 in fees a year that were never in the advertised price.

Why companies hide fees instead of raising prices

Companies use drip pricing because it works.

Customers comparison-shop on the first price they see. A company that includes its fees in the advertised price looks more expensive than a competitor that hides them, even when the real totals are the same. Once one company in an industry hides its fees, the others tend to follow. That is why Virginia addressed the practice with a statute rather than waiting for the market to correct itself.

The timing matters too. By the time Grubhub shows its fees, you have already picked a restaurant, built your order, and entered your address. Starting over somewhere else means starting dinner over, so most customers pay.

The fee names also mislead. Labels like "service fee," "processing fee," or "regulatory fee" sound like taxes or government charges, and many customers assume they are required by someone other than the company. They almost never are. The fee is simply part of the price.

How to tell if you have a claim

You don't need to do any legwork before signing up. But if you want to see the violation for yourself, it takes about two minutes:

• Open the Grubhub app or website and add an item to your cart at the listed menu price.
• Proceed to checkout and compare the order total against the menu price you started from.
• Look for line items like Service Fee, Delivery Fee, Small Order Fee, or Expanded Range Fee - charges that were nowhere in the menu listing.
• Check your email for past Grubhub receipts. Search your inbox for "Grubhub order" and look at the fee lines on orders placed since July 1, 2025.

If the mandatory fees at checkout weren't part of the price you were first shown, that's the pattern Virginia Code § 59.1-608 prohibits. Screenshots of a current order flow and email receipts from past orders are both useful evidence.

You do not need receipts to start. Signing up takes 60 seconds, and we'll tell you what documentation matters later. Even if you can't find old receipts, Grubhub has records of every order, and we can request them.

Hidden fees are being challenged nationwide

Hidden mandatory fees, often called junk fees, have become one of the most active areas of consumer protection law nationwide, drawing legislation, regulatory action, and litigation across industries from hotels and ticketing to rental housing and food delivery. Virginia's rule is one of the clearest versions: put every mandatory charge in the first price the consumer sees, or face liability under the Virginia Consumer Protection Act.

Food delivery gets particular attention because the advertised menu price and the real total differ so widely. An all-in menu price would show the true cost of delivery at the moment you compare it against pickup.

For Virginia consumers, the law has already changed. Every Grubhub order placed since July 1, 2025 with undisclosed mandatory fees is a potential violation, and the evidence is in your own email receipts.

What They Showed You* vs. What You Actually Paid*

Figures shown are illustrative examples, not records of an actual transaction; your amounts may differ.

Frequently asked questions

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