Which food delivery app is the cheapest in SG? Comparing: GrabFood, Foodpanda & Deliveroo (2024)

Feeling lazy to cook but yet so hungry? There is a simple solution to your hunger pangs— food delivery. Upon the Boss Man’s request, I embarked on a mission to find the cheapest delivery platform in Singapore, and whether or not you should buy their premium plans.

According to Statista, Singapore’s Top 3 Most Popular Apps for food delivery are GrabFood (84%), Foodpanda (54%) and Deliveroo (9%). They will be our 3 contenders in this comparison article.

Food delivery comparison criteria

How do we compare across the food delivery apps? We chose 3 same merchants on each platform that deliver to our location (our office in Toa Payoh). For consistency, our control factors were: 

1. Time – Dishes were ‘ordered’ around the same time (within 30 minutes)

2. Distance – Delivery location is the same every time

Measured from our office, the merchants in question were Allauddin’s Briyani (0.4 kilometres), Mos Burger (1.4 kilometres) and Rong Kee Roasted Delights (2.4 kilometres).

We ordered their Fried Chicken Briyani Set, Fish Burger and Twin Roasted Meat Platter respectively.

We also compared prices with each platform’s Premium Plans (if applicable) for our analysis. This will help you decide whether it’s worth purchasing their premium monthly subscription plans.

Every experiment comes with its limitations. Before we continue, here are some disclaimers to keep in mind. 

Our focus with this experiment is primarily on price, not quality of service. In addition, I am solely basing my conclusions on the 3 chosen merchants. There is a possibility that different merchants (or distances) lead to differing fees.

GrabFood 

GrabFood has a Premium GrabUnlimited Plan that costs S$5.99 per month. You can enjoy benefits that include “Up to 30% off GrabUnlimited Preferred Merchants” and “Up to S$3 off all Food & Mart Deliveries”.

Allauddin’s Briyani (0.4KM)

Mos Burger (1.4KM)

Rong Kee Roasted Delights (2.4KM)

The Breakdown

GrabUnlimited gave us a consistent S$3 off Standard Delivery across all 3 stalls. However, the increment in Standard Delivery per kilometre difference is inconsistent. This is attributed to the “delivery distance and availability of drivers”.

GrabFood has a Small Order Fee for orders below S$10. From the different Small Order Fees for Allauddin’s Briyani and Mos Burger, it seems the cheaper the dish, the higher the Small Order Fee.

The Platform Fees were constant at S$0.40

Shall we explore a scenario? If I were to purchase 3 Fish Burgers (S$13.65) minus the Small Order Fee of S$7.45, my Mos Burger purchase would be at S$21.45 after adding the Standard Delivery and Platform Fees (S$7.80 total) which can vary as it is a time-sensitive factor.

Keep that train of thought as we move on!

Foodpanda

foodpanda has a Premium pandapro Plan that can be purchased at S$4.99 per month. You can enjoy benefits such as “Unlimited S$3 off Delivery on all Restaurants” and “Unlimited Free Delivery on Selected Restaurants”.

Allauddin’s Briyani (0.4KM)

Mos Burger (1.4KM)

Rong Kee Roasted Delights (2.4KM)

The Breakdown

Similar to GrabUnlimited, pandapro will get you a consistent S$3 off Standard Delivery across all stalls. In contrast to GrabFood though, foodpanda’s Standard Delivery fee increases by around S$1+ per kilometre.

Spending less than S$12 (on dishes) will incur a Small Order Fee but it is capped at S$1.50. The platform also has an Extra Spend Fee which varies across merchants. After experimenting with the shortlisted stalls, I found that you would typically need to spend at least S$8 to order on foodpanda.

Please see the information presented in Mos Burger’s column. For a rough gauge, I tallied up the required “add-on” of S$2.45 along with the Small Order Fee which popped up afterwards. While the Standard Delivery remained the same, the Platform Fee decreased with the dish price*.

This was not a cause of concern as the latter bumped back to S$0.40 once I met the minimum requirement of an estimated S$8.

Deliveroo

Deliveroo has a Premium Deliveroo plus Plan in 2 Tiers — Gold (S$12.90 per month) and Silver (S$6.90 per month). In terms of free delivery, Gold Tier members will enjoy Free Delivery after spending over S$15 on restaurants while Silver Tier members will enjoy Free Delivery after spending over S$38 on restaurants.

I will be deriving my conclusions mainly from the perspective of a Gold Tier member but will briefly touch on Silver Tier too.

Allauddin’s Briyani (0.4KM)

Mos Burger (1.4KM)

Rong Kee Roasted Delights (2.4KM)

The Breakdown

To be frank, my first impression of deliveroo plus was that it was not worth it. You can only enjoy Free Delivery if you hit over S$15 or S$38 as a Gold or Silver member respectively. Taking a second look now, compared to GrabUnlimited and pandapro’s S$3 off Standard Delivery, you do not need to pay anything here.

deliveroo’s Standard Delivery charges an additional S$0.80 per kilometre. Simply basing my observations on the tabulated values, their Small Order Fee kicks in the slowest — it is only applied when dishes are priced below ~S$8. Their Service Fee is a constant S$0.50.

Using the same Fish Burger scenario that we explored with GrabFood, ordering 3 Fish Burgers (S$13.65) to avoid the Small Order Fee will result in a total of S$18.54, after including the sum of Standard Delivery and Platform Fees (S$4.89 total). As compared to GrabFood’s S$21.45, this saves you S$2.91.

Conclusion: Which delivery app is the cheapest in Singapore?

With all that is said and done, which is the cheapest with and without their respective Premium Plan?

For your easy reference, I will be illustrating this by comparing the price difference when ordering 1 versus 10 Mos’ Fish Burgers across all platforms. This is to emphasise the contrast while overriding the Small Order Fees and accounting for deliveroo’s Silver Tier.

From that information, we can see that:

• It is a close fight between Foodpanda and Deliveroo depending on the scenario, but GrabFood is the most expensive overall in most comparisons, consistently being S$2 – S$3 more than other platforms.

• For small orders (less than S$12), Foodpanda is the cheapest.

• GrabUnlimited does seem cheaper in a specific scenario where the ordered dish is less than S$10 due to their cheaper small order fee.

• Deliveroo is the cheapest for larger orders. Minimum order ranges from S$12-$15 for each merchant.

• Small order fees depend on individual restaurant minimum orders and differ across platforms and merchants.

Which food delivery premium plan is worth it?

To determine the final winner, let’s do one last comparison on which Premium Plan is the most worth it. To refresh your memory, here is a table with key information about each platform’s subscription.

Ensuring that the comparisons will solely be based on their Premium Plans, I will be keeping the base cost at S$45.50 — 10 Mos’ Fish Burgers, excluding additional fees. This is with the assumption that this is my only order for 1 month. If you were wondering, I am not using 1 Fish Burger for this as it does not hit the minimum for deliveroo’s Silver Tier.

Constructing a perfect world where all platforms support a S$3 Delivery Fee (parring with deliveroo’s Free Delivery), I will be adding an extra S$5.50 of Delivery Fees (average amount across all platforms when delivered from Mos Burger at the given time) to showcase the possibility of receiving your order at a further distance.

Drumroll… Our final answer is foodpanda!

Although Deliveroo Plus saves the most on Delivery Fees, the cost of their premium plan is the highest. This is where individual use case comes into play – if you are a heavy user, the fees may be balanced out in the end as long as delivery fees saved can offset the monthly plan price of S$12.90.

Other considerations

GrabUnlimited and Pandapro are great for customers who order from multiple stalls in their vicinity. But if you stay at an ulu place or want to order from merchants that are further away, the free delivery from deliveroo plus will be the better option to mitigate higher delivery costs. Deliveroo also tends to have more premium restaurants, with the offerings differing across which platform to eventually use.

On top of enjoying other perks like Exclusive Vouchers or seasonal promotions, there are other vital factors such as delivery timing or customer service before making the decision to subscribe to a Premium Plan or settling on which delivery platform you prefer.

Summary TLDR;

Assuming all factors (time, distance, merchant) are constant and you don’t care what merchants are on each platform:

• Foodpanda is the cheapest for small/mid-sized orders (S$10-12) – suitable for individuals

• Deliveroo is the cheapest for large orders (>S$12-15) – suitable for families/friends sharing

• If you order 5 or more large order food deliveries a month, it is worth getting Deliveroo Plus

• If you order 2 – 4 small order food deliveries a month, get Pandapro.

• GrabFood is the most expensive food delivery app generally, however their small order fee seems to be the lowest for cheap dishes and you can consider GrabUnlimited for dish orders below S$10, and if you order 2 or more times a month.

So, are you using the right delivery platform In Singapore?

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