Let’s be honest, ordering food has become second nature for most of us. You work late, the kids are hungry, and suddenly those delivery apps look like pure genius. According to USDA data, in 2023, 56% of money spent on food went toward food away from home, showing just how normalized ordering out has become. Here’s the thing though – while we all know deep down that cooking saves money, the actual price gap between ordering and cooking might shock you.
Ordering delivery from a restaurant is often up to 5 times more expensive than cooking at home, according to a Forbes analysis. Yet people keep hitting that order button. Why? Because convenience wins, even when our wallets protest.
Pizza: The Classic Delivery Trap
Pizza orders from restaurants can easily reach $20 to $25 for two people, while the cost of ingredients like oil, flour, yeast, cheese and tomato sauce can come in at under $6 for a basic 12- to 14-inch homemade pizza. That’s roughly four times the price for the same food. One analysis found that all the ingredients needed to make one 10″ pizza will cost you around four bucks, basically the same as a single slice at many pizzerias. The numbers are wild when you think about it.
Some folks argue they don’t have time to make pizza dough. Fair enough. Yet frozen grocery store pizzas still beat delivery prices by half, and you still get hot food without the wait or tip.
Burgers and Fries: The Fast Food Illusion
Making burgers at home versus grabbing fast food seems like it should be close in price, right? Wrong. A fast-food burger might cost you $5-$8, while a similar quality burger at a sit-down restaurant could be $14-$18. A comparable homemade version can be made for $2.50. One family calculated their restaurant burger meal at roughly eighty-two dollars for four people, while making the same meal at home saved $60.71.
From 2022 to 2024, the cost of a burger, fries and soda went up 24% in the 50 largest U.S. cities, making the homemade option even more attractive. Still, drive-through lines wrap around buildings every evening.
Steak Dinners: Restaurant Markup at Its Peak
Restaurant steak represents one of the most dramatic markups in dining. When it comes to more extravagant meals like steak, there’s typically an extreme premium when eating out, sometimes up to a 300% markup. You could buy three or four of the same ribeye steak from your grocery store that would be priced at $80 to $100 each at a steak house.
One detailed comparison showed a ribeye dinner at Outback Steakhouse cost nearly twenty-four dollars per person, while the at-home meal prepared came to $11.84 per person. The meal at Outback was $23.84. That’s double the price, and you could’ve poured yourself a better glass of wine at home too.
Breakfast Items: Morning Delivery Adds Up Fast
The cost of food at home rose 1.2% in 2024, while the cost of food away from home rose 4.1%, and breakfast items show this gap clearly. Eggs, toast, and bacon from a diner can run fifteen dollars per person easily. At home? Maybe three bucks. Pancakes, omelets, and breakfast sandwiches all follow the same pattern. The ingredients are cheap; the service and location aren’t.
Breakfast delivery through apps adds another layer of fees and markups that can turn a simple meal into a luxury purchase. Yet brunch delivery orders keep climbing.
Pasta Dishes: Simple Ingredients, Steep Prices
Restaurant pasta is perhaps the most profitable menu item for restaurants, and the most overpriced for customers. A plate of spaghetti with marinara sauce at a casual restaurant might cost twelve to eighteen dollars. Making it at home? The average price per serving of home cooked meals is $4.31 – while the average cost of eating out is $20.37.
A box of pasta costs maybe two dollars and feeds four people. Sauce, whether jarred or homemade, adds another few dollars maximum. Throw in some garlic bread and salad, and you’re still under ten dollars total for a family meal. Restaurants know this, which is why pasta sections fill their menus.
Tacos and Mexican Food: Markup on Simple Assembly
Tacos represent another meal where the cost difference is substantial. Ground beef, tortillas, cheese, lettuce, and salsa – basic ingredients that cost very little at the grocery store. A family taco night might run eight to twelve dollars for four people cooking at home. Order the same amount from a Mexican restaurant? Easily thirty-five to fifty dollars with delivery.
55% of respondents saved money just by a switch to frozen pizza from the grocery store versus pizza from a restaurant, and similar savings apply to Mexican food. The assembly is simple, the ingredients are accessible, yet people pay premium prices for someone else to do it.
Chicken Dinners: Rotisserie vs. Restaurant
A whole rotisserie chicken from the grocery store costs around six to eight dollars and feeds a family of four easily. Add some roasted vegetables and rice, and you’ve got a complete meal for under fifteen dollars total. Order fried chicken or grilled chicken dinners from a restaurant? Plan on spending forty to sixty dollars for the same amount of food.
The convenience factor plays huge here. Nobody wants to deal with a whole chicken after a long day. Yet the price gap remains enormous, and cooking at home allows for leftovers, which stretches that grocery bill even further. Make a big batch of chili or a roast chicken, and you’ve got multiple meals covered for the week.
Sandwiches and Subs: Bread and Lunch Meat Math
Deli sandwiches from restaurants charge premium prices for basic ingredients. A decent sub from a sandwich shop runs ten to fourteen dollars. A loaf of bread costs three dollars, deli meat maybe six dollars for enough for several sandwiches, cheese another three dollars. You can make five or six quality sandwiches at home for the price of one from a shop.
Americans save around $12 by opting to cook and eat at home, with the average home meal costing $4.23 versus over $16 per meal at an inexpensive restaurant. Sandwiches follow this pattern perfectly. Simple assembly, huge markup.
Fried Rice and Asian Takeout
Asian takeout has become a weekly ritual for many households, but the costs add up shockingly fast. In 2024, U.S. consumers reported spending an average of $191 per person per month on dining out, a significant rise from about $166 per month in 2023. A family order of fried rice, orange chicken, and egg rolls can easily hit forty-five dollars with delivery fees.
Making fried rice at home requires leftover rice, a few vegetables, eggs, and soy sauce. Total cost? Maybe five dollars. Even purchasing pre-made sauces and frozen dumplings from an Asian grocery store costs a fraction of restaurant prices. The flavors can be nearly identical with a little practice.
Salads: Paying for Lettuce and Labor
Restaurant salads might be the most ridiculous markup in casual dining. A Caesar salad or house salad costs eight to fourteen dollars at most restaurants. A head of romaine lettuce costs two dollars. Dressing, croutons, and toppings add maybe another three dollars. You can make enough salad for a week for the price of one restaurant portion.
The cost of food at home rose 1.2% in 2024, while the cost of food away from home rose 4.1%, making the salad markup even more noticeable. People pay for the convenience of not chopping vegetables, basically.
Coffee and Breakfast Sandwiches
The daily coffee and breakfast sandwich habit drains budgets faster than almost anything else. A breakfast sandwich and coffee from a chain costs six to eight dollars. Multiply that by five workdays, and you’re spending thirty to forty dollars weekly just on breakfast. That’s over two thousand dollars annually.
Making coffee at home costs pennies per cup. Breakfast sandwiches assembled from English muffins, eggs, and cheese cost maybe a dollar each. Americans specifically save about $12 per person by choosing to cook at home. Experts say that the average home-cooked meal costs $4.23, while a meal at an inexpensive restaurant will run you about $16. The morning routine is where this becomes most visible.
Soup and Comfort Food
Soup represents comfort in a bowl, but ordering it from restaurants costs significantly more than making it at home. A bowl of soup at a restaurant runs six to ten dollars. Making a large pot of soup at home costs maybe eight to twelve dollars total, yielding six to eight servings.
Ingredients like broth, vegetables, beans, and seasonings are inexpensive. One detailed cost analysis showed cost of homemade soup was only $.70. At Outback she paid $2.99 for one serving. The time investment for soup is minimal – most of it simmers unattended – making it one of the easiest meals to prep in batches.
Delivery Apps Make Everything More Expensive
Beyond the base price difference between home cooking and restaurant meals, delivery apps add another expensive layer. If you’re getting takeout from a food delivery service like Uber Eats or DoorDash, restaurants will often mark up menu items. As a result, delivery fees and tips can quickly turn a $10 meal into $20 or $25.
40% of respondents say that higher prices are what they find most frustrating about delivery apps, yet usage continues climbing. The convenience tax is real, and it’s substantial. That twelve-dollar burger becomes eighteen dollars after service fees, delivery fees, and tips. Suddenly cooking doesn’t seem so inconvenient.
The gap between cooking at home and ordering out has never been wider, yet delivery orders keep breaking records. 52% of U.S. consumers say food delivery is an “essential” part of their lifestyle. 67% of Millennials and 63% of Gen Z rely on food delivery regularly. We know it costs more – sometimes dramatically more – but convenience, exhaustion, and habit keep us clicking that order button. Maybe understanding the real numbers will inspire more home-cooked meals, or maybe we’ll just feel slightly guilty about that next pizza delivery. What do you think – would seeing these price comparisons change your ordering habits?
