When people complain about the price of eating at McDonald’s, that’s usually a sign that the economy has some weakness. Over the past year or so, McDonald’s prices have become social media memes with people posting outrageous prices for Value Meals and other menu items.
Usually, those high prices tend to be at non-traditional locations.
My son, for example, had to downgrade his Chicken McNuggets combo meal from a 10-piece to a 6-piece earlier this year when a $20 bill did not cover the cost. In that case, however, we were in an airport and while the price was high, all airport prices are high.
The chain’s leadership, however, has also admitted that price and value are issues at its regular restaurants and have taken steps to address value.
McDonald’s CEO Christopher Kempczinski literally opened the company’s second-quarter earning call talking about value.
In the second quarter, McDonald’s delivered global system-wide sales growth of over 6% in constant currency and global comparable sales growth of nearly 4%. This includes driving positive comparable guest counts globally despite a challenging backdrop for the industry. In this landscape, the power of McDonald’s value and affordability platforms, exciting marketing and menu offerings and world-class execution are working together to drive comparable sales results and guest count growth as we also accelerate new restaurant development.
He returned to the theme many times during the call, but he never addressed the hidden cost of ordering McDonald’s.
McDonald’s menu comes with hidden fees
McDonald’s does not share what percentage of its sales are in-store, picked up, or delivered. It also does not ever talk about the fact that delivery partners including UberEats and Grubhub mark up the cost of your meal.
Self Financial recently repeated a study it first conducted in 2023 to show how much the price of food delivery changed across the U.S. when using different apps. The study found that delivering the same food order varied as much as $33.88 between the 100 cities analyzed.
“DoorDash was found to be the most expensive food delivery app in the U.S., costing $63.21 for an order that cost $36.95 at the restaurant (71.1% more expensive). Here is how the average markup changes when using different food delivery apps,” the company shared.
Image source: Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images
Average McDonald’s markup on food delivery apps
- DoorDash was found to be the most expensive food delivery app in the U.S., costing $63.21 for an order that cost $36.95 at the restaurant (71.1% more expensive).
- Uber Eats has a slightly lower markup percentage (69.4%), followed by GrubHub (65.8%), meaning these two apps are your best options when ordering food with no offers/codes implemented.
There is, however, some good news for consumers.
“In 2023, the study found that the average markup between the McDonald’s food order and the delivery order was 93.8%. In the recent research, although prices had increased, the markup had decreased to 68.6%,” Self shared.
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And, while that’s a sort of positive for McDonald’s customers, that decrease likely does not carryover to many restaurants.
“As this analysis focused exclusively on McDonald’s, the data should be reviewed with that in mind. McDonald’s is a large corporation that can afford to keep its markup lower than smaller businesses; consequently, the price increase for a local independent restaurant, for example, may be even higher, or if they are running a promotion, it may be lower,” according to the study.
McDonald’s pricing by the numbers
- In 2025, the average order cost $36.95 directly from McDonald’s restaurants (a 23.7% increase since 2023) and on average $62.36 when delivered via third-party apps (a 7.8% increase since 2023).
- DoorDash is the most expensive food delivery app – costing $63.21 (71.1% higher than buying directly from McDonald’s). UberEats is the second most expensive ($62.60) and GrubHub is the cheapest ($61.26)
- Gilbert, Arizona, is still the most expensive city for food delivery apps ($90.61), costing a total of $45.22 more than the cheapest city in the analysis.
- New Orleans, Louisiana, has the highest price difference (237.8%) between buying directly from McDonald’s compared to using food delivery apps. ($20.80 vs $70.27).
- Laredo, Texas, is the most affordable city for food delivery apps ($45.39), but Anchorage, Alaska, had the lowest markup (42.8%) between restaurant and food delivery app prices.
- Anchorage, Alaska, is the city with the most expensive Big Macs ($15.80).
- Phoenix, Arizona, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Bakersfield, California, are home to the cheapest Big Macs ($4.69).
McDonald’s takes on value
Kempczinski made it clear during the earnings call that value was a major focus for the chain.
“When we get our value proposition right and execute with excellence, good performance follows,” he shared.
The CEO noted that lower-income customers, the chain’s largest audience, had been visiting less often in the U.S.
“Reengaging the low-income consumer is critical as they typically visit our restaurants more frequently than middle- and high-income consumers,” he said.
Kempczinski then talked about some of the chain’s value offerings.
The $5 Meal Deal continues to resonate with consumers as we recently celebrated the 1-year anniversary of the program. We’ve also continued to see incrementality from our McValue platform which also includes our Buy One, Add One for $1 deal, which launched at the beginning of this year. And of course, we’re excited to welcome Snack Wraps back onto the menu after a 9-year hiatus. We launched Snack Wraps with an attractive $2.99 nationally advertised price point and early results are encouraging.
He was excited about what has already happened, but made it clear that more needed to be done.
“We recognize that consumers’ value perceptions are most influenced by our core menu pricing. We’re working closely and collaboratively with our U.S. franchisees on this opportunity, and we’re developing ideas for how we might address this as an entire system,” he added.
Goldman Sachs Analyst Christine Cho shared with MarketWatch that she believes McDonald’s is well positioned for the current economy.
“Although stepped-up value competition across the industry may pressure same-store sales growth and margins in near term, we believe [McDonald’s] will be able to out-comp its peers and move into an even stronger position within the fast-food industry,” Cho said in a research note.
(“Out-comp its peers” refers to an outperformance in comparable-store sales, or sales of restaurants open more than a year.)
Related: Target announces big change to self-checkout ahead of holidays
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