Do we like them?

Do we like DoorDash?

Food and grocery delivery app and local-commerce platform in 40+ countries, based in San Francisco.

Our score: 3 out of 10. We wouldn't back them yet. Regulators keep finding they shortchanged delivery workers, and they've settled repeatedly. They do admit mistakes and pay up, but the pattern is hard to ignore.

DoorDash started in 2013 and is run by co-founder Tony Xu. It has grown from restaurant delivery in the US into a multi-product business in over 40 countries. It now owns Wolt, Deliveroo and SevenRooms. Its own figures say Dashers have earned over $80 billion through the platform.

The big recent drama is New York City. In September 2026 DoorDash agreed to a $131.5 million settlement with the city's worker-protection agency, which said it found workers were deliberately paid below the minimum rate or not at all. DoorDash's own response was "we screwed up". It blamed complex rules and software bugs, and said the mistakes weren't intentional.

It's not a one-off. Tip handling cost DoorDash settlements in New York ($16.75m) and Washington DC ($2.5m). Between 2017 and 2019 it used customers' tips to top up the pay it had guaranteed workers. Chicago also got an $18m settlement over deceptive practices.

There are privacy and contractor-status issues too. California's AG got a $375,000 settlement over selling customer data without proper opt-outs. The San Francisco DA's case over driver misclassification ended in a $2.1m settlement. Now the FTC has asked DoorDash and others how they use personal data to set prices and gig pay.

The score is a 3. DoorDash gives people flexible work and helps merchants reach customers, and it pays up when caught. But the same kinds of problems keep turning up in different cities, and there's a new FTC study on top. We'd want a cleaner record on worker pay first.