New DoorDash rival promises cheaper takeout but can it deliver?

There’s a new takeout app in town — and it wants to eat the competition. Launched on Oct.20, Olo is a new ordering platform offering pickup and delivery with one major promise — no sneaky fees.

The debut comes as the app’s Goliath-sized rival, DoorDash, snapped up Instacart for $17B — which experts warn could lead to even higher prices.Olo currently has over 250 national and regional restaurant brands with names like Five Guys, Waffle House and Dave’s Hot Chicken — small fry compared to DoorDash, which brags roughly 615,000 partnerships.Olo’s shtick is convenience without the markup.No inflated prices, they promise — no added charges, no sponsored ads.

What you see on the menu when you’re at the actual restaurant is what you see when you’re ordering through the app.To make money, the brand promises just one flat fee of 5%, called the “network fee.” Plus, users will still need to pay a delivery fee on delivery orders.However, creators say the app eliminates the main cost driving up customer prices. It’s called the commissions fee — where apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats charge restaurants anywhere from 15% to 30% commissions on delivery orders.

This fee makes the restaurants raise prices to cover costs — but the Olo App is commission-free.So what’s the catch? While Olo may offer lower prices, The Post did a deep dive and found two problems consumers may face — transparency and convenience.Over the past year, consumers have been hearing two phrases — dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing.While they’re used interchangeably, there’s a bit of a difference.

Dynamic pricing changes costs based on market conditions; surveillance pricing changes cost or offers based on what a company knows about you.Either way, it’s using data behind the scenes to work against you.While higher prices might be off the table with Olo, it is still acting like its rivals — serving up your data on a metaphorical silver platter.According to ...