Amazon is getting back into restaurant delivery with Uber Eats team-up
Amazon and Uber are teaming up to make Uber Eats the official restaurant delivery partner for Prime subscribers in the US. The news comes as Uber faces a drastically reshaped competitive landscape with the merging of rivals DoorDash and Instacart.
Under the new partnership, Amazon Prime subscribers will get $0 delivery fees on restaurant orders of $25 or more directly through Amazon’s app or website — without having to use Uber Eats or even create an account. Essentially, Amazon Prime subscribers who never bothered to sign up for Uber can now order takeout without needing to create an Uber account.
Prime members can order Uber Eats takeout directly on Amazon’s website or app using their existing Amazon payment methods. Amazon handles the ordering process and delivery alerts, while Uber Eats sends the final receipt. Uber says it’s designed to let shoppers buy meals, groceries, and everyday household items all in one place.
At the same time, Uber gets access to tens of millions of Amazon Prime shoppers who already love getting things delivered, without having to spend money running app store ads to win them over. DoorDash is the bigger player in restaurant delivery, so by partnering with Amazon, Uber is clearly hoping to put pressure on its much larger rival.
Amazon previously partnered with Grubhub by offering free delivery to Prime members. Adding Uber Eats as the “official” partner means Amazon is either deliberately teaming up with multiple delivery apps, or simply admitting that Grubhub has become too small to really matter to Prime members.
Whether this deal is enough to move the needle for Prime subscribers remains to be seen. While waiving the delivery fee helps, it doesn’t eliminate the largest parts of the bill. On most takeout orders, costs like service fees, local regulatory charges, driver tips, and menu markups still make up the bulk of what you pay. And setting a $25 order threshold makes this benefit less practical for solo diners or casual lunch orders, forcing customers to buy extra food just to save a $3-$4 delivery charge.
Amazon and Uber say members could save over $175 a year, but that calculation assumes you order delivery fairly often. Because the estimate is compared against paying full price on every single order, customers would likely need to order takeout several times a month to reach that total.
