You can pay between £3.49 and £7.99 a month to get free delivery and other discounts.
Takeaway orders have soared since the first lockdown. It’s no surprise. If you can’t go out, you order in. And the habit has stuck.
And it’s the same for us. We used to order one every couple of months or so, but there have been a handful of spells in the last few year where it was practically every week. In part that’s to support local restaurants, but also it is nice to not cook from time to time!
Of course this isn’t a cheap (or healthy) habit. And once you add in the service and delivery charges you get on top from the likes of Deliveroo and Uber Eats it can quickly add up to much more than you intended.
Deliveroo knows this, so they offer a delivery subscription service, which gives free delivery on orders for a monthly fee.
But is paying for a monthly membership actually going to save you money?
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What is Deliveroo Plus?
You’re basically signing up for a delivery pass with a monthly charge. Depending on the tier you select you’ll get free delivery when you spend over a certain amount.
However you will still pay the service charge on each order. Deliveroo also promises members will receive extra “Plus” discounts – I’ll take a look at these further down the article.
You are only tied into one month at a time so you can pick and choose when you want to use it. However it will auto-renew if you don’t cancel.
Deliveroo Plus costs
There are two levels you can choose between:
Deliveroo Plus Silver
- Cost: £3.49 a month
- Minimum order for free delivery: £25
Deliveroo Plus Gold
- Cost: £7.99 (was £11.49 a month)
- Minimum order for free delivery: £10
You’ll still have to pay delivery charges if your order is less than the minimum set by your subscription level.
Deliveroo Plus discounts
Deliveroo Plus free trial
You can get one 14-day free trial per account. You can cancel at any time before the trial ends but you’ll sacrifice any remaining days left. But forget to cancel and you will get charged.
If that happens, you’ve still got a 14-day cooling off period to request a full refund – as long as you don’t use the service in that time.
You’ll see the option to sign up in the app or on the site. If it’s not there then go to settings.
Free Deliveroo Plus via Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime members can get a free year of Deliveroo Plus Silver, worth £41.88. This (as you can see above) entitles you to free delivery if you spend £25 or more on an order.
If you end your Prime membership during the year you’ll also end your Deliveroo Plus membership. At the end of the year your membership will end – unless you had a membership running before activating this offer. In that case it’ll revert to whatever plan you were on.
Amazon Prime costs £79 a year and comes with free Amazon delivery and free Amazon Prime Video streaming (among other extras). Following my year without Amazon, I’ve come to the conclusion that paying for Prime really isn’t worth it.
But if you already pay for Deliveroo Plus then it’s worth considering whether getting Prime as well for an extra £37 could be a decent deal. Here’s how to claim the offer.
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Deliveroo Plus rewards
These extra discounts have the potential to save you cash – but I think it’s a bit of a postcode lottery.
The main offer when I tried Deliveroo Plus required you to place three orders at participating restaurants in 30 days to get £8 off a fourth order .
In Brixton there were 16 restaurants taking part, but five miles down the road in Peckham there were three.
In central Edinburgh there were four (one was a newsagent!) and in a student area of Leeds just seven. And in the town where I live there were zero!
The chances of you finding the restaurant you want to order from also listed in this promotion are slim – so I wouldn’t sign up expecting to save extra from a membership.
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Is Deliveroo Plus a good idea?
Andy’s Analysis
Taking a look at some of the delivery charges near me, they range from 79p through to £3.49 – with the majority around the £3 mark. Have a look at your most recent orders and see what you’ve been paying each month,
I’d imagine that if you are someone that regularly orders at least two takeaways from Deliveroo over £25, then you will hopefully get your £3.49 subscription fee back after one or two orders, maybe three.
It’s a tougher sell for people who won’t hit the £25 minimum spend for the family option. The cost of the next tier at £7.99 would mean you’d need to order at least three times a month (probably more) to get the month back. That’s harder to justify.
So do the (quick) maths to work out whether you’ll actually benefit from this scheme or whether you’ll actually be spending more than the actual deliveries cost.
But even if you think that makes sense, there are some wider issues you need to consider.
First, if you sign up for a service like this it will be really tempting to order more takeaways. And that means you will spend more.
Second, it ties you into using just Deliveroo. And if you want to order from a restaurant on another app or direct, then you’ll have to pay a separate delivery charge.
Finally, it’s actually often cheaper to order direct from the takeaway. Since Deliveroo (and the other apps) take a decent cut of the sale, prices can be higher than if you go direct. Plus you need to factor in that service charge on top.
So check out the websites for your faves, and see if the prices are lower, and if delivery is free. If so that sounds like a better option – plus the restaurant will get to keep more of the money.
But if you order at least once a month from a Deliveroo only takeaway and spend at least £25 each time, then the family pass at £3.49 will mean you at least break even. That means there’s not much harm giving it a go – as long as you don’t start ordering more frequently than if you didn’t have it!
How to cancel Deliveroo Plus
Simply head to your account and select the option to cancel your membership. If that doesn’t work you can email [email protected].
Avoid supermarket orders on takeaway apps
Finally, a reminder that ordering from supermarkets on Deliveroo and Uber Eats is generally going to be more expensive than doing it yourself or ordering from their own delivery services.
I’ve written in more detail about how much more this costs here.
Deliveroo promo codes
New users can also save money on their first order by using a promo code. I’ll list the best ones of these on my takeaway deals page.
