Restaurant delivery app photography raises orders because a customer scrolling a small screen picks the dish they can see. DoorDash reports up to 44% more monthly sales for menus with item photos, and Grubhub reports as much as 70% more orders for restaurants that follow menu practices such as adding pictures and descriptions.
Key takeaways
- DoorDash and Grubhub both publish sales figures that favor menus with photos. Treat them as upper bounds from the platforms’ own data.
- Photograph in order of revenue: top sellers, the store header, high-margin items, then dishes with names a new customer will not recognize.
- Free platform photoshoots exist. Read the usage terms first, because DoorDash bars its free images from other delivery apps.
- Change photos in batches and compare equal periods, so you can tell the photos from a promotion or a price change.
Do menu photos increase delivery orders?
The platforms say yes, and they publish numbers. Each figure below comes from the platform’s own merchant pages, and each describes an upper bound or an average across many restaurants.
| Platform | Published claim | Basis the platform gives |
|---|---|---|
| DoorDash | Menus with item photos get up to 44% more monthly sales | Study of more than 15,000 local small business merchants, Q2 2022 |
| DoorDash | Header images bring up to 50% more monthly sales, logos up to 23% | DoorDash study, April to June 2022 |
| DoorDash | Restaurants with high-quality photos can see up to 30% higher sales on average | DoorDash merchant learning center |
| DoorDash | Merchants with header photos saw over 5x more sales in their first 28 days than those without | Internal DoorDash data, published September 2026 |
| Grubhub | Restaurants that follow menu best practices, such as adding pictures and descriptions, receive as much as 70% more orders and 65% higher sales | Grubhub’s experience, per its help center |
| Uber Eats | No percentage on the merchant pages I checked | Uber’s menu guide calls pictures one of the easiest ways to capture more sales |
The DoorDash figures appear in its menu photography tips, its guide to a high-performing DoorDash menu and its 2026 article on increasing restaurant sales. Grubhub’s figure is in its menu help article.
Read those numbers with two cautions. “Up to” marks the best case. A restaurant that adds photos tends to fix its descriptions, hours and prices in the same week, so photos share the credit. I still tell restaurants to add photos. The direction is the same on each platform, and a missing image costs you the customer who scrolls past.
Which menu items should you photograph first?
Restaurant delivery app photography pays back fastest on the items that carry your sales today, followed by the image at the top of your store page. DoorDash gives the same advice to merchants preparing for a shoot: pick your most-ordered dishes or items that have no photo yet.
- Top sellers. Pull the item sales report from your merchant portal and take the top ten by order count.
- The store header or cover image, which sits at the top of your store page.
- High-margin items you want to sell more of. A photo is the cheapest promotion you can give a dish.
- Dishes with unfamiliar names. A customer who cannot picture “chilaquiles verdes” or “mapo tofu” orders the burger.
- Bundles and family meals. The photo has to show each component the order includes.
- The rest of the menu, one category at a time, so each section looks complete.
What makes a good hero image for a delivery app?
A good hero image shows several of your dishes together, with no text, in a frame that survives a wide crop. The platforms set the rules here, and they differ from the rules for item photos.
DoorDash’s photo requirements ask for a header of at least 1400 × 800 pixels, shown at 4:1 on the web and 16:9 in the app, with no text, borders or overlays. Headers may show several items if you photographed them together. Uber Eats asks for a 2880 × 2304 pixel JPEG cover at 5:4, and its guidelines reject covers that show only a logo, a single product, a collage, the storefront or people.
I shoot the header as a spread of three to five dishes on one table, top-down or at a low angle, with the best seller in the middle. The 4:1 web crop on DoorDash keeps a thin horizontal band, so I place the food along the center line and leave the top and bottom of the frame empty.
How much of your menu needs photos?
No platform page I read sets a required percentage, so I plan coverage by category. Cover each item in your two or three highest-selling categories before you add a single photo elsewhere. A category with six photos and four gray boxes looks unfinished, and the gray boxes lose to the pictures beside them.
Two DoorDash rules affect the count. Each unique item needs its own photo, so a beef taco and a chicken taco are two images. And if an item has no photo, DoorDash says it may add one from your linked Instagram business account or from Yelp. You can replace those, and DoorDash says it will not replace a photo you uploaded.
Keep the photos true to the order. DoorDash and Uber Eats both require the image to show what the customer receives, and an oversold portion comes back as a refund request or a one-star review.
Should you use a platform photo program or hire your own photographer?
Take the free shoot if you sell on one platform and your menu fits inside its limits. Hire your own photographer if you sell on two or more apps, or want the same images on your website, Google Business Profile and printed menu.
| Option | What you get | Your cost | Usage limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| DoorDash free photoshoot | One 1.5-hour session, up to 20 menu items, one header image | Food and prep labor | Your website, social media and marketing. Not other third-party delivery platforms |
| Uber Eats photo shoot | Close-ups of menu items plus one profile image. New partners get one complimentary shoot during onboarding | The dishes you prepare. Ask your rep about the price of extra shoots | Uber tells merchants they may use the photos in their own marketing |
| Grubhub photoshoot | Grubhub says restaurants that join get access to a free professional menu photoshoot | Not published | Not published |
| Your own photographer | The full menu, a header, and crops for each platform | A quoted fee | Set by your license. Ask for delivery apps, web, social and print |
DoorDash describes its program, including the item limit and the usage rule, on its free photoshoot help page. It offers the shoot to most restaurant partners, subject to photographer availability in the area. Uber’s upload terms add one point worth knowing: by uploading a photo you grant Uber a sub-license that includes the right to modify it.
The usage rule decides it for a restaurant on several apps. A restaurant on DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub needs one set of images it can post on all three, cropped to 16:9, 5:4 and 1:1. For what an independent shoot costs, see my page on commercial photography rates or the food photographer service page.
How do you test which photos sell?
Run a before-and-after test, one batch at a time. I found no built-in split test for item photos in the three platforms’ public help pages, so the method is manual.
- Record four weeks of numbers for the items you plan to reshoot: orders per item, item sales, and each item’s share of total orders.
- Upload the new photos for one category and leave the rest of the menu alone.
- Hold prices, promotions and hours steady for the next four weeks.
- Compare the two periods week against week, so a Friday faces a Friday.
- Keep the winner, then repeat with the next category or with a new header image.
A holiday, a rainy week or a sponsored listing will move orders more than a photo does. Note those in the same spreadsheet so you do not credit the photo for a storm.
How do you measure the results of restaurant delivery app photography?
Measure at the item level first and the store level second. DoorDash’s Merchant Portal has an Insights section that reports your most popular items with date and location filters. Uber Eats Manager’s analytics show net sales, average order size and your busiest times.
- Orders per photographed item, before and after.
- That item’s share of total orders. A rising share means the photo is pulling choices toward it.
- Average order value. Photos of sides, drinks and desserts should lift it.
- Store sales for the period, against the same weeks last year if you have them.
- Complaints and refund requests that mention the food looking different from the picture.
Use the last metric as a check on accuracy. If “not as pictured” complaints rise after a reshoot, the styling went past what the kitchen sends out, and the fix is a truer photo.
Where else can the same photos work?
Restaurant delivery app photography can supply your whole online presence if the license allows it. The same dish photos fit your website menu, your Google listing and your social feed. My Google Business Profile photos guide covers that listing, and the restaurant photography guide covers interiors, staff and bar shots you can add to the same session. For the wider plan, see how photography fits a digital marketing strategy.
Frequently asked questions
Do menu photos increase delivery sales?
DoorDash and Grubhub both say they do. DoorDash reports up to 44% more monthly sales for menus with item photos, from a 2022 study of more than 15,000 small business merchants. Grubhub reports as much as 70% more orders for restaurants that add pictures and descriptions. Both figures are best-case numbers from platform data.
How many menu photos does a restaurant need on DoorDash?
DoorDash sets no minimum count in its public help pages. Each unique item needs its own photo, so variations you list apart count as separate images. Start with your ten best sellers and a header, then complete one category at a time. DoorDash’s free photoshoot covers up to 20 items in one session.
Can I use DoorDash photoshoot images on Uber Eats or Grubhub?
No. DoorDash says photos from its free photoshoot may go on your own website, social media and marketing materials, and asks merchants not to use them on other third-party delivery platforms. Photos you commission from your own photographer carry whatever license you agree, so ask for all delivery apps in writing.
Are the free DoorDash and Uber Eats photoshoots worth it?
Yes, for a restaurant on one platform with a short menu. You pay for the food and the prep time. The limits are the item count, a single short session, and DoorDash’s rule against posting the images on competing apps. A multi-platform restaurant gets more from one independent shoot with a broad license.
How often should a restaurant update its delivery app photos?
Update a photo each time the dish changes: a new plate, a new portion, a new side. Add photos for new and seasonal items before they go live. Outside of menu changes, I suggest a review once a year, since customers notice a menu where half the photos look older than the rest.
Plan your delivery menu shoot
Send me your store links on each delivery app, your ten best-selling items, the total number of dishes you want covered and the days your kitchen is slow. I will send back a shot list in priority order and a quote. Send your store links and item list here.
