You Can Get Grubhub Plus With Amazon Prime For Free For A Year. What's The Value?

As a Grubhub user, I got an email this morning alerting me to the fact that I can get Grubhub Plus with Amazon Prime for free for a year, as part of Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days this Tuesday and Wednesday. While I've been a loyal Grubhub user for years of takeout treats, I've avoided their paid "Plus" tier — but seeing as this offer was for the low-low price of "free," I finally took a look into what it has to offer. 

Here's what I found:

First, the basics of the deal. Amazon Prime members can get a year of free Grubhub Plus now through October 11, much like a similar offer during this summer's Prime Day. To get it, you can go to the link in this paragraph and just sign in to both accounts. 

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For me, it was a bit of a runaround to get properly logged into both Grubhub and Amazon at the same time because the offer link from the email didn't open in either of the apps on my phone, but we got there eventually, just with a few extra one-time password codes. Now that it's all settled, I can see in the Grubhub app that I'm a Plus member. 

There's an added bonus this week, too. You can save 25% on orders of over $25, using the code "GRUBPRIME."

Grubhub Plus typically costs $9.99 per month, so a year free saves you about $120.

What do you get with Grubhub Plus?

But of course, you're only saving $120 if you were planning to get a Grubhub Plus membership in the first place, so let's take a look at what a membership gets you.

You can order food for delivery or pickup on Grubhub without a paid account, so Plus is an added expense. It's value-add, it argues, is to ultimately save you money through discounts and perks. 

Grubhub Plus gives you $0 delivery fees — but that's only if, first, the place you order from charges a delivery fee, and, second, the place you order from is part of Grubhub Plus (like finding Amazon items that are Prime-qualified, you have to check for a plus sign in the app when you order). So that's the first point to consider: if you regularly order from a place that charges, say, a $4 delivery fee, Grubhub Plus is obviously worth it to save a few bucks if you order from there at least three times a month. 

Grubhub Plus also gives you "lower service fees," for delivery orders over $12 from Grubhub Plus merchants. However, it's not entirely clear by how much those fees are lowered. 

There's a final perk to membership that's particularly interesting to me, as someone who doesn't order a ton of delivery but does do some regular orders for pickup: Grubhub Plus gives you 5% back on pickup orders. It appears this is a credit you accumulate by making pickup orders at eligible stores that you can then use on future orders, and the 5% is based on the order subtotal. 

Much like the savings on delivery fees, if you don't order every day, this probably isn't going to save you more than a few dollars a month. But I see it basically like a loyalty card at my local coffee shop or nail salon — it's not going to save me enough for a down payment, but the day I get that eleventh coffee for free is always a good day. 

Given that it's a free deal for a year, I'd consider that worth it. I'll try it out for a few months and see how it goes — and you can let me know what you think, too. 

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