All offers / Everyday services / DoorDash
DoorDash decides whether your referral offer is real at the checkout screen.
So the number on your screen is yours alone. We take that question apart on its own page, how much is the DoorDash referral. The mechanics, though, are written down, in a second document covering promotional offers and credits. Credit expires six months from the date of issue. It is "applied toward order subtotals (excluding gratuity and alcohol purchases)", meaning the food price before taxes, fees and tip, and never the tip itself. And it will not stack: "Credits may not be applied with any other Offer."
What pays what
| You, as a genuinely new user, via a link sent to you directly | The offer stated in the link |
|---|---|
| Any prior account under your name, email, phone or card | Disqualified |
| A link that was posted publicly | Credit revoked |
| Tips and alcohol | Credit does not apply |
| Credit left unspent for six months | Expired |
| An order you already placed | No retroactive use |
There is a minimum, but no published figure. The terms say a qualifying referral "typically includes placing an order on the DoorDash platform with a certain minimum subtotal (excluding taxes and fees)" and stop there. The one hard number on any DoorDash terms page is a minimum subtotal attached to an unrelated free-delivery offer for new users, and it has nothing to do with the referral.
Do this, in this order
- Audit your own history before anyone builds a cart. Customers are disqualified if DoorDash "has a record of their name, email, phone number, or credit card having being used for a prior DoorDash order or being linked to an existing active or inactive DoorDash account". Inactive counts: a university-era account, a replaced card still on file, or a phone number you kept is enough.
- Get the link sent to you privately, not posted anywhere public. The terms require it to arrive "through email, text, or the Share Your Link option", and separately revoke the credit if it was instead "posted the Referral Link on a publicly accessible website such as, but not limited to, Google, Craigslist, Twitter, and RetailMeNot".
- Expect the verdict at the final screen. DoorDash writes that "Final eligibility for the New User's offer will be determined at checkout." Check that the discount is applied before you place the order. If it never appeared, we work through the documented causes in DoorDash referral credit not received.
- Do not plan the credit around a tip. Credit applies to subtotals only and explicitly excludes gratuity and alcohol. Promo codes are stricter still: they "cannot be applied towards taxes or fees other than delivery fees", which leaves service fees, small-order fees and surge fees on your bill.
- Use it inside six months, and do not try to stack it. Credit cannot be combined with another offer, applied retroactively to a past order, or transferred, traded or sold. Where a promo code carries no stated expiry, DoorDash defaults it to 30 days from when it was sent or last displayed. Both clocks are set out in how long DoorDash credit lasts.
- If you refer people yourself, know the ceiling. The live terms cap you at 10 qualified referrals in the US or Canada and 5 in Australia or New Zealand, not the 25 you will find floating around in search snippets for Australia and New Zealand. You and the friend you refer must be in the same country at registration, DoorDash can revoke credit if any condition turns out to be unmet, and it can remove you from the program on suspicion of fraud.
Is it worth your time?
For a household that has genuinely never ordered from DoorDash, this is one of the gentler programs on the site: the credit runs six months, it lands in the account instead of arriving as a code you must remember, and the qualifying act is an order you were placing anyway. The risk is all at the front. The eligibility test is a fingerprint check across name, email, phone and card, it reaches into accounts you forgot you opened, and it is settled at checkout, which is exactly the moment when abandoning the order feels most expensive. Decide before the cart, and remember that the credit will not touch the tip.
