DoorDash reported second-quarter results after Wednesday’s close. Revenue of $4.45 billion, up 35.6% year over year, ahead of the roughly $4.35 billion analysts modeled. Total orders of 970 million, up 27%. Marketplace gross order value of $33.1 billion, up 36%. Adjusted EBITDA of $914 million against about $842 million expected — an 8.5% beat. GAAP earnings of $0.46 a share came in about 2.4% light. The stock barely moved: up 0.35% after hours, to $207.99.
In the same release, DoorDash printed the numbers with the acquisition stripped out. Marketplace GOV grew 23% excluding Deliveroo, not 36%. Orders grew 17%, not 27%. Thirteen points of value growth and ten points of order growth are London, not Iowa.
That is not a scandal — DoorDash disclosed it plainly, in the release, unprompted. It is a clock. DoorDash closed the $3.7 billion Deliveroo deal on October 2, 2025. It owned Deliveroo for none of Q3 2025 and all of Q3 2026, so the headline gets the full boost one more time. In the fourth quarter, the comparison includes Deliveroo on both sides and the boost disappears.
Our take: Nothing has to go wrong for DoorDash’s reported growth rate to fall roughly ten points in Q4. It is arithmetic, not deterioration — but arithmetic prints as deceleration on a chart, and stocks get sold off charts. The underlying business compounding orders 17% at 970 million orders a quarter is a good business; the question is whether investors have been paying for 17% or for 27%. The market is answering slowly: shares are down about 11% year to date against an S&P up 13%. Anyone underwriting DoorDash on the headline number should re-underwrite it on the ex-Deliveroo one now, while there’s still a quarter of cover left.
Two profit numbers, $714 million apart
Adjusted EBITDA was $914 million. GAAP net income attributable to common stockholders was $200 million. The gap is everything adjusted EBITDA leaves out — stock compensation, depreciation and amortization including the intangibles DoorDash booked buying Deliveroo, plus interest and taxes. Neither figure is fake. They answer different questions, and this quarter they answer them very differently.
The number that dodges the argument entirely is cash. Operating cash flow was $944 million and free cash flow $742 million, against $504 million and $355 million in the same quarter last year. Free cash flow more than doubled. For a delivery platform at scale, that is the line that decides whether the model works, and it is the line that improved most.
The guide says profit, not volume
DoorDash guided third-quarter Marketplace GOV to $33–34 billion. Q2 came in at $33.1 billion, so the $33.5 billion midpoint is barely a point above the quarter just reported. Adjusted EBITDA is guided to $950 million–$1.1 billion, a $1.03 billion midpoint against roughly $978 million on the Street — comfortably ahead.
Read those two together: management is guiding volume roughly flat sequentially and profit above consensus, in a year it has already told investors is an investment year. That is a company choosing margin over the top line right at the moment the top line loses its acquisition tailwind.
What to watch
- Q4, reported vs. organic. Once the Deliveroo lap clears on October 2, the two growth rates converge. Low-20s GOV growth would mean the organic trend held.
- The EBITDA-to-GAAP gap. Deliveroo intangible amortization is a finite schedule. If the $714 million spread doesn’t start narrowing, the cause is stock comp, not the deal.
- Free cash flow conversion. $742 million on $914 million of adjusted EBITDA is 81%. Investment-year spending should press on that.
- Whether the $1.03 billion EBITDA midpoint holds if orders slow. Guiding profit high is easy in August.