College students tend to be short on three things: time, money, and sleep. This creates a dilemma because, usually, the services that save you time also cost you money.

A great example is food delivery services, such as GrubHub, Ubereats, Caviar, Doordash, etc.

These companies allow you to keep studying, napping, cheering for the school basketball team, or hanging out with friends, while someone else goes to the pizza place and gets your food for you.

Food delivery apps are practically perfect for college students — except for the part where they’re not free.

If the cost of having food delivered has been forcing you to pick it up yourself, this post will help. You’ll learn four surprising strategies you can use to get a great deal on food delivery, so you can take advantage of these time-saving services more often.

1. Get a delivery subscription.

If you get food delivered frequently, you might be able save money with a subscription plan.

An example is Postmates Unlimited, a $9.99 monthly subscription that gets you “free delivery on orders from all merchants on the Postmates platform when the cart size is over $20.”

Considering the Postmates’ delivery fee is generally “a flat rate of $5.99,” the subscription could potentially to save you money after just two orders.

Postmates isn’t the only food delivery company to offer a subscription plan. Deliveroo Plus is a similar service, offered by the British food deliverer.

2. Shop around.

You might be surprised to learn some restaurants partner with multiple food delivery services, to attract orders from diners who are loyal to a specific platform. This can be used to your advantage because, in some instances, the different services will be charging different prices.

One of the easiest ways to find out which couriers your restaurant of choice is working with is to simply Google the name of the restaurant and look at the description.

In the case of Bareburger, a popular restaurant in Santa Monica, you’ll notice several different delivery options. And here’s what happens when you price check the different platforms.

In my experiment, for a Buttermilk Buffalo Sandwich with a side of rings and fries, PostMates was charging $23.13 for the food plus delivery.

For the same meal, delivered, GrubHub wanted only $21.28.

And, even better, Caviar offered the same meal plus delivery for only $20.80.

In this example, you could save $2.33 (over 10%), simply by double checking the prices on these different food delivery apps.

But you shouldn’t focus solely on the standard price. Each of these services might also be offering various discounts and promo codes. That could change which option is the cheapest, and it’s a nice segue into the next strategy.

3. Check for coupons and promo codes.

In the extremely competitive world of food delivery, companies routinely offer promotions and discounts to attract and retain customers. And that’s great news for hungry people who like to save money.

Below you’ll see an example of a Caviar promo code knocking $5 off the cost of our Bareburger meal.

For this particular promo code, there was a minimum order price of $30, so I added a family-sized salad.

But new discounts and coupons are added regularly, and you never know what you might find. The right promo code can sometimes save you 20% on your order or get you free delivery.

When it comes to finding up-to-date coupons and promo codes, you can usually do so through Google or on blogs such as Food Delivery Guru. Or, to make finding the best deal easier, you might check out Honey. This browser extension will “automatically appear” at checkout with any coupons it has found.

Then, it will test the promo codes, looking for the best available deal, stacking coupons when possible.

4. Don’t double tip.

Delivery drivers work hard, and they certainly deserved to be paid for what they do.

But different food delivery services have different driver compensation structures, and with some, tipping is optional — or already included.

Amazon Restaurants, Postmates, DoorDash, Caviar and UberEats all make a tip for delivery optional.

With other services, such as Seamless and Grubhub, a tip is often automatically added to your bill when you checkout. (In the example below, the automatic tip was 20%.) So if you tip your driver at the door, you’re actually double tipping.

If you don’t want to tip the automatic 20%, or if you’d rather wait and tip in cash based on the quality of the service, you can remove or modify the tip at checkout.

You CAN save time and get a great deal.

Food delivery services such as GrubHub, DoorDash, and UberEats are a classic example of the money versus time dilemma. They offer you a chance to reclaim the time you’d spend driving to and from a restaurant — for a price.

While some people still frown at the idea of spending extra money for food delivery, millions of diners have taken the plunge. And research says they might be smart to do so. A 2016 study found that people who valued their time more than their money tended to be happier on average.

But why settle for one or the other when you can save time and get a great deal? Use the four strategies you’ve learned in this post to save money on food delivery, so you can take advantage of these time-saving services more often.