5 Things You Didn’t Know About DoorDash, skipthedishes and UberEats Gig Economy Food Delivery Service Driver Pay

There’s tons of chatter online, particularly on social media, about food delivery drivers from Doordash, Skipthedishes, and Uber Eats. Much of it is often slamming or shaming drivers because of slow deliveries, missing food, delivery to the wrong address, etc…  but how about the driver and their point of view?

Food delivery driver pay varies depending on the city they are working and the time of day. Some things you may not realize about the drivers and their pay may enlighten and even surprise you a little bit.

Hourly Pay is Throttled Back!

Did you know that most of the services cap what a driver can earn in a typical hour. For example, during normal times the typical SkiptheDishes Driver earnings are capped at about $20 per hour. Often though, the drivers will not earn more than $15 an hour. This feature is not recorded but is suspected by many drivers.

Base Rate Pay per Delivery

Drivers that maintain a good rating and acceptance rate will earn a minimum base rate of $7 – $7.50 per delivery on SkiptheDishes. What this means is that if the customer pays just $4 for the delivery fee and leaves no tip, the service will top up the payment so the driver will receive their minimum of $7 – $7.50 for the delivery. For some services, the driver base pay rate is dropped when their acceptance rate drops below a certain level (80% of past 10 deliveries for Skipthedishes as an example). Note, recently, Doordash dropped the base pay rate to $4 from $7 in some markets!

Time Out!

Delivery services will likely never admit to it but often, if a driver declines to accept a delivery (perhaps its too far for wat too little pay) they will be put in “time out” and then wind up waiting 10-15 minutes or more before they receive a delivery order. We’ve seen many orders pushed to drivers where they can earn $4 for a delivery! Note, the average delivery takes 20-30 minutes to complete from start to finish.

Short Shifts

Services roll out available shifts to drivers but they fill up very quickly. Most of the available “shifts” are usually just 3 or 4 hours. IT seems to be a general rule that the driver will have to wait for at least 15, 20 minutes or longer before getting their first delivery. For Skipthedishes drivers, they are generally nudged to end their shift when they are about 20-30 minutes from shift end and even when they stay available for the full duration the orders almost completely stop in the final 20 minutes.

Working Multiple Apps

Drivers that depend on food delivery as a main or “full time” gig generally need to work at least 2 apps/services. This has become very common for the busy driver needing to earn a living wage. Customers frequently rant about waiting a little longer for food and complain about drivers, however, in order to get a decent amount of work and earn in excess of $20 per hour they run 2 services (like Doordash andUberEats). This often results in the driver doing multiple deliveries at the same time. Yes, this may slow down delivery time slightly, however, this is the only way they say they can maximize their time and income.

Information for this article was gathered by interviewing several drivers from SkiptheDishes, UberEats, and Doordash.

DID you know, many drivers will drive 50-80 miles in a typical 3-hour shift. For many full-time drivers, they go out of pocket for $20 or more per day for gas. Insurance and maintenance is an additional expense they absorb as well as fees for parking, parking fines, insulated bags, masks, hand sanitizer. Drivers often are forced to wait 5-20 minutes at restaurants for food to be prepared – this is time lost and not paid for. 

Note: Coincidentally, on the day this article was pushed out Doordash released their IPO and ended the day of trading valued at more than $60 Billion! Read more