The Basics

No Tip? No Trip – How much should you tip?

Thinking of not tipping? Did you know UberEats, DoorDash now show customers how much we make upfront which includes tip?

This article was inspired by John Matarese who recently did a story about drivers not accepting trips because of tips. He was right on. For the small business owners out there, DoorDash shows us if an order is running late and then counts it against our stats, not to mention that customers will rate us lower. If that order is already late, or at risk of being late, no sane driver will risk being deactivated. UberEats does not show us if an order is running late, and Grubhub? I really can’t speak for them as I have not tried them yet. This is really not a driver problem as it is a DoorDash/UberEats problem and here is why:

The sad reality is, without tips our payouts can be as low as $2.44 and this is good for 3 miles from the restaurant to the customer. After that, we get about 50 cents a mile. While it is not your fault as a customer, please keep in mind that we are often waiting 10-30 minutes for an order, we have to drive to that restaurant, then to your home. A single order can take up to an hour when you factor in waiting time between orders, driving, waiting at the restaurant to finish packing the food, etc.

So how much should you tip?

At the min. $5. This will ensure that if your home is less than 3 miles away, we are getting min. wage.

If you live out in the suburbs, chances are we are going to be traveling more than 3 miles. As a general rule of thumb, I have always looked for $1/mile to ensure that customer is tipping. Because we roughly get 50 cents from UberEats a $5 tip will cover a trip that is 10 miles away and ensure that driver sees $1 mile when the order comes through. DoorDash does not really pay a set amount, but their payouts are roughly equal to UberEats overall.

At the end of the day, please keep in mind that the reason you are likely ordering food is that you do not want to go out in public and risk exposure to COVID-19. Do you really think we want to expose ourselves for $2-$5?

Yes, we can get new jobs but for many drivers, who have lost jobs because of the pandemic, this is not a choice but a chance to put food on the table.

If $5 hurts you, please go pick up the food yourself.

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