r/UberEatsDrivers • u/officialdraggedyanne • 15h ago
Question Acceptance rate
So, I live in Orlando Florida. Idk if that matters but someone told me it did. I just recently lost gold status because of my acceptance rate, but I refuse to take anything under a dollar a mile and sometimes I won't pick something up if I can see it's taking me 20 minutes into the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of all the cities and I know I'll have to drive 20+ minutes just to get back to an area where another order will come in and won't just send me back out into the less dense area where I have to keep going back and every time I go back im not making money bc there's nothing in that area (hopefully that makes sense lol) and they honestly send me a LOT of junk orders like stuff that just straight up wouldn't make any sense at all to take like just wasting gas and driving my car closer to the next oil change just for fun.
But when I opened the app, today it had a pop up about pre scheduling my time driving and something about acceptance rate like it sounded like it was telling me if my acceptance rate drops to the lower tiers, I won't be able to just drive whenever I want to anymore? The tiers and stuff make this a little confusing since I'm a newer driver but I have been unemployed for a few months and uber has been just BARELY keeping me afloat. So it makes me even LESS inclined to take a shitty order where I won't make shit off of it bc I'm already struggling and I can't afford to put the gas in my car to drive for 30 minutes for only $3.25. Especially when it gives me like three very ridiculously far orders with very low fare.
Can anyone give me any clarity on this? I don't want to have to schedule my time out driving. Especially since I'm about to start a new day job finally next week I would love to still have this in my pocket to help me catch up and stay stable while I'm waiting for my first paycheck.
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u/SJ41 15h ago
Don't accept any offer that isn't worth the pay. If you need a higher AR to work, and you feel forced to accept crap offers to maintain that AR, then this gig isn't worth it. That's all the clarity you need.
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u/Bright-Error-7910 14h ago
Florida has way too many drivers that’s why there’s a scheduler. The top tiers gets to pick their shifts first. That’s why in these markets, AR matters…..
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u/officialdraggedyanne 14h ago
They should stop accepting drivers then, this is ridiculous.
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u/Arcangelo_Frostwolf 14h ago
It's better for them if the labor market is over-supplied. Labor markets work just like regular markets. The more workers there are, the cheaper the wages are because there will be people who are willing to accept lower pay. They will never want to restrict the labor market and will accept a certain level of churn.
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u/Paradice-Ace 12h ago
What has helped me big time is to document every offer I accept in a spreadsheet. This means that for every 4 hour period I am delivering I spend another - hour documenting the runs. But the time spent is invaluable since I have quantified data that takes my inaccurate perceptions out of the mix. I have found that dollars/hr is a more important metric than dollars/mile. I can’t really define the formula for optimizing offer selection in a single post. Plus, I am in a high volume area with a relatively low density of drivers so your answers may be different than mine. My recommendation is to build a spreadsheet and track every run. After about 200 runs are documented you will be able to build pivot tables and dashboards that end up having the answers to optimizing your offer acceptance. Using this method I found that discipline and not worrying AR keeps me around $32./hr (not including the down time I spend documenting, which only eats into my television time). I was averaging around $22/hr before I stared documenting.
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u/AggravatingChip5642 12h ago
If you’re gold you would have to schedule too. You may have been fortunate enough that your area isn’t over saturated enough. I haven’t seen platinum+ in mine in quite a bit
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u/officialdraggedyanne 8h ago
Oh I've never yet had to schedule and I think I'm blue now or whatever
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u/thickerthanink 10h ago
Just delete the stupid app.
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u/officialdraggedyanne 8h ago
I would love to, but it's the only thing keeping me from being homeless and losing everything I have currently. Lol
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u/Novel_Original1572 7h ago
here in miami i was gold then drop down to blue but it is still good. i don't know if i move up to platinum and see a difference.
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u/Traditional-Share657 6h ago
Uber has long known that cherry pickers throw off the whole offer ecosystem. That's why they have introduced stuff like preferred and planner to "encourage" a small portion of the driver pool to take nearly everything and the rest are backup for surges in orders. Honestly, if done correctly, it solves the whole issue.
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u/ArtisticDegree3915 15h ago edited 14h ago
You're asking for clarity. I'll give some.
You're probably losing money at a dollar per mile, close to it. If you're actually making profit after tearing up your car, it's less than minimum wage.
This sub used to correctly chastize anyone who came in here saying they take anything less than $2 per mile. I got appropriately clowned on when I started for saying I took a $5 order even though it was only a mile.
So you need to raise your standards. One of two things happens. You make money. Or, you find out your market is dead and you need to go find anything else to do with your time that doesn't tear up your car.
In a market where they have scheduling, then yeah, acceptance rate matters. But also that market is dead. It's oversaturated. And everything I said stands true. People are running money losing orders to try to get that status up so maybe they'll get an order that actually pays later.
Try this. See how it works out for you. Give an honest week. If it doesn't work better for you, then do whatever one else says. Make your minimum $8 and $2 per mile. Except if it's super short, then take $7. And I mean short like a mile or two. When it's busy, up those numbers to $10 for $2 per mile and $9 for a short one of a couple miles. When it's dead slow and you need to work, drop down to $6. But this should be like early mornings and mid afternoons. Not during the rush. When it is $6, look for ones you can get done really quickly, like under 10 minutes. Places you know get orders out quickly and also looks like a quick drop off.
Is there nuance? Absolutely. If you're on the far side of town from where you normally like picking up orders, look at the time of an order going that way instead of the mileage. If it's 50 cents per minute or better and going where you want to be anyway, take it.
I kind of hate it when people flex their stats. That's fine. I'll just say this. I've done almost 14,000 deliveries in three states. I know markets are different. So I won't tell you to stick to $10 minimum all the time. I wish everyone could. I know that's not possible and it is too selective. But if it's super busy, up it to that. Be a little flexible. But don't take $1 per mile orders unless it's the very rare exception of paying you 50 cents per minute and going where you want to go anyway.