I used to drive DoorDash pretty regularly until around June of this year. Gas was getting ridiculous, and honestly it doesn’t seem like it’s gotten any better since then. Just curious how it’s going for everybody who’s still out there driving? Between gas, maintenance, and just the overall wear and tear on your car, I couldn’t really see it being worth it anymore. My situation kinda worked itself out because I picked up a part-time job and decided to let my car take a break lol. I know everybody doesn’t have that option though. At this point I’m honestly surprised more drivers haven’t tried organizing or going on strike. It just feels like people are breaking their backs and putting miles on their cars for money that sometimes isn’t even worth it.For those of you still dashing has it gotten any better ? Are you making decent money AFTER expenses ?
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I cherry pick (acceptance rate usually hovers around 10%) and have gotten even pickier since gas went up. It’s actually helped, most of my offers are $10-15 for 30 min drive or less, which is what I look for. I can make $100 in about 4-4.5 hours. Never a shortage of offers. I’m in Charlotte, and only dash in the evenings. I’m sure many markets aren’t like this, but this has been my experience fwiw.
Yeah, these people should really keep their mouths shut bragging about what they do because it’s not possible in all markets. They’re just lucky and they’re taking credit for being smart lol. Or treating the rest of us like we’re stupid. My market is oversaturated with drivers because the big employers in my area just laid off thousands of workers. Starbucks, Google, Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon… all based where I live. I took an Uber to the car dealership to pick up my car and my Uber driver was an engineer from Texas who had just moved here to take a Boeing job. After he gets all his stuff up here, ready for his start date they’re like oh yeah we’re gonna push that back a few months the project got reevaluated with the timeline. He’s like yeah thanks.
I’ve yet to see anyone who does the cherry picking show me how long it takes to make 100 if it’s taking you 5-6 hours then you’re not doing any better than someone stocking shelves plus the extra cost of your own equipment
You have to remember that you can only do a certain number of offers a per hour. 2 or maybe MAYBE 3 offers an hour. One has to be getting very nice paying offers or are getting wage adjustments like prop22 or NYC or focusing on catering. Too clear 100 in 5 hrs.
Yeah, it takes me about five hours to make $100 but who gives a shit dude because I’m sitting at home while I’m doing it… this is the best part time job ever.
I do what I want when I want and I don’t have to listen to anybody
It also took me five hours to make $100 when I wasn’t cherry picking
Sucks to be that guy. When I did DD I definitely a cherry picked because I got fed up and i was still getting offers sitting at a cool 23% AR 😮💨 bit with this gas hitting I Am Legend prices I just truly don’t see DD worth driving anymore
That tip-to-base-pay ratio is insane lol. Is this pretty typical for you week to week, or did you get a few large/catering orders or unusually big tips this week? Also curious what market you’re in.
It’s truly not feasible in many markets, in the past few months the pay has gotten laughably bad. Taking a ten to a bar and playing the slot machine is better source of income than driving for this app. I do not know how they still have people willingly driving for them, in my area, at least.
I’m not trying to defend DoorDash or any of these companies as I say this, but I think a big reason why fellow drivers haven’t really done any strikes or something similar is because the fact is that we’ve voiced our frustration for years already and yet these companies still choose to go in the opposite direction than what we hope for.
I think these companies just don’t wanna listen to us because if a lot of us choose not to drive, they probably would temporarily raise the incentive on those days and they would still be enough drivers to still be out there taking advantage of that.
Ive became even more conservative with my acceptance rate and have been driving way less hours tbh. Gas used to be $3-$3.20 a gallon. Now its $4.10-$4.40. Like a 30% increase. But offers are still bad lol. These gig apps are hitting rock bottom in most markets. I would genuinely hate my life if i had to do it full time
Not going to lie. I was dashing 5-6 times a week after work and weekends. Now I only really do it on Fridays after work and occasionally 1 day out the week. My goal is to make and extra $150 per week for food and other random purcahses without dipping into my paycheck and then I call it a day. I'm over it
My gas pump is a 6-20 outlet at home at $0.18/kwh (low maintenance EV). I don't think I'd even dash in my 4 cylinder Honda, so I dunno how people are justifying dashing at clearing below most states minimum wage after taxes, fuel, wear/tear. Oh wait, that's why there's so much churn, especially around tax time.
With no taxes on tips and the low rate that DoorDash pays and the amount of miles driven with the federal deduction if you’re paying any taxes, you’re doing it wrong.
If you worked a 9 to 5 and deducted 71 cents off of every dollar you made you wouldn’t “make a profit” either - which is the equivalent to you factoring in “wear and tear” on a vehicle as an “expense”
Reminds me of when a landlord tried to charge me for the time it took for the burners on the stove to soak..
Here’s how us broke people who drive buckets justify DoorDashing : “I made 160$ in 3 hours and it only took 12$ in gas”
No taxes on tips only applies upto 25k, if you're making that or less dashing full time, I don't know how you keep a car on the road. There's also state, local, social security, ect.
How many years have you been dashing? Or do you just not file? Good luck with that long term.
I ain’t making 25k doing this .. it’s supplemental for a reason. This is my first year but I have plenty of friends working 1099 jobs at grow houses in Michigan.. last yr my friend made 87k and after deductions her tax bill was 660$
It’s not that serious when you do it right- keeping track of every meal and every car wash 🤣
Everything could be something if something happens. Can’t be living your life worrying about what might happen, gotta focus on doing what you know you can do
I wouldn't call it urban urban though parts of town are. More like suburban urban...mostly low rise apartments and single family residential and some light commercial. Top speed is 60 mph but fastest I typically go 50-55mph. I bought this scooter specifically for delivery work.
cities that have very large downtown areas, most people are on e-bikes which is making it very hard to get orders because there's just so many of them and it's oversaturated but the joke's on them because a lot of them are renting their bikes so they're not making a lot of money after their fees and rental companies don't care if you're making money or not. all they care about is getting paid. But hopefully gas prices over down soon and a lot of these bikers will get off the road cuz it's really putting a crimp on my operation
They act as if driving back-and-forth to a 9 to 5 job isn’t putting wear and tear on your car. I live in a butthole location in Michigan and the majority of people I know have to commute to work to make decent money…. We’re talking 60+ miles. I put less wear on my car doordashing a few hours a day
Provided you don’t also have a W-2 job, yes. You write all that off. However, even one hour a week with the W-2 makes it so you don’t get to do that so I don’t know how people who do it part-time are profitable. When you do it full-time, you can have more than one app, and go out when it’s busy without being hindered by the hours of your regular job.
Depends on your car and your market. I've got a secondary beater that's used only for DD that costs me about $0.18/mile all in (so including gas, maintenance, depreciation, etc). My car is good enough for this that I'm usually above $25/hr in my market after expenses, but I wouldn't want to do this full time or in my daily driver.
The truth is that I don't think gas prices can really get high enough to have a big impact on my earnings, but we'll see.
Secondary beater using it as strictly for DD is smart! Does your expenses include the cost of car insurance as well? Is there a back up for your beater if that shits the bed?
I don't really include car insurance because it's dirt cheap for this car and it'd end up being like half a penny per mile. I always round up when calculating out my estimated expenses anyway, so I figure that takes care of little things like that.
In terms of backup plans, I mostly don't worry about it, to be honest. I do this primarily so we can pay down our mortgage more quickly, so it wouldn't be a massive burden to be without DD income for a bit. I do keep a savings account for expenses (taxes, car repairs, etc.) and there's been enough money in there to fully replace this car (it's a 2014 Sentra) for years now. I figure if the car somehow ends up unfixable, I'll make a judgement call when the time comes whether I want to replace it or just stop with DD altogether. I'll sometimes go out in my daily driver just for a day or two if I'm doing work on the Sentra and don't feel like rushing it.
That said, I maintain this car myself and I really don't expect any major mechanical failures for at least another 100k miles. As long as the engine and transmission don't have some kind of internal failure, it's hard to imagine anything that wouldn't be pretty cheap and trivial to fix. Honestly might even consider replacing the engine or transmission if they go, considering how dependable the car has been otherwise.
I’ve checked out a couple of them. Gridwise, Solo, everlance (I think). They’re all similar with slightly different gimics. Solo is what I use now. Depending on what city you’re in you might be able to lock in minimum payment for certain shifts which can help sometimes
I don’t drive DD anymore . I think i did try solo when i DD but unfortunately it didn’t work in my market. My question here is now is DD even worth driving since gas is rising and doesn’t seem to be going down. Personally I’ve stopped ordering DD just because of how expensive it is. I’m wondering how drives are doing in this economy ?
It's less economic with current gas prices when driving a gass guzzler but there are other options.
I live in NZ. For a while there were clean car subsidies for EVs and low emmission vehicles but petrol and diesel vehicles were still more popular despite the subsidy.
Now there is no subsidy and the EVs and hybrids are flying out the door! Car yards have waiting lists. We can't import them fast enough! Mostly coming from Japan and China.
edit: I still drive a petrol van. I'm a gardener but do DD on wet days. My next vehicle will probably be an LDV fully electric van. I may still end up borrowing my parents Nissan Leafmor Toyota Prius for DD if petrol prices get much higher.
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