I started Door Dash in April 2024. It took me several months to get comfortable doing a lot of deliveries which may not be everyone's experience.
What I've learned over a year is that you CAN make money but it will add to aging your car. I added 20k miles last year, not all from DoorDash but it does add up. That is something to consider. I have done both per offer and by time.
Doordash pays rather poorly in my opinion. For shorter deliveries it'll be 2-4 dollars and most people tip 0-2 dollars per order. I think they either forget or think they didnt order much so who cares but it really adds up for us. Doordash want us to be reliant on tips so we decline junk offers (under 4 usually) which drops the AR so we get less offers... it's not great. IMO ideally they would pay 10 dollars per order. If you want good people to be delivering that is a great base pay and then whatever tip we get is a nice bonus but people rarely tip more than 2 dollars unless it's a huge order or a long drive and even then it can be 0. I've delivered 6-8 pizzas for 0 tip. This is why the public needs to know how little we get. DD wants us to go during peak times like dinner and when it's dark (which I don't do) and also they don't care if there is a blizzard. They were offering an extra 4 dollars an hour when we had this very icy snow storm (I live in a very hilly town so no way was I going to do that and I was shocked how busy DD said it was on the app! I met another Dasher who went out that day making 200 dollars. Really says something about our society when they want others to risk their lives getting food which they can't or don't want to)
Per Offer is an option where you can be more picky about which offers you take. The plus is that you can decline as many as you want until you get a high paying offer. The downside of this is that the Acceptance Rate will affect when you can go out and I believe how many offers you get. Doordash has levels with more perks (so they say) but that is only contingent on what your AR% is which I feel is super lame especially if Im sort of a veteran now and feel I've proven myself to not be scamming the system.
By Time pays from when you accept an order to when it is completed. This option is better for long wait times with long drives. If it's a quick pick up and a 5 minute drive I might only make 5 dollars which I might also on per offer. Which is very average pay on DD in my experience. This might be a better option if you have to regularly go through long periods of traffic.
By Time will let you decline one offer per session. I will chose this if I don't mind driving 10-20 miles per offer. The offer will not tell you the amount so you are blind especially to if there is ANY tip. That is the downside. The upside is that the pay is typically 12-15 per hour that you've been delivering so if Im going all day and get order after order I can make around 20 an hour especially if my AR is high and I am Platinum status. I started doing By Time because one order at this jamaican restaurant was almost 2 hours from Accept to order by the time I got back to my town because the customer lived 20 minutes away. all I got was 11 dollars for the entire deal when if I had done By Time I might have gotten double that or more. Not only was the store out of Ox Tail but I could not get a hold of the customer. 3x I called and I messaged. The store worker called on their phone with no answer so we were waiting for a reply for half an hour and then it was waiting for the replacement food to cook. It was really ridiculous.
There are some businesses and streets that I do not want to go to because I know they aren't tipping or I dont want to go to a hospital and have to find my way to a specific room (customers do this but apparently if we dont feel comfortable we can leave it outside?? I try to make sure its with the customer or whoever is there knows who its for) so I decline those. Other people might not care. Also, Doordash does not give the Dasher any upportunity to rate the customer which is disappointing. They can rate us however they want.
I learned that I have to take a picture and send it in the customer message when I deliver. I click ARRIVED AT STORE, Go to Messages and tell the customer I am waiting for their order so they have some sort of communication started. If the order is not ready when I am there and I am waiting several minutes I let them know. Also, when I get there I let DoorDash know why I am waiting. There is a link at the bottom of the screen with options like Order was not started or Line is long. Doordash will fuss if you take an extra long time even if you are letting customer know. I had one complain I took too long when I had let them know the restaurant had to cook their chicken when I got there so it was a 15-30 minute wait for this order. I had a Contract Violation from that but wrote an appeal stating I had let the customer know as it was happening and I delivered it as quickly as I could.
If you're going to be serious about this I would suggest having the following in your car:
1. Drink Caddy. Some businesses do not put multiple drink orders or dessert orders in holders which should be automatic considering they usually have food for us to carry as well. I have had Sonic drinks leak. They don't tape the lids like other restaurants do and they also fill them as much as possible. That was fun.
2. Insulation carrying box. I found one at Schnucks. I can also put drinks in it since it has a flat surface and it won't spill. The bag I got from Doordash is fine but I rarely use it unless I have another order I want to keep hot. Also the zipper broke :(
3. Pizza bag. I found an XL one that fits 5-6 pizzas, its very room and definitely keeps the food hot and steamy. This is needed for any order unless you don't care if the food cools. Doordash sells a bag but it's not as roomy.
I would recommend DoorDash for supplemental income. Yes you can make enough to pay bills but there is also gas. I was spending 60 dollars a week on gas. I have other jobs and personal travel but the doordash delivery really racks up the mileage especially if you drive 10-20 minutes.
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