How much does Doordash pay Drivers?

This article was written in January of 2018. Doordash has since rolled out a new dasher pay model that began in September of 2019. If you want to learn about the current Doordash pay structure, please do so here. If you would like to read on for curiosity reasons and learn a little bit about the controversy that surrounded the old Doordash pay model please do so, but please remember that the pay model talked about here was prior to September of 2019.

Also, so there is no confusion, I noticed that in this article I referenced "The old pay model" which was the pay model even before what we now know as the old pay model. To simplify, we currently have our  pay model that began in September of 2019. There was the vey controversial pay model that ran from the middle of 2017 until September of 2019 and then there was the pay model that ran prior to the middle of 2017.

If you read around the Internet about how much a Doordash driver earns, you will find lots of different answers. There is no set pay for a Doordash driver. Since you are not an employee of Doordash, you do not earn an hourly wage. Instead, a Doordash driver will earn a set amount of money for each delivery that they complete.

In this article, we are not going to talk about how much Doordash drivers earn. Instead, we are going to talk about the calculation method that is used to determine the pay of each delivery. Specifically, we are going to talk about how much Doordash themselves actually pay the drivers. We will talk about base pay from Doordash, payboost, customer tips and anything else that determines the amount a driver will earn from a delivery.

The old Doordash pay model

Things have changed a lot ever since Doordash implemented their new pay model during the middle of 2017. In my market, drivers used to get paid $5 per delivery and 100 percent of the customer tips. In other markets, the pay was a bit different. Some places paid drivers $4 plus 100 percent of the customer tips. Other places paid $6 plus 100 percent of the customer tips. It varied by location, but drivers were always guaranteed a certain amount per delivery plus the entire customer tip.

The pay that Doordash used to offer was much better than what they pay now. It was common to receive calls that paid $8, $9, $10 and even more. With the old pay model, I would never take a call if it was under $7. That was not a problem back then. These days, if I waited around for those calls, I would not be delivering many orders, and I would spend a lot of time sitting around.

The reason that the pay was so much more back then was because the pay model was very simple. You got paid the set amount that your market offered, and you would receive the full tip amount from the customer. If a customer left you a $4 tip, you would receive the $5 (guaranteed delivery fee) and the whole $4 tip. This order would pay $9. There was nothing complicated about it.

How much does Doordash pay now with the new pay model?

The normal pay for most deliveries is $5, $6 or $7. Once in a while, you will still find the $8 and $9 orders, but I will tell you that it is not as common as before. About 70 percent of my calls are for orders that are $7 or under. Under the old pay model, it was an entirely different story. Around 80 percent of calls were over $7. Out of that, 60 percent of calls were over $8.

When Doordash was experimenting with their new pay model in various markets, they claimed that an overwhelming amount of dashers preferred their new pay model and that dashers would make more money. Apparently, they had surveys done, but I have no idea when that survey took place because I never received any survey. If any other dashers out there took part of this survey, please share because something tells me that all of this was just made up.

 

With the new pay model, Doordash states on their website that drivers will now earn a base pay plus 100 percent of the customer tips. The minimum base pay that Doordash will pay is $1 per delivery. Yes, you read that right - $1. As you read on, you will understand why they did this. It was a strategic move on the company's part. They also let us know that we will see the guaranteed pay for an order upfront. This means that before you accept an order, you will see the minimum amount that you will earn on your screen. When the new pay model came out, everything sounded good, and it did not seem like there was really anything to think about, question or be leery of.
 

With the new pay model, Doordash stated that a dasher will now get paid based on their effort of the order. They basically made it sound like it was not fair for a dasher to complete a complex order for $10 while another dasher that completed a less complicated order (a very easy order) was also paid $10. They further explained that the new effort based pay would use an algorithm that set the pay based on distance traveled, if a dasher had to place the order themselves, wait time and a ton of other factors. Unfortunately, for Doordash drivers, none of this seems to be true, and dashers are earning less money than they previously did with the old pay model.

Doordash explained that they have what they call "Pay Boost." Unfortunately, most dashers do not understand exactly what pay boost is. When you first hear it, it sounds pretty good like Doordash is going to help you earn more money. In reality, all it really means is that Doordash will be forced to pay you in order to reach whatever you were guaranteed for a particular order. I use the word "force" because they have to. In reality, Doordash would rather have a customer leave a large tip so they don't have to pay any of that boost pay. Still confused? Read on.

How does the Doordash pay model work

Many dashers do not understand the way they get paid for their deliveries. I do not blame them though as it can be quite confusing. To me it seems like what is written on the Doordash website explaining how pay works is purposely written to confuse people. That is just my opinion though. Doordash states that drivers will receive 100 percent of the customer's tips. Is that true though? After reading the rest of this article, it will be up to you to decide if that is true or not.

Scenario 1

I will try to simplify this as best as I could. Let's say a customer named "Larry" places an order for $10 of food from Taco Bell. Larry pays for his food on the app. He also pays the delivery fee and whatever other fees he has to pay. During checkout, Larry can leave the dasher a tip if he chooses to, but he decides not to leave any tip. The Doordash driver get the ping to deliver Larry's food for $6 and accepts it. He then delivers the food and earns the guaranteed pay of $6 for his delivery.

As we already know, in this scenario, the customer did not tip. Doordash will have to pay the $1 base pay for the delivery, but that is not all. They will also have to give the driver a boost pay for this delivery. Why? Because Larry did not leave a tip. It'll be safe to say that Doordash hates orders like this. Since the Doordash driver was guaranteed $6 for this delivery, he will also get a $5 boost pay from Doordash to make his total $6 for the delivery which was his guaranteed pay.

Scenario 2

Now, let's use the same order but change Larry's tipping practices. Again, Larry orders $10 of food from Taco Bell. During checkout, Larry decides to leave the Doordash driver a $4 tip. The driver receives the ping and is guaranteed $6 for this delivery. After delivering the food, the driver will see that he has earned $6. What! How in the heck did Larry earn only $6? The customer tipped $4! Shouldn't the driver's earnings be more? You would think so, but that is not the way Doordash works.

 

With this order, Doordash gets to save themselves some money. Why? Since Larry tipped $4 for this order, that money will go toward the driver's guaranteed $6. Doordash will then have to pay the $1 base pay. That is $5 so far, but the driver was guaranteed $6. To get there, Doordash will put in $1 of boost pay. There you have it. Even though Larry tipped $4, the driver will still earn the same amount as if Larry did not tip. Whether this is right or wrong, this is the way it works.

Now, did the Doordash driver receive 100 percent of the customer's tip? Doordash will say that he did. Remember, they have a minimum payout of $1 per delivery. In other words, the base pay that they are required to pay you is $1. Doordash lets this fact be known up front. No argument there. Doordash will also say that the $4 that the customer tipped is all going to the driver. Hence, the driver is receiving 100 percent of the customer's tip. In actuality, there is no lie there. They will also feel that they are generous with their pay, and that is why they offered the driver boost pay. They gave boost pay on this order so that the driver will reach the minimum amount that he was guaranteed. The boost pay is used here exactly how it was meant to be used.

With the new Doordash pay model, most Dashers that understand the way it works would agree that Doordash is stealing their tips.

From a Doordash driver perspective, this may seem like a rip-off. Since the customer tipped, Doordash will minimize the amount of money that they will pay? A doordash driver can easily look at this scenario and say that Doordash has stolen their tip. Yes, it may not seem fair, but this is exactly the way it works. Do I personally agree with the way they run their business? No, I do not. I honestly believe that Doordash set up this new pay model for their own financial benefit, and in the process, the drivers got screwed over. That is fine, and Doordash can run their business any way they want. I am not the owner of Doordash, and if it is legal the way they are dong things, there is nothing we can do about it. Is it legal? I don't  know. I'm not a lawyer. The sad part of all of this is that too many drivers do not understand the way the new pay model works, and I believe that a twist of words was used purposely by Doordash to make the explanation of pay confusing. Deceitful? You decide. My whole point of this post is not to bash Doordash or criticize them. I mean, hey, they have created a lot of jobs in this industry in an up and coming market. My whole point here is to help others understand the way the pay system works with Doordash.

Note: With the scenerio 2 example, under the old pay model, the Doordash driver would have earned $9 in my market. He would have earned $5 for his delivery and 100 percent of the $4 tip. Instead, with the new pay model, he only earned $6. This is a $3 difference. If a dasher does 20 dashes during a day, this is a lot less money for the driver and lots more profits for Doordash. 

Note 2: Because of the way tips are handled now, this is the reason that when a Doordash driver looks at his earnings he will see a very large tip amount. Sometimes, this tip amount will be almost as much as his regular earnings. Yet, while making deliveries, it will seem as if he never gets tips from the customers.

Scenario 3

Let's get back to Larry. Again, he is placing a $10 order from Taco Bell. During checkout, Larry felt very generous and left the driver a $8 tip. The driver is guaranteed $6 and accepts the order. After making the delivery and sliding that the delivery was made, the Doordash driver will see a picture on his screen of a dollar bill, and it will say $3 over guaranteed. The driver will earn $9 for this order even though he was guaranteed $6. The driver thinks, nice, earned a tip here. The unfortunate thing here is that the driver will think that the customer only tipped him $3 when in reality, Larry really tipped the driver $8.

 

The way Doordash handles an order like this is as follows. Since the customer left a $8 tip, there is enough money to cover the $6 that was guaranteed to the driver. With that being said, Doordash will not have to pay any boost pay for this order. They will however still have to pay the $1 base pay. So we have the customer tip of $8 plus the $1 base pay from Doordash to make the total payment of this order $9.

There you have it again. The amount that Doordash themselves pay for the delivery is dependent on how much the customer tips. Many drivers will think this is unfair. I mean, shouldn't they get the $6 that was guaranteed for the order plus the $8 tip. Shouldn't the driver receive a total payment of $14 for this order? With the old pay model, in my market, the driver would have received $5 base pay plus the $8 tip to make the payment $13.

When a customer tips good, a Doordash driver will see a similar looking image on their screen after making the delivery.

For anybody that did not understand how their pay is calculated with Doordash, I hope that I have helped. Is it right? Is it wrong? Well, as a Doordash driver, I do not like it at all, and I'm sure almost all other dashers are against it, or would be against it if they understood. I sure wish Doordash would send a real survey to see what Dashers really think about this new pay model. I'm sure the true results would not surprise anybody. If you look online, it is very rare to find any dashers that are in support of this new pay model. With all that has been said here, is it worth driving for Doordash? That is for you to decide. Doordash does provide an income opportunity for people. I just hope that one day they change the way they calculate their pay. Once again - Happy Dashing!