Do Doordash Drivers Depend on Customer Tips?

You will often here those that work in the service industry say that they depend on customer tips to earn a decent wage. What they are saying is absolutely true and only an idiot would argue against it. Customer tips will substantially increase a worker's earnings and make their job worthwhile for them. It also gives workers a reason to provide their customers with good service knowing that most customers appreciate great service and are willing to pay for it. Great service is a win-win situation for both workers and customers.

Do Doordash drivers depend on customer tips?

If you browse the Internet enough, you will come across some Doordash drivers that state that they depend on customer tips to earn decent earnings. These dashers are telling the absolute truth. If no customers ever tipped, dashers would only be offered $2 to $4 for the vast majority of their calls. My estimated guess would be that 90 percent of calls would not pay more than $5. Even though we live in a world with many non-tippers, thank God a good percentage of Doordash customers do tip their drivers.

Doordash drivers DO depend on customer tips to earn decent earnings

This post has been edited from its original content which was in march of 2018. In that original post, much of the discussion was about how dashers did not depend on customer tips. The reason for that was during that time dashers did not receive the tip money from customers. Doordash had a system where as they would keep the customer's tip money if that tip amount was not over the guaranteed amount that Doordash offered the dasher. It was a pretty confusing pay model, but thank goodness it ended in September of 2019, and Doordash currently practices a fair pay model where the dashers actually do receive 100 percent of the customer's tip.

 

Customer tips decide whether it is worthwhile for a dasher to do Doordash deliveries or not. Even being a small tipper that tips $2 or $3 makes a big difference to a dasher. A customer make think that their small tip will not make much of a difference, but when a dasher is out in the field completing 20 orders for the day it is a big difference. If every single one of those 20 customers left a $3 tip, the dasher would see a $60 difference in his earnings for the day. A customer should never think that their small tips don't matter.

Understanding the Doordash breakdown of earnings

As mentioned earlier, this post originally talked a lot about the deceptive old pay model that Doordash previously used. A lot of people did not understand it, and I explained it to them here in this section. I have deleted that information from here as it is no longer needed. If you want to learn how all that worked, go on ahead and click on the "Confusing Pay Model" text link up above.

In September of 2019, after public pressure, Doordash changed the way they pay their drivers. This new pay model is fair to drivers and customers. A dasher will earn base pay which can be anywhere from $2 to $10 and will also receive 100 percent of the customer tip. If there is a promotion going on, that will also be included, but we are not going to talk about that here as promotions come and go, and all promotion are different. Usually, a dasher's pay will be determined only by the base pay and customer tip.

The base pay is figured out by Doordash. They have a algorithm that determines this. Most of the time, the base pay will be $2 to $4. If a customer does not add a tip, this figure is the amount that dashers will be offered to make a delivery. If a dasher receives a non-tipper delivery call, and the Doordash algorithm makes it a $2 base pay call, dashers are going to be offered only $2 to complete that delivery. If a customer had tipped let's say $5, it would increase the amount that dashers are being offered to $7.

For example, if two different customers that live in the same house both ordered the same thing from the same restaurant and one tipped $5 while the other one tipped nothing. One dasher out there would be offered $5 more than the other. Let's say the base pay on these orders was $3. That would mean that one dasher would be offered $8 to complete their delivery while the other dasher would be offered $3 to complete their delivery.

It is generally easy to spot the non-tippers. When dashers see $2, $3 or $4 orders, it is assumed that these are customers that were to cheap to leave any tip. These calls will take longer to be accepted by a dasher as most will pass up on these low paying calls for better ones.

 

 

We must understand though that there are times when that assumed non-tipping call is really a small tipper call. For example, let's say a customer tips $2. Doordash may only offer $2 base pay for that call. The total amount offered to dashers will be $4 to complete the delivery. A  lot of dashers will assume that the call is from a non-tipper and think that the $4 is all from base pay. 

In my personal opinion, customers that want to guarantee themselves prompt, professional and speedy service should always tip at least $5. This will guarantee that their dasher is offered a decent amount of pay to complete their order. The minimum that the dasher would receive is $7. Sure, there are much higher paying calls out there for dashers, but 90 percent of dashers are going to accept that $7 call. this is especially true if they are close.

The reason dashers depend on customer tips

A world without customer tips will make a world of a difference in a dasher's pay. When I say a difference, I am not talking about a few dollars. We're not even talking about a few hundred dollars for the month. We are talking about a difference of many hundreds of dollars or maybe even a thousand.

As mentioned earlier, if a full time dasher did 20 calls a day, and every customer out there tipped him $3, that would be $60 more a day to his name. Let's do some easy math. Sixty multiplied by 6 days is $360. Yes, we are assuming this dasher works 6 days per week. So with 4 weeks in the month multiplied by $360, we are talking about a $1,440 difference in his pay for the month.

This is why many dashers out there are passing up the calls they figure are from non-tippers. Doordash drivers want to complete orders for customers that are going to tip them. It's more money in the dasher's pocket, but customers that tip are also more satisfied because they will receive before service. it's a win-win for everybody!

Conclusion:

Dashers do depend on customer's tips. It makes an extreme difference in the amount of money dashers earn. If customers do not tip, most dashers are not going to do their delivery. That's not to say it will never get done, because there will always be newbies, or those that will take a low paying call that takes them home. Doordash customers, please show your appreciation to your dasher and tip them.

Want to learn about the 6 types of Doordash tippers that exist? All Doordash customers fall into one of these categories.