How Much Does an Uber Driver Actually Make?

If you’ve researched this question at all, you may have already read that Uber drivers typically earn around $10–$15 per ride. We spoke to Matt Miller, a Pittsburgh-based rideshare driver who has been working for Uber for 5 years, who largely backed this up—with a few caveats.

“On average, it seems to even out to about $10 per ride,” he told us. “The least I ever made on a ride was $4.12 and the most I ever made was $153. It’s impossible to have a fixed average since there are so many factors.”

These factors include the length of the ride (obviously, longer trips pay more, although accepting multiple short trips can be more lucrative than accepting a single long one).

Your location is also a strong factor. Uber’s prices tend to be higher in large cities, so your average rate may be higher if you live somewhere like New York City or San Francisco. The inverse is also true: if you live in a smaller town, your average may be lower.

How much you can earn per hour

Miller told us that his long-term earnings averaged out to $20–$44 per hour.

“Over my 5 years of driving, my weekly earnings were between $700–$1,100 per week,” he said. “I drove an average of 25–35 hours per week.”

To ensure that your earnings are on the higher end of that range, you have to strategize. Drive during busy periods, try not to accept rides that will take you out of high-traffic areas (e.g., the city center), and take advantage of Uber’s promotions. We’ll cover all of that in more detail further down in this article.

How overhead decreases your effective earnings

Uber pays fairly well for a side hustle that almost anyone can get into with no training. However, it has very high overhead—you’ll have to pay for vehicle maintenance and depreciation (unless you rent a car, which also costs money), and above all, you’ll have to pay for gas.

“People often ask, does Uber pay for any of your gas?” Miller said. “The answer to that question is no.”

These expenses can really add up, and many drivers report that they can decrease your effective rate from $20+ per hour to minimum wage or even less.

However, Miller said that if you take strategic advantage of Uber’s promotions, it can go a long way towards making up the cost of fuel and your other expenses.

Uber runs three recurring promotions. As Miller said, taking advantage of these is key to bringing your earnings up to a worthwhile level:

1. Quests

A Quest is an opportunity to earn a bonus for completing a certain number of rides in a set period, e.g., 30 rides by the end of the work week. 1

Quests generally run twice per week: one on Monday through Friday, and then another one on Friday through Monday, both starting and ending at 4 am.

Miller explained that in his experience, Uber will provide you with three Quest “levels” to choose from.

For instance, a “level one” quest might be to complete 30 rides for $50 and then an additional 10 for a further $20. Level two might be to complete 40 rides for $70, and then 10 more for an additional $20, and so on, with each level paying out more than the previous one (but also requiring more rides).

How much you can earn

Depending on how many rides you’re willing to commit to, taking advantage of Quests can boost your income by around $50–$200 per week.

2. Boost+

“Boost+ is a type of promotion where Uber offers a preset bonus per ride completed during a select time period,” said Miller. “An example would be an extra $2 per ride from 7–8 am.”

In his city, the weekday boost schedule (Monday–Friday) is released on Saturday, and the weekend schedule (Friday–Sunday) is released on Wednesday. The clear scheduling makes it possible to plan ahead and pick the best time to drive to optimize your income.

How much you can earn

Miller told us that boosts range from $1.50 to $9 and are typically offered in 1-to-2-hour blocks. If you complete an average of 2 rides per hour, this can boost your hourly earnings by anywhere from $3 to $18.

To take full advantage of Boost+ periods, try to accept as many short rides as you can (instead of longer trips, which you’ll still only earn one boost for).

3. Surge pricing

Surge is arguably Uber’s most well-known promotion. Essentially, during periods of high demand, Uber hikes their prices and passes off some of the extra money to you. 2

“Unlike Quests and Boost+, surge pricing is not guaranteed or released on a weekly schedule,” Miller said. “You can’t plan to go out at a certain time of the day or week and earn it.”

However, he went on to say that if you know your city’s market well and what events typically bring out a lot of riders, you can sometimes anticipate surges anyway. “If a Taylor Swift concert just ended at the 70,000-person stadium that the Pittsburgh Steelers play at, then you can expect to see a growing surge in that area.”

How much you can earn

The money you can get from surges varies widely. “In my area, surge pricing that is added to each individual ride ranges from $1–$40,” said Miller.

Be aware that while surges can be extremely lucrative, you should also consider how far away they are before driving to them. As a very rough guideline, if you have to drive more miles than the surge is boosting fares by (in dollars), it probably isn’t worth it.

As you probably already know, when you drive for Uber, passengers can leave you tips—but they aren’t required to do so.

“After 5 years and 14,000 rides, I have come to learn that tips come out to about 10% of my total earnings,” Miller said. “Frankly, I think that is pretty good.”

He continued on to say that in his experience, about 1 out of every 3 or 4 riders leaves a tip. “I’ve noticed that tourists and businesspeople headed to and from the airport are the ones that tip the most.”

How much you can earn from tips

Drivers retain 100% of their tips; Uber doesn’t take a cut. How much riders tip is entirely up to them.

“The biggest tip I’ve gotten was $100 in the form of a single hundred-dollar bill,” said Miller.

He also told us that his lowest tip was 1 cent. “Yes, $0.01. I don’t know if that was an insult or a mistake.”

To an extent, the tips you receive are out of your control, but to boost them as much as possible, keep your car clean, develop a sense for whether your passengers want to talk or be quiet, and generally try to make your rides as pleasant as possible.

The factors that go into the price of any given Uber ride are fairly complex, and confusingly, they often differ from one city to the next. At minimum, Uber considers:

• Your location: As mentioned, in dense and expensive urban areas, Uber costs more, which means it also pays more.
• Demand: The number of people currently seeking rides is a significant pricing factor. As you’d expect, the more people who are using Uber, the higher the fares will be.
• Distance: Of course, the length of the trip will also determine how much you’ll make from it, with longer trips paying out more.

In addition to these factors, you also have to consider any promotions Uber is offering and potentially other factors as well, depending on the pricing model Uber uses in your city.

Example: price calculation in Pittsburgh

Miller broke down how Uber calculated fares in Pittsburgh during most of the time he drove there.

In his experience, Uber started with a base price ($1.07) that was the same for every ride, which they then plugged into a formula that boosted the pay based on the:

• Time the ride took
• Total distance traveled
• Time spent waiting for the passenger (after a 2-minute grace period)

The final fare was calculated at the end of the ride.

However, Miller also told us that Uber moved away from this model in Pittsburgh in late 2022. “Rather than the factors I described above, there are now upfront prices and fare details. That means we’re now informed of how much we will make for the ride before we accept it.”

The takeaway is that, since Uber calculates fares differently from one city to the other and may sometimes change their pricing model, it can be hard to predict how Uber will calculate your pay until you actually start driving.

Fortunately, if reports from other rideshare drivers are anything to go by, Uber is moving towards an upfront model across the country. Overall, the trend seems to be towards more transparency so that both you and your passengers will know what to expect when you commit to a ride.

How much does Uber take from drivers?

Like most apps that people use to find gig work, Uber will take a cut of your profits (meaning that you won’t earn the full fare that your riders pay).

Miller told us that Uber charges two fees:

• Service fee: Uber says that their service fee for each ride constitutes 25% of the fare. However, Miller told us that in his experience, service fees “varied quite a lot” and could be “quite high sometimes.” As with the rest of Uber’s pricing, it’s possible that this depends on your state and city.
• Booking fee: According to Miller, Uber’s booking fee also depends on your city, as well as the trip distance. He said that it can be “as low as $1 but not more than $10,” citing $1.60 as a frequently occurring fee during his 10,000+ rides.

“The amount that Uber takes from drivers varies on every ride,” said Miller. “Yes, I know that seems strange, but in my 5 years of experience, that’s what I have noticed.”

Uber says that you can receive your payments in two ways. 3 However, this is a slight oversimplification.

“Where I live, there are three ways to receive payments from Uber,” Miller said. You can get paid via:

• Debit card: You can instantly cash out your earnings to your bank account via a debit card of your choosing. You’ll have to pay a small fee per transaction (it will probably be under $1), and you can cash out up to 5 times per day. After you do so, the money will appear in the bank account associated with your debit card very quickly.
• Automatic deposit: You can also add the routing and checking number of your bank account to the “wallet” section of your profile in the Uber app. Uber will automatically deposit your earnings every week into your account for free. In Miller’s experience, the money almost always arrives each Tuesday morning, except when that would be a major holiday, in which case it arrives on Wednesday.
• Uber Pro Card: You can also receive your earnings on the Uber Pro Card, a debit card and checking account which you can apply for in the Driver app. With this card, you’ll get paid automatically after each ride. Receiving your payment this way is free.

We asked Miller for his advice on how to make more money from Uber. He gave us several tips:

Know your area

“The easiest way to make the most money is to simply know your area,” he said. “That includes both rush hour traffic patterns and what big events are happening in your city, such as concerts, and sporting events.”

He recommended staying as close to the middle of the city as possible. In his experience, venturing into the suburbs (including accepting rides that end there) can throw off your earnings for the day, since you’ll end up in an area with low demand.

Instead, try to stay within the neighborhoods in your city that have bars and nightclubs.

Don’t hang around for too long at the airport

It’s no secret that many Uber rides begin and end at the airport. However, Miller says that it’s rarely worth it to wait in the airport queue, since there will usually be many drivers who arrived ahead of you (often 20–30) who’ll be given priority when it comes to incoming rides.

Get an E-ZPass

Miller strongly recommends buying an E-ZPass (an electronic device that will automatically pay tolls).

“If you go through a toll on the way to pick up a rider, Uber will not compensate you for it,” he said. “But if you go through a toll with a passenger in the car, Uber will pay you the E-ZPass rate.”

As many toll roads are doing their best to encourage E-ZPass use, tolls are often higher if you don’t have one, and Uber won’t pay you the difference. “One of the toll roads I’ve taken is $3.40 with an E-ZPass and $7 without one, so it can add up quite a bit.”

Don’t be afraid to cancel on no-shows

If you arrive at the rider’s pickup location and they don’t show up for 5 minutes, you can cancel the ride with the reason “Rider didn’t show up.” You’ll then receive a cancellation fee, which varies based on your location (in Pittsburgh, it’s $3.90).

If you accept a reservation and wait for 8 minutes, you’ll be eligible for a $10 cancellation fee—as much as you’d make from some rides.

Stay on top of your taxes

Nobody likes thinking about taxes, but it’s very important not to neglect them. Miller pointed out that as an Uber driver, you’re classified as an independent contractor, which means that Uber won’t withhold your taxes from your pay. You’ll have to handle them yourself.

How much you owe will depend on how much you made, but Miller advises putting aside 25% of your earnings to pay your taxes, which is in line with the advice that many other online sources provide.

“I recommend paying your taxes quarterly to avoid a large tax bill in April of the following year,”  he said. “As far as taxes go, in my opinion, it is in your best interest to get a certified public accountant to find the best deductions, such as car maintenance.”

You can make real money driving for Uber, but it isn’t an easy job—even setting aside the actual business of dealing with passengers.

If you want to make the kind of money you should be making, you’ll need to plan your schedule ahead of time to take advantage of promotions. It’ll probably take you some time to settle into a good groove.

Despite that, Miller told us he still thinks that driving for Uber is worth it—but not every day.

“I 100% recommend driving for Uber as a side hustle, but just that, a part-time side hustle. Take it from me. I did this job full-time for 5 years, and now I only drive on Fridays and Saturdays.” He continued on to say that “By just driving during prime hours on the weekends, you can easily make $40–50 an hour without putting excessive wear and tear on your car.”