How Much Can You Make Delivering with Uber Eats?

Uber Eats doesn’t pay an hourly rate. Instead, as a driver, you’ll get paid per order. You’ll probably make an average of $2–$4 per delivery before tips.

We’ve talked to several delivery gig workers, who told us that this usually translates to a rate of $15–$20 per hour.

How Uber Eats calculates your base pay

Your fare on each order starts with your base pay, which doesn’t include promotions, Surges, or tips (all of which we’ll explain later).

The exact amount you’ll get varies from order to order and is determined by:

• Time and distance: Uber Eats takes into account how far you’ll need to travel for an order and how long it will take you, calculated from when you accept it to when you hand it off to the customer.
• Number of trips: You’ll get a higher fare if you have multiple pickups or drop-offs on an order.
• Location: Where you deliver also affects how much you can make, with some areas generally offering higher base pay before tips. Often, rates in big cities are higher than in the suburbs or rural areas.
• Competition and demand: When there’s a lot of customer demand and not many delivery workers on the road, Uber Eats increases their rates to encourage people to drive. The inverse is also true; when there are a lot of other drivers competing for orders, they lower them.

You’ll see your base pay before accepting each order. You’ll also see any promotions that will be applied to it, but you won’t necessarily see your tip (if the customer chooses to leave one).

Customers can give you tips, either when they’re placing their order or after they receive it. This will heavily affect your earnings, since Uber Eats lets you keep 100% of your tips. They won’t take a cut for themselves.

Of course, there’s no guarantee you’ll get a tip on any given order. Leaving one is completely optional.

Many of the Uber Eats delivery drivers we’ve talked to have stressed how important getting tips is, with some claiming that it can boost your effective hourly rate by more than 25%.

For this reason, some drivers outright refuse to accept orders that don’t include upfront tips. However, even if you adopt that strategy, there are no guarantees; customers on Uber Eats can change their tips up to an hour after receiving an order and even retract them entirely. (This is one of the most unpopular features with drivers on Uber Eats, but there’s no way to guard against it.)

Does Uber Eats encourage customers to tip?

Uber Eats doesn’t force its customers to tip, but they encourage them to do so, both when people place orders and after they receive them. Sometimes, Uber will send reminders days or even weeks afterward.

Unfortunately, several factors also discourage customers from tipping, including the high service and delivery fees that Uber Eats charges, which leave many people unwilling to spend more. Other factors outside your control may also make customers less likely to tip you, such as traffic or long wait times at restaurants (which mean your customers will have to wait longer for their food).

The hard truth is that there’s no surefire way of getting customers to tip you. However, there are ways to boost your tip rate somewhat.

How to get better tips with Uber Eats

Try these strategies to increase your chances of getting decent tips:

• Handle orders carefully: Take care of your customers’ orders as much as possible. This means using an insulated delivery bag that keeps them hot or cold and properly securing drinks to avoid spillage.
• Be punctual: Outside of uncontrollable delays, do your best to pick up orders promptly and arrive at the customer’s address on time. Your phone’s GPS navigator will be helpful here, but if you know any tricks for getting around your city more quickly, use them.
• Be courteous: Politeness costs nothing, but impoliteness can cost you tips. Being kind and respectful to customers will make them more likely to tip you.
• Accommodate special requests: Pay attention to any special requests included in your customers’ orders, like picking up extra napkins or dropping off the items in a particular location.
• Drive in the right places: People in certain neighborhoods may tip better on average. Experiment and find out for yourself where the best places to drive in your city are. What time you deliver also matters—working during holidays or special events (such as concerts) can increase your chances of getting good tips.

Outside of your base pay and tips, several other factors affect how much you can make delivering with Uber Eats:

Delivery zone

Again, different areas have different base pay rates. Where you’re delivering also influences how many orders are available and how many you can realistically complete per day. As you’d imagine, densely populated urban areas are where you’ll find the most orders, whereas rural areas tend to be quieter.

However, there are pros and cons to working in any delivery zone. While there’s more demand in big cities, they also usually:

• Have more drivers to compete with
• Have heavier traffic
• Are more expensive places to live

All told, if you have the choice between delivering in a downtown urban core or in the suburbs, it’s usually better to pick the downtown area, but you should experiment to confirm that holds true in your city. Driving in genuinely rural areas usually isn’t worth it.

Working hours

You’ll be able to get more orders and make more money by driving during peak hours. During the week, the busiest times are:

• Lunch (10:30 am to 2:30 pm)
• Dinner (4:30 pm to 8:00 pm)

Weekends often see orders spread more evenly throughout the day and also tend to be busier in the evenings, particularly in bustling city centers with vibrant nightlife scenes.

Moreover, holidays and big events, like the Super Bowl, often see surges in demand for deliveries. Working during special occasions will boost your earnings, although here again, you’ll also deal with heavy traffic and potential restaurant delays.

Expenses

Unfortunately, Uber Eats won’t cover your expenses. Assuming you’re driving a motorized vehicle and not riding a bike, these will include:

• Fuel/gas
• Vehicle maintenance
• Auto insurance (Uber provides some coverage, but you’ll still need your own policy)
• Taxes

Your expense ratio will depend on where you’re working and how fuel-efficient your vehicle is. To some extent, you can mitigate your gas expenses by selecting rides that don’t require you to drive very far.

Still, conservatively, you can expect to spend at least 35% of what you make on unavoidable expenses to keep your side hustle going.

Surges and promotions

Uber Eats sometimes offers “Surge pay” and other promotions, such as “Boosts,” on top of their base pay.

There are slight differences between Uber’s promotions, but in the end, most of them function roughly the same way: they boost your rates when you complete deliveries in a particular area while the promotion is active. Uber uses them to incentivize people to work when they need more drivers.

Many report that outside of holidays, Surges and other promotions are rarely available to Uber Eats delivery workers (they’re more frequently available to Uber’s rideshare drivers).

If you’re offered a promotion, you’ll see the pay boost applied to the order before you accept it.

If you’re considering whether or not driving for Uber Eats is worth it, it’s a good idea to compare it to other, similar apps, as well as to Uber’s rideshare service.

Rates on Uber Eats vs. other delivery gig apps

The pay on Uber Eats is more or less in line with what you’ll make delivering for its competitors. All delivery apps pay around $15–$20 per hour; their exact rates vary by location, but in most cases, driving for one app is much like driving for the others.

To learn more about how much you can make working for other popular delivery driver apps, read our reviews of:

• Amazon Flex
• DoorDash
• Instacart
• Grubhub
• Spark

If you have trouble choosing, be aware that you don’t have to pick just one. It’s possible to download and use more than one app at once. For example, you could pick up orders on DoorDash during slow periods on Uber Eats, and vice versa.

Many drivers do this, and while the apps in question don’t necessarily like it, they aren’t able to forbid it—as an independent gig worker, you can sign up for as many services as you like.

Rates on Uber Eats vs. Uber

Uber Eats is, of course, owned and operated by Uber, and all Uber drivers are already qualified to start delivering with Uber Eats. The same can’t be said for Uber Eats drivers; Uber’s requirements for its rideshare (taxi) drivers are stricter than for delivery partners.

However, if you are eligible to become an Uber driver, consider doing so. Uber drivers usually earn more money than Uber Eats drivers ($20–$30 per hour, as compared with $15–$20).

That’s because their job is harder and more stressful. Uber drivers have to invite strangers into their vehicles and chat with them, whereas Uber Eats drivers work by themselves and are free to listen to music or podcasts while they make deliveries.

Whether you’re suited for Uber or Uber Eats (or both) depends on the kind of person you are. Are you an extrovert who likes chatting with strangers? If so, then being an Uber driver might be a good fit. Conversely, those who prefer to work independently and want a job with less social interaction are generally better-suited for Uber Eats, even though it pays less.

We’ve already given a few pointers on how to boost your tipping rate, but you don’t want to rely on them to make your Uber Eats side hustle profitable. As mentioned, some customers will just never tip.

Fortunately, there are other techniques you can use to boost your earnings as an Uber Eats delivery driver:

Only accept worthwhile orders

Don’t waste your time on orders that pay very little or force you to drive a long way. Focus on orders that have:

• High base fares or promotions
• Shorter driving distances so that you can complete them quickly

It’s hard to make money with Uber Eats if you accept orders indiscriminately. You have to be strategic if you want this side hustle to be worth it.

Track your expenses and take tax deductions

Don’t just track your earnings with Uber Eats. Track your expenses, too.

You’re eligible to take tax deductions on any Uber Eats-related expenses you incur, including the cost of maintaining your vehicle. The IRS also currently allows commercial drivers to deduct 65.5 cents per mile that they drive. 1

The key with Uber tax deductions is to only write off your expenses in proportion to how much you drive for your side hustle. If you spend 50% of your driving time doing deliveries and 50% driving for other reasons, then you can deduct half of your vehicle maintenance costs, but not all of them, since you’re only allowed to write off legitimate business expenses.

Adapt to your area

Get to know your delivery zone well. Experiment to find the best delivery routes, the best places to park, and the neighborhoods with the highest demand and lowest competition.

Pay attention to individual restaurants, too. Over time, you’ll pick up on which ones tend to have long wait times. It’s okay to reject their offers out of hand so that you don’t waste your time with deliveries that aren’t worth it.