January 31, 2024
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Stephanie Vigil is a member of the Colorado House of Representatives who was elected in 2022. She is also a community organizer...
Yi-Jane is a writer for SideHustles.com. In addition to her writing and reporting work, she also has 3+ years of experience as...
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NoFood delivery platforms like DoorDash have become increasingly popular in recent years, especially in large cities where people have extremely busy schedules. Delivering for these apps is a flexible and easy side hustle that any driver can take on to earn some extra cash.
To get started, you need to know your job responsibilities as a DoorDash delivery driver (aka a Dasher), the requirements you’ll have to meet to get the job, and how to sign up.
Founded in 2013, DoorDash is a major product delivery company that operates in over 7,000 cities across more than 25 countries. 1 2
Although it’s mainly classified as a food and drinks delivery service, DoorDash allows consumers to order products for immediate delivery from a wide range of merchants, including:
As a rapidly growing company, DoorDash is becoming more and more prominent in the delivery side hustle space. According to one study, DoorDash and its subsidiary Caviar were responsible for a full 65% of meal deliveries from US consumers in April 2023, nearly triple the market share of Uber Eats (23%). 3
As a DoorDash driver, your main responsibility is to collect customers’ orders from nearby stores and safely deliver them to the correct address in a timely manner.
Customers can state their own delivery preferences, which you’ll be expected to follow (i.e., meeting you in person or leaving the food by the door).
If you’re like most people and you regularly use Google Maps or another, similar app on your smartphone, using DoorDash as a driver will feel very familiar.
When you sign into the app, you’ll be greeted by a map of the surrounding area and will be presented with offers that you can freely accept or decline. In most neighborhoods (known in DoorDash lingo as “markets”), you’ll see approximately how much you’ll earn from the order upfront, before committing to it.
You can see what the interface looks like in the screenshot below (provided by Luis Jara, an experienced Dasher who collaborated with us on several of our articles about the app).
The way DoorDash works is in line with other popular delivery apps, such as Uber Eats and Instacart. If you’ve driven for one of them, picking up the others will have almost no learning curve at all.
You don’t need any prior experience to become a DoorDash driver. However, you need to meet the minimum age requirement and provide certain documentation.
You’re on the right track to becoming a Dasher in the US if you meet all of the following criteria: 4 5
You also need to have all of the following:
We’ll cover these requirements in a little more depth below.
DoorDash has no vehicle requirements. This is one major benefit it offers over competitors like Uber Eats, which may require you to drive a vehicle that meets certain criteria (such as not being more than 15 years old).
As long as you can prove that you can drive legally, you can use any vehicle to start Dashing. Depending on the region you’re in, you may even be able to make deliveries by scooter, motorcycle, bicycle, or e-bike.
DoorDash doesn’t mention any driving experience requirements on their website. This is a major perk for teens, young adults, or new drivers looking to earn extra cash.
The minimum age needed to become a DoorDash driver is 18 years old. Again, as long as you’re a legal adult and you have a valid license and insurance, you can earn money DoorDashing.
To sign up as a driver for DoorDash, you need to have your own auto insurance policy. DoorDash won’t provide one for you.
With that said, DoorDash will step in if you damage someone else’s vehicle or injure them and your auto insurance refuses to cover it.
To qualify for this, you need to: 5 6
In situations like that, DoorDash will cover your liability up to $1,000,000. Again, this only applies to damage you cause to someone else’s vehicle or injuries that you cause them; DoorDash will never cover your own vehicle or medical expenses.
DoorDash conducts a background check for every candidate through Checkr. This includes a motor vehicle report and a criminal history report.
While DoorDash doesn’t specify what will disqualify you, there’s a good chance you’ll be rejected if you’ve committed any serious crimes or your record shows major driving or traffic violations from the past few years.
If you disagree with the results of your background check, you can dispute them via the Checkr Candidate Portal or by calling Checkr at (844) 824-3257. It may take up to 30 days to process your dispute. 7
You’ll need a smartphone to be able to use the DoorDash app, communicate with customers, and claim delivery jobs in your area.
For your phone to be compatible with the app, it’ll need to be running at least Android 5.0 or iOS 15.0.
Applying to become a DoorDash driver is straightforward. You just need to follow these steps:
It’s important to understand what will happen once you’ve applied to work as a delivery driver for DoorDash, what the timeline is like, and what you need to do to start earning money.
It should only take you a few minutes to complete the sign-up process for DoorDash if you have all the necessary information ready, but you’ll typically have to wait a few days to find out whether you’ve been approved.
To check the status of your application, click “Already started signing up?” on DoorDash’s sign-up page and fill in the same email address and phone number you used to sign up. You can also complete your application there if you haven’t yet submitted it.
Once you’ve been approved, you can open the DoorDash app and start signing up for deliveries near you.
Once you’ve completed your first delivery, you’ll be eligible to receive your DoorDash Welcome Kit. To get the kit, you’ll need to open the app and provide your mailing address.
Here’s what comes in the DoorDash Welcome Kit:
You’ll get an email confirmation and tracking number once you’ve submitted your request. It should take 3–7 business days to receive your Welcome Kit in the mail.
Your driver application may be rejected for any number of reasons, such as a black mark on your driving record, failure to provide the necessary documentation, or inability to verify your identity.
If you’re unsure why you were rejected, contact DoorDash customer service to confirm. They may be able to tell you what steps to take next (though this isn’t guaranteed, as your application does not have the same protections as a standard job application).
It’s possible that you won’t be allowed to apply at all if DoorDash isn’t accepting applications in your area. This can happen if there are already enough drivers where you live. In this case, you may be put on the Dasher applicant waiting list.
Don’t worry if this happens to you. You’ll eventually get your chance to join once enough Dashers quit. We spoke to one seasoned DoorDash side hustler, Shonnita Leslie, who had this happen upon signing up as a Dasher.
“At the time, the market was relatively competitive and there was a waiting list to become a DoorDash Driver in my market area,” she told us. “But that only lasted a couple of weeks and then I received an invitation to sign up with DoorDash.”
If you find yourself stuck on the waitlist for a long time, you could try submitting a new application to work in a different area. Just beware of the drawbacks of adding commute time to your DoorDash side hustle.
Delivering with DoorDash is a good way to make extra money if you already have your own personal vehicle. Earnings vary (and are calculated on a per-delivery basis rather than as an hourly wage), but in general, you can make between $15 and $30 per hour with this side hustle.
DoorDash also has the following advantages:
Of course, DoorDash isn’t perfect or everyone would do it. Driving around so much can be tiring, and it puts wear and tear on your vehicle. You’ll be financially responsible for fixing that—DoorDash won’t reimburse you. (They also won’t pay for your gas.)
DoorDash is generally considered a better option for a side hustle than a full-time gig since your income can fluctuate from week to week. Even though you can schedule your own working hours, you might only get 2 or 3 orders per day when business is slow.
Many Dashers still find it to be a profitable side gig. Leslie, for example, told us:
“I decided to try out DoorDash while still working my part-time gig in retail. Every time management neglected to add me to the work schedule, I’d just sign in to the DoorDash app for a couple of hours. I realized that I was earning twice the amount I was making in retail just by doing DoorDash. I made a quick decision to quit my part-time retail job and focus solely on DoorDash as a side hustle.”
It can take some time for you to find a balance between making deliveries efficiently and managing your main job, but once you do, Dashing can be a great way to make some extra money.
We spoke to Stephanie Vigil, an experienced DoorDash driver who successfully ran for a seat in the Colorado House of Representatives in 2022 and subsequently achieved media attention for her advocacy on behalf of delivery drivers and gig workers. 8 9
Vigil shared her tips for aspiring DoorDash drivers on how to avoid mistakes she navigated in her early days on the app and maximize your returns.
The most consistent theme to Vigil’s advice was that Dashers should value their time and labor. She particularly emphasized this when we asked if there were any mistakes that she made early in her career.
“I made the mistake of seeing the app company as a partner in my endeavors, and believing that its ‘perks’ and ‘incentives’ were there to reward me for going the extra mile,” she said. “It’s not how the app actually works. In order for their business model to be successful, they need every offer to eventually be accepted and delivered, and they need the drivers who take them to perform each task for as little as they get away with paying us.”
On how others can avoid this pitfall, she advises Dashers to “think of oneself as an entrepreneur in your own right, value your time, cherish your labor, and only say yes to offers that meet your own standards.”
Vigil emphasized the importance of only accepting requests that match your standards, saying she frequently turns down delivery jobs.
“Drivers should value their time and say no to bad offers. I generally look for something that pays about $2 for every mile worth of driving. I also sometimes stop picking up from a particular restaurant altogether if I’ve had too many delays or problems there.”
One of the best ways to maximize your profits is to replicate what others have done to find success. Vigil said the key to making money with a delivery-driving side hustle is not to limit yourself.
“Don’t just use DoorDash,” she said. “Double up with something like Grubhub or Uber Eats. You may find that one app is especially hot on a given day and be able to log out of the others.”
She encouraged workers to reframe how they use multiple apps and to remember that they are the resource—not the app.
“Remember that your labor makes all of this possible. Your time and effort, and that of other workers, is where all the value is. Think of these app companies like they’re competing for your attention and skill. Let them fight over you, and you just focus on doing a great job with an offer once you’ve accepted it.”
When deciding which apps to double up on, Vigil recommends comparing your options and seeing which combination complements each other and your own needs.
“They all have their ups and downs. Grubhub tends to provide higher offers, but volume sometimes dries up suddenly,” she said. “Uber Eats doesn’t really tell you where you’re going for the delivery until after you’ve picked it up, which I don’t like. DoorDash is better about providing information about your travel distance and destination, but they sometimes manipulate the tip information.”
Finally, we asked Vigil if she would do anything differently if she could go back and restart her DoorDash hustle from scratch.
She told us, “I would track my data and results more deliberately. Last I checked DoorDash doesn’t make a neat, clean version of this available to drivers (though perhaps they should), but even if I had just logged my earnings, mileage, total time spent including downtime between offers, etc., and tracked it in a simple spreadsheet, I probably could have caught some of these patterns earlier.”
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