Delivery Drivers Losing Income to Low Pay & Fees
15 posts across 4 communities in the last 60 days; 73% from r/doordash_drivers.
“Sadly, I keep seeing customers hate the thought of compensating drivers and hospitality workers in general. These are people clearly making $2/per delivery or federal minimum wage ($7.50/hr) in many places- think servers ($2.15/hr) or baristas. Yes, as a customer you can stand…”
“I started dashing within the last two weeks for extra $ bc I've found it difficult to get a second job that works around my main gig. Every time I've accepted an order from McDonald's there's been an extended wait or some other issue. None of them allow you to pick up through…”
“How is an offer of 8 - 40lb. Bags of water softener pellets not eligible for a tip, plus DD doesn't give heavy pay, I understand I shouldn't have taken it, but when you're driving sometimes you can't look at the items until after.”
Drivers are voicing concerns about low pay, stolen tips, and unfavorable promotions. They feel the platforms prioritize profit over driver compensation, leading to financial strain and a sense of unfairness.
SOURCES (36)
“Yesterday, I was offered a hilarious dash of $2.00 to go 8 miles to deliver a pizza. I declined, of course. Then, the very next offer was a high priority gold status offer for $38 to go to 2 restaurants and deliver both to 1…”
“I get all dressed up and it starts thundering and they see you like a drowned rat waiting for them to hand you the cash and feel guilty then throw in a great tip. One guy didn't have enough for a tip he felt awful and actually asked if he could zelle me $15...made me stand there until it hit my account good deal! submitted by /u/Automatic-Entrance72 [link] [comments]”
“Sadly, I keep seeing customers hate the thought of compensating drivers and hospitality workers in general. These are people clearly making $2/per delivery or federal minimum wage ($7.50/hr) in many places- think servers ($2.15/hr) or baristas. Yes, as a customer you can stand on principle that the company should pay the worker a fair wage BUT thats not going to happen. If you know the company isnt paying a fair wage to the driver why use the service at all? You cant take full advantage of the s”
“I'm visiting my mom and she told me this. When I asked her what she meant, she said, "Ever since you explained to me how the system works, I've been tipping my drivers REALLY well. And I told all my neighbors how it works, too." Then she paused and said, "I'm not really being altruistic. I just want a bunch of drivers fighting over my KFC order," which made me LAUGH. She lives in such a small town that it probably actually HAS made a measurable difference to, like”
“I was under paid by a little over $10 on an order yesterday. I took a double order to be delivered to the same person with peak pay of 16 per hour. On the second pick up the order was “not in the system” most likely was stolen. But anyway I delivered the other order to the customer. It took me and 51 mins to complete this order, it was a Friday night and both store were very busy. I received 3 dollars for the order with no tip. I contacted support and they told me basically tough luck. Is there”
“Whoever is taking these 30 and 45 dollar SSD 2-2.5 hr orders needs to stop. Scabs basically. These were 45 -60 a week ago, do you not realize after gas you basically made 15 to 20 dollars. Hope you enjoy it. I'm going back to Lyft for a bit. Less miles, more money. Until they bring prices back to worth driving. I'm out. Ridiculous. submitted by /u/Critical_System_5150 [link] [comments]”
“Plus a customer tipped another $5 after i ended, most orders were double stacks and wait times were very low tonight, also this last order dropped me off like 1000ft from home and thats great considering it's about 3 to 4 miles out of town submitted by /u/ZB_Echo [link] [comments]”
“I don’t know how I still have an account, I don’t like the job uber it’s so greedy, orders get cancelled, people change tips to lower ones, restaurants take for ever to get the order ready. I do it and I don’t care to much because they are a multi billion dollar company. I’m wrong? I don’t steal from people, just from uber and rich food places like Mcdonals, I mark the orders as already pick up. I know I make other deliveries drivers waste time and yes I do feel bad for them. Edit: People say it”
“Lunchtime, busy area and all you get is four dollar McDonald’s orders going 5 miles if you can spend $60 to $65 on McDonald’s you can afford a five dollar tip and if you can’t, it won’t be riding with me. submitted by /u/Mjguitars [link] [comments]”
“Some guy ordered from 2 separate places and after the dash I noticed he left no tip. Cheapskate. Luckily I was done for the day and this was only like 2 miles from my house. But after my first week I’m actually kind of enjoying it. My area is red a lot so I should be able to dash now a lot. submitted by /u/Even-Enthusiasm-7628 [link] [comments]”
“I started dashing within the last two weeks for extra $ bc I've found it difficult to get a second job that works around my main gig. Every time I've accepted an order from McDonald's there's been an extended wait or some other issue. None of them allow you to pick up through the drive-thru, even after their lobby is locked for the night. You have to park and go inside EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. They all have walk-in closet sized spaces, off to the outter corner of the lobby. Normally”
“Used to get them all the time. Multiple times a day. Some small ($1-$3), some large ($10+) and some really large ($25+) Haven't gotten a hidden tip in about a month. Maybe longer since I started noticing. Has DD just stopped doing hidden tips, or is it just me? submitted by /u/mgibson9999 [link] [comments]”
“How is an offer of 8 - 40lb. Bags of water softener pellets not eligible for a tip, plus DD doesn't give heavy pay, I understand I shouldn't have taken it, but when you're driving sometimes you can't look at the items until after. submitted by /u/cryptonate [link] [comments]”
“So I've only been dashing about 5 months now. Back in April or May, I was getting the hang of things better, and had a McDonald's pickup... an order that "has already been picked up" (stolen order). I finally noticed on the app that the recommended action is to place the order again and pay with the Red Card. (It had already been assigned to 5 drivers who just unassigned and moved along). The customer was already messaging me asking why it kept changing drivers. So I placed the”
“Nice order to start the night with I forgot to screenshot the offer but it was like 7or 8 miles and we all know that’s “GOLDEN”(Rex Voice 😂) Even had a concerned customer ask if I got my tip …told her couldn’t see it until I finish the order she was first drop off still had the other customer to deliver to submitted by /u/all_ihear_is_guc [link] [comments]”
“It's look like Doordash will not generous anymore! They didn't give any peak pay in the the whole month! submitted by /u/BoysenberryOk6510 [link] [comments]”
“As a person with an intermittent disability that keeps me from working a regular job, gig work services like Doordash are a lifeline and one of the only ways I can make a living. These people don't consider it a "real" job, but it's the realest job I can do. They voluntarily use a service that underpays it's workers and then refuse to tip, but somehow we're the entitled ones because we don't want to be treated this way? The people who try to appeal to empathy by bri”
“So last night I was out dashing last night, accepted a cash on delivery order from Pizza Hut because I like cash on delivery orders, people are accustomed to tipping for pizza orders and a lot of you dashers hate them. Anyeay, 'Doordash' called me and was trying to scam me by getting my information / asking me to cancel the order because they were with tbe fraud department of Doordash. They promised a $50 bonus and like 1.75 for every minute I was on the phone with tbem, I'm like slo”
“Got an order, $8 for 3 miles. On the way to Whataburger, I get another order, an additional $22 for 0.8 miles. Last two orders of a 12.5 hour shift, would’ve put me at $305 for the night. I get to Whataburger and they said that they have the $22 order, but not the $8 order. I messaged the customer of the $8 order to let them know they’ll have to cancel and get refunded. I go to unassign, not realizing that DoorDash had re-assigned me to pick up the $22 order first, so that’s the one I’m currentl”
“[those workers need to demand change from management.] Right. Like management listens to YOU. LOL. I bet you don't depend on tips. You'd be singing a different tune. Joker.”
“This is an interesting topic in my opinion. Everyone knows, if an order keeps getting declined by dashers, then DoorDash keeps increasing the pay until somebody accepts it. This is why DoorDash added dasher rewards, specifically acceptance rate weighing a heavy amount of points. People want the highest “platinum” tier, get the most perks, but you need to maintain a high acceptance rate among other things. This was absolutely genius on doordash’s part. This ensures people take low paying, ugly of”
“Mostly that was I tipping way above average for my area and my orders. DD would always recommend 3 tipping amounts and they were usually $5, $7.50 or $10. I would select the $7.5 or $10 amount. Now that I'm driving I see tons of people that are tipping $2 and it's super rare for me to get a $7-$10 tip. submitted by /u/ThisIsTheOnlyName338 [link] [comments]”
“This started popping up on one of my local McDonald's screens. Once McDs pays me ANYTHING I'll start prioritizing their no-tip orders... submitted by /u/Intelligent_Media331 [link] [comments]”
“So I dash but also order at least 1x per week. I just noticed that the suggested tip amounts have increased significantly. Where it used to be around $4-5, now it starts at $6.25 (so no one comes at me, I tipped $7 and it's 2.3 miles away). Is anyone noticing higher tips on deliveries today? submitted by /u/Ordinary-Piano-8158 [link] [comments]”
“I frequently get 7-8 dollar orders that are very very close that i can do 4-5 of them a hour no problem versus platinum with my acceptance rate of 86 I was getting a no tip then a ok order, then a terrible one and 2 good ones… it feels like I was being punished for accepting offers how I have a 8% acceptance rate and I’m thriving submitted by /u/AcademicInfluence736 [link] [comments]”
“Last order of the night. Very easy items. Final drop off was five minutes away from home. First customer tipped an extra $5. I shaved off 20 minutes of the estimated time. It was a hot one! But it paid well. Good luck to us all this upcoming week! Hope we can make double our weekly goal! submitted by /u/Several-Being2159 [link] [comments]”
“I made an order via the Mcdonalds app and they assigned me a location that was pretty far away. I initially tipped 5$ thinking it would be at my usual location that’s 5 min from my house, but they ended up assigning another location that was triple the distance. I messaged my driver that I would tip him more after the order and he was grateful and thanked me but then after the delivery I looked everywhere on the app but couldn’t find a way to add more tip? I don’t have a doordash account so I ca”
“Colorado dashers - did any of you notice that the tip amounts are no longer visible before accepting the order? I know our state passed this as a law, so I am wondering what happened! submitted by /u/Educational-Face9802 [link] [comments]”
“What exactly is the DoorDash basepay formula? This doesn't make sense to me. They paid $16.70 to get someone to deliver these two orders that have little to no tip. But then they add onto basepay for an order that had a strong tip. submitted by /u/TillYouCant [link] [comments]”
“If you tipped so poorly that your order gets stacked with two others you don't get to tell me to hurry it up. Tip better next time 😂😆 submitted by /u/NickTagillia [link] [comments]”
“So as a guy who drove platinum for a while. Something you might want to know, doordash would often take me other zones. I tended to keep half my earnings with platinum’s unthinking about the amount of gas to get you home. Whereas I stay in my area taking the local orders at 30% AR and keep 3/4 or more, and end up making the same amount if money. I can still see cities faraway that are not gray for me nor are others. Except of course my hometown, but not traveling elsewhere does wonders. We can u”
“This was honestly a low moment in my days of dashing. This family was staying in a hotel, and they ordered a LOT of McDonald's. Now, I was already having a slow day and barely made any money, and having to wait at restaurants makes that problem way worse, and you'd better believe I had to wait an *obscene* amount of time for this order, I was almost gonna unassign, but the tip wasnt that bad so I took it. McDonalds gave me 3 bags, one of them being particularly heavy. I put the heavy one”