UberEats Driver Guide
February 25, 2024

Absolute Best Time To Do Uber Eats in 2023

Have you ever wondered when the best times to work and drive for Uber Eats are? In many cases, determining the best time (or times) to do Uber Eats can seem like a struggle, but this shouldn't actually be that hard. In fact, the best days to do Uber Eats are pretty easy to define, which is why our friendly teams are on hand to help you find out more about the best times to do Uber Eats going forward.

WHAT IS THE BEST TIME TO DO UBER EATS?

Determining the best time to do Uber Eats can sometimes seem tricky, but this shouldn't have to be the way if you ask us. Luckily, plenty of simple options can help you choose the best times to do Uber Eats for your own career.

Factors Influencing the Best Time to Do Uber Eats

The best time to do Uber Eats varies based on numerous factors, which is important to remember as part of your decision overall. However, some of the most influential aspects that influence when you should be delivery driving for UberEats (ideally) include:

  • Location: One of the biggest influences on the best time to do Uber Eats will be your location. Indeed, location plays a significant role in many people's ordering decisions. In line with this, it's crucial to consider how where you live might influence this. For example, the average American dinner time is around 6:22 pm. However, this may be higher or lower in your area. And so, keeping this in mind could help you find the right solutions for your unique requirements.
  • Demographics: Another key factor influencing the best time to do Uber Eats is the demographics of your main target market. Indeed, regions that have a higher proportion of young adult users (for example) are often more likely to order early in the morning and late at night. As such, keeping this in mind could help influence your decision on the best times to drive for Uber Eats.
  • Meal types: Another factor you may want to consider is the type of restaurants available to you locally. If you have lots of small cafes in your local area, you may want to focus your deliveries around lunchtime more so; meanwhile, regions with plenty of large restaurants may have a higher demand for evening drives.

How to Choose the Best Time to do Uber Eats

To choose the best time to do Uber Eats, you'll need to consider all of the factors we have presented above to identify a time when plenty of orders are coming in. However, you'll also need to consider your own lifestyle ' when works for you? ' and how this will tie into the different delivery times.

Generally speaking, the best time to drive for Uber Eats will be when plenty of delivery opportunities are available. However, it is important to keep in mind here that this doesn't necessarily translate directly to 'the busiest time.' Instead, you'll ideally want to choose a time that offers you plenty of drive options, not just generally. After all, if hundreds of orders come in at once but several hundred delivery drivers out on the road, you may end up facing a lot of downtime while waiting for opportunities.

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WHAT IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST TIME TO DRIVE FOR UBER EATS?

In order to define the absolute best time to drive for Uber Eats, we need to consider several important metrics. Indeed, the best time to drive for Uber Eats isn't necessarily as simple as saying 'around mealtimes' since this can be a little over-simplified.

In fact, the best time to drive for Uber Eats is the time that balances the number of orders coming in with the number of people driving.

Generally speaking, the busiest times for Uber are usually around dinner, between 6pm and 11pm ' with the bulk of people looking to eat dinner around 6:22pm. However, don't forget this is eating time; they still need time for food to arrive, so you may want to begin delivery driving at around 5:30pm to target this rush before most delivery drivers log in.

It's not just the time of day that you should consider here, though. Indeed, you should also consider the day of the week. Indeed, demand for food delivery driver services is often lower at the start of the week, as this tends to be when people are more motivated to cook and make their own food. However, as the week drags on, people may become more reluctant to cook.

Moreover, at the weekend and on bank holidays or the festive season, it's common for people to want a treat ' and customers may be more likely to tip on these days, too.

DOES THE BEST TIME TO DO UBER EATS VARY BY REGION?

It's often tempting to order home delivery for your restaurant orders, but knowing when to take on orders can seem difficult from the driver's perspective. This is further complicated by the fact that the best time to do Uber Eats deliveries will often vary by region, so to a degree, you may need to do a little trial and error in your local area to work out when is best.

It's also worth considering that the best time to deliver food may also depend on the family structures in play in your area. Regions with a higher number of young children may be more likely to order food earlier (before 6:15 pm) since this has been shown statistically to increase the amount of time spent with children. Along a similar line of thought, regions with an elderly population may also be more prone to eating early.

Another interesting point of note is that the younger population is also much more likely to skip breakfast. As such, if you've been attempting to focus your driving times more accurately and live in a region with a high proportion of people in the 18-25 age group, you may want to consider focusing moreso on lunch and dinner markets.

Which Regions Are the Best Places to Deliver During Busy Times?

Generally speaking, larger cities and urban areas tend to provide the best opportunities, and these areas are often much more likely to follow a more regular best delivery time. In other words, if you live in an urban region where orders are more likely to come in thick and fast, the average best delivery times are likely to be much more accurate.

Most specifically, downtown areas close to many restaurants, caf��s, and bars are among the most accurate for predicting times. In contrast, judging the best time to do Uber Eats in rural or outskirt regions may be more difficult due to the lower stream of jobs.

Having a range of places to pick jobs up from can really help to ensure that you don't waste any time whilst working, enabling you to earn more by completing more jobs. As such, when looking for the best Uber Eats opportunities, make sure you consider your location alongside the time. After all, a busy street during the off-peak hours can be just as lucrative as an incredibly quiet region during peak!

So, which regions are the best places to get a plentiful supply of orders through? According to statistics, the best areas to do Uber Eats are Miami, Atlanta, Washington DC, Boston, New York, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Fransisco. These are the places where Uber Eats is the most used delivery service by market share.

For example, in Miami, 55% of all food delivery orders placed are with Uber Eats; this is significantly higher than Uber Eats' overall market share of around 25%. As such, it's worth keeping in mind that delivery time alone isn't the only influential factor; regions with a higher proportion of people using Uber Eats are much more likely to have a more specific peak time.

Checking Whether Your Area is Busy

The Uber Eats driver app offers several handy tools that can help identify whether you're in a busy area or not. This allows you to very quickly determine whether you are in an area that is likely to offer a good number of different job opportunities or if you might be better to look elsewhere.

Remember: if your region doesn't offer many delivery opportunities, you could struggle to make a good income overall.

CAN I MAKE MORE MONEY WITH UBER EATS OUTSIDE OF PEAK TIMES?

If you aren't able to work during peak times for Uber Eats in your area, or if you'd like to earn more with Uber Eats, you may want to consider other earning opportunities. Luckily, if you keep the most common challenges in mind, this can definitely help make your earning efforts a little easier.

Common Challenges Preventing Uber Eats Drivers from Making More Income

If you want to make the most of your time as an Uber Eats gig driver, being aware of the potential challenges can be incredibly helpful to ensure you're making the most of your time on the road.

Idle Time Between Jobs

One of the biggest challenges and limitations for Uber Eats drivers to face in terms of their earnings is idle time. Indeed, having to wait several minutes for the next order that's worth the time to ping through can be massively damaging to your work.

Let's assume an average delivery time of half an hour per order. If there is no delay between your orders, you could complete two orders per hour. If each order is worth around $12, you can easily make around $24 per hour with Uber Eats.

But what if you end up waiting five minutes for the next worthwhile local offer to turn up? This now means you'll be making $24 every 65 minutes, equating to just over $22 per hour. That represents a significant drop of approximately 8% - just for sitting around doing nothing. And don't forget; you'll be burning fuel too!

Have you heard that ParaWorks helps drivers earn up to $50/hr during their downtime by sending different types of high-paying gigs near their area?

Long Driving Times

Geography plays a large part in the availability and volume of jobs; in line with this, don't rule out areas that may seem further out from where you live to increase the number of orders you receive.

Knowing your way around each location is a huge benefit, as this can also help speed up your delivery time, ensuring you make the most of the time on the road. This is especially important at the busiest times of day, allowing you to make more from your time.

Waiting for Collections

Waiting around for collections can be another incredibly frustrating task for a food delivery driver. As such, if you have been struggling to complete enough deliveries, you may need to look at ways to streamline your orders so you spend more time on the road and less time waiting.

Low-Value Orders

Low-value orders are the bane of many driver shifts. However, if you have been presented with an offer that doesn't pay well per mile, you can always reject it to ensure you get a good rate for your work. Fortunately, this is where the Para delivery driver app comes in.

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Providing an array of useful information for your driving goals, Para helps you quickly and easily pick out which orders are worth the time (and which arent). In turn, this makes it an excellent option to consider if you've been trying to find new ways to streamline your delivery work.

Better still, the Para app is free for gig drivers. This undoubtedly makes it one of the best gig apps to make money with!

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you have been looking to make more with your Uber Eats driving, it's important to consider the best times and days to do Uber Eats deliveries. Indeed, this can massively reduce your downtime between jobs, which can greatly impact your overall ability to make money successfully with gig driving.

If you have any further questions about the best ways to make money with Uber Eats, please don't hesitate to check out our other guides; you might just find that they're the ideal way to bolster your own earnings.

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