UberEats Driver Guide
February 25, 2024

How Much Do UberEats Drivers Make In 2023?


Have you been looking to get into the food delivery scene but are unsure where to start or if it’s right for you? In many cases, finding the ideal new career can seem challenging - but if it’s freedom you’re looking for, food delivery could be ideal.

Fortunately, our experts are on hand to help you find out more about working for one of the biggest food delivery platforms in the US: UberEats. Hopefully, this will give you a little insight into the benefits that UberEats can offer for drivers.

WHAT IS UBEREATS?

When it comes to food deliveries, there’s no doubt that UberEats is one of the most prominent names in the industry. As an online food ordering and delivery platform that has been operating since 2015, the platform is part of the wider Uber group, which is highly renowned for its range of ridesharing solutions. As a result, the company has also firmly established itself as a professional provider of direct home deliveries.

Overall, UberEats operates in as many as 45 countries and over hundreds of cities around the world. However, the US is no doubt one of its biggest markets, with just shy of one million connected restaurants and millions of drivers on its books (when accounting for Uber’s drivers, too).

No doubt, then, that it’s one of the most popular food delivery apps in the market, with a total market share of around 25%. And, if you’re looking to get involved with things and see how the system could work for your own delivery needs, there’s rarely been a better time to get started.

How Are Orders Allocated Through UberEats?

When a customer orders food through the UberEats App, the restaurant begins preparing the order as soon as possible. At this time, a notification is sent out to all nearby UberEats drivers that are nearby for someone to “claim” the job. Once a driver has accepted the delivery, they must make their way to the restaurant to pick up the order and then deliver it to the customer’s address. Upon delivery, they will receive payment and sometimes a tip from the customer.

To find out more about how UberEats assigns drivers, make sure to check out our guide!

How Much Can The Average UberEats Driver Make?

At this point, it’s worth asking: how much does UberEats pay its drivers? On average, UberEats drivers usually make about $18 per hour before expenses, making this a potentially decent income. However, many factors can influence this figure, so it’s worth noting that – with the right approach and tools – you can easily earn a significant amount of income above this. In fact, many UberEats drivers can easily earn well over $20 per hour (or more) simply by streamlining their approach and taking a few simple steps to ensure they’re able to complete as many orders as possible within a short span of time.

Top Tips For Making Money On UberEats

While the average UberEats income is relatively good, if you’re looking to develop a long-term, sustainable self-employed business, you’ll want to ensure you have a stable plan in place. Fortunately, the following tips can help you bolster your income and make the most of your time as an UberEats driver.

But remember: every job is priced individually, and tips also represent a significant amount of an UberEats driver’s income. So, make sure to factor this into your own decisions regarding how to make more money with your career.

#1. Focus on Nearby Jobs

One of the most significant ways to bolster your income as a gig driver is to look locally for opportunities. Indeed, it doesn’t matter whether you’re two minutes away from the restaurant collection or ten – you’ll make the same rate at the end of the day, so choosing opportunities that don’t take much driving time is crucial.

In short: accepting jobs further away means longer travel times for each job, which limits your earning potential each hour. Let’s take an example. Assume you have a job worth $8, and the total drive time is 20 minutes. If you’re two minutes away from the restaurant, your total time would be around 22 minutes, taking your hourly pay to $21.82. However, if you’re five minutes away, your total time would be 25 minutes, dropping your hourly earnings to $19.20.

While neither is necessarily a bad rate of pay, the difference is nevertheless significant. In fact, over a standard thirty five hour week, this would equate to $91.70 in lost earnings over the seven-day period.

Better still, focusing on local opportunities also means you can pick up several orders and deliver them quickly, giving you the potential to reduce downtime and idle time traveling between jobs. The best way to approach this is often through multiapping, allowing you to pick up several orders simultaneously. And in turn, this can reduce your idle time driving between pickups and significantly increase your total hourly earnings overall.

#2. Aim to Provide Great Customer Service

In many cases, food delivery drivers tend to focus heavily on getting orders completed and less on providing great customer service. In turn, though, this can have a negative impact on the overall level of customer service a customer receives – thereby preventing them from having a good experience.

This might not sound like such a major issue, but it can be when you consider the impact this can have on tips. While many customers will leave a tip at the time of placing an order, they may also give tips during or after you’ve delivered their food – and as such, going above and beyond (within reason) can be a brilliant way to increase the chances of getting tips.

It’s also worth noting that keeping in touch with your customers is a simple way to cut back on delivery times if you’re having difficulty in finding the address. This is common if you’re delivering somewhere new or if the property is hard to find. Fortunately, the Uber Eats app allows you to contact your customer directly, allowing you to find them more easily.

Don’t dawdle, though! While great customer service is important, your customer is unlikely to be impressed if you turn up late or spend so long chatting that they can’t eat their food while it’s hot. So, try to find that balance to give customers a level of service they’ll be grateful for!

#3. Decline Low-Paying Jobs

Don’t be afraid to say no to jobs that aren’t going to offer a good rate of pay for your time! While UberEats is great for its pay structure which accounts for the estimated distance traveled as part of its earning metrics, this doesn’t mean that longer deliveries will automatically be better. As such, make sure you consider whether you’re actually getting a good price for your time. Don’t worry – the Para app can tell you this automatically!

Declining low-paid jobs or ones that are too far away save you time and, ultimately, money. Thus, it’s not worth taking on jobs if you’re concerned about value!

#4. Look Out for Surge Pricing

Did you know that you can earn more from your deliveries by making the most of “surge” pricing opportunities? These are times when there is an influx of orders being placed, usually at the busiest times of the day.

While the roads might be a little busier at these points (in some cases), surge pay offers a bonus over regular earnings, making ends meet as a delivery driver easier. Not only are more jobs open during these times, but they also offer a bonus for quick deliveries. These surge periods are the best opportunity to select the ideal job, and more jobs are available.

Surge times are also a great opportunity to build solid ratings on the app, as a large volume of deliveries can be completed in a short span of time. So, if you’ve been looking for new ways to bolster your earnings as an UberEats driver, this can be an excellent strategy to employ.

#5. Make the Most of Quests and Bonuses

As a further tip, it’s well worth considering how bonuses can help boost your earnings. These are promotions run by Uber Eats as an incentive to encourage drivers to complete a greater number of deliveries, as well as bonuses and driver perks that help make the job more lucrative overall. Quests are also a key part of this, offering additional bonus pay for drivers who manage to complete a predefined number of deliveries within a set period of time.

One of the great features of quests and bonuses is that they’re available on top of your basic earnings. As such, it’s important to make sure that you’ve looked at the available opportunities to make more from your time on the road – without needing to do any extra work, in many cases! What’s not to love about that?

BOOSTING YOUR UBER EATS EARNINGS WITH PARA

Working as an UberEats driver is no doubt one of the most common types of side gigs for many people, but it’s worth noting that this isn’t necessarily the only option out there. With this thought in mind, if you’ve been looking to earn more from your UberEats gigs, make sure to consider multiapping as well.

Multiapping is more than just a fancy word. Indeed, this simple strategy allows you to work for multiple delivery apps at once, maximizing your earnings and allowing you to further streamline your deliveries for maximum returns.

Features of the Para App for Delivery Drivers

There’s a lot to love about the Para app for delivery drivers, and this makes the tool one of the best options to consider if you have been looking for a simple way to streamline your earnings. Better still, it’s also completely free to use, making the tool incredibly popular.

The Para gig driver app is designed to offer everything gig drivers need to know in one place, with handy features designed to enhance your experience. Crucially, some of the key features of the app that help drivers make more from their time include the following:

  • Auto accept and decline offers that aren’t worth the time, streamlining delivery tasks
  • View the estimated total payout and dollar-per-mile payments immediately, reducing the risk of taking on low-paying jobs that would leave you out of pocket at the end of your drives
  • See when food is likely to be ready, preventing you from wasting time waiting around
  • Flag passengers and customers/restaurants that you don’t want to work with again in future
  • View pick-up and drop-off addresses automatically
Para features with each platform - UberEats, Uber, Lyft and Grubhub

These are just a few of the great features that help make the Para platform one of the most valuable delivery driver tools. Why compromise? Make sure you’ve downloaded the app to see whether it could help streamline your own earnings as well.

Adding ParaWorks to your Delivery App Roster

In addition to the Para platform, the ParaWorks delivery driver jobs also offer a brilliant addition to your regular work roster. Offering typically higher rates of pay, the ParaWorks app is designed to help give drivers greater control over their own activities, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to make a fair rate for their time.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you’ve ever wondered how UberEats works and how much does UberEats pays its drivers, today’s guide should hopefully have helped. Indeed, in many cases, it’s well worth looking at the different pay structures and processes before choosing where to work as a gig driver.

Luckily, though, UberEats is one of the best places to start – and, even better, you can streamline your earnings and make an even better income by integrating the Para and ParaWorks apps (some of the best gig apps for drivers wanting to make more from their time on the road and simplify the earnings process). So, don’t delay; start your new gig driver career today with UberEats; if you’ve been looking for greater freedom and opportunities, this might just become your perfect new job.

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