How Much Can You Make on DoorDash in a Day in 2024?

DoorDash is one of the largest and fastest-growing food delivery services, and more than 2 million people have already started making money with DoorDash. Speaking of money, how much can you make on DoorDash in a day?

Figuring out how much DoorDash drivers make will help you decide if this side hustle is worth your time or not. To help you with that decision, we’re going to break down everything you need to know about DoorDash driver pay, including how much you can make in a day or week, how drivers are paid, and more.

How Much Can You Make on Doordash in a Day?

What’s important to understand about DoorDash is that drivers are paid based on each order they delivery. Drivers aren’t paid a flat hourly rate, so how much you make in a day depends on how many orders you accept and how much each of them pays.

Drivers are paid for each delivery they make, and some markets are hot for DoorDashers, while others aren’t quite as busy. For example, if you live near a college town, you’ll likely make a killing dashing, but you may not be as busy if you live in a rural area.

Fortunately, since DoorDash has branched into grocery delivery, there are even more opportunities for orders.

How Does DoorDash Pay?

To understand the variation in pay, it’s helpful to know how DoorDash calculates driver pay. They use a formula called the Dasher Pay Model, which is Base Pay + Promotions + Tips = Earnings.

Here’s the DoorDash pay model:

Base pay

Your base pay ranges from $2-$10. It varies by order and is based on an algorithm that looks at the time, distance, and desirability for each order. The app shows you the base pay per order, and you can decide whether or not to accept the order from there. If the customer has added a tip in advance, you’ll see that too before accepting the order, and you always keep 100% of tips.

Promotions

DoorDash has a couple of promotions that help drivers boost their pay:

• Challenges are incentives to complete a certain number of deliveries in a set amount of time. An example of a challenge is an extra $20 if you complete 15 deliveries over 6 days. Your challenge progress is tracked in the app.
• Peak Pay is an extra $1.00+ amount per order for driving during busy times. The dinner and lunch rush is typically busier, and holidays like Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, New Year’s Eve, etc.

Tips

DoorDash drivers always keep 100% of the tips they earn while on delivery. DoorDash customers to tip in advance.

How Do DoorDashers Get Paid?

DoorDash  pays drivers weekly through direct deposit. You add your bank account information to the driver app when you sign up so DoorDash can start processing payments as soon as you start delivering.

For faster payments, DoorDash has two options:

• Fast Pay: For a fee of $1.99 per transaction, you can use Fast Pay, and DoorDash will immediately transfer your earnings to your bank account.
• DasherDirect: This is a free prepaid Visa business debit card available to Dashers, and DoorDash automatically transfers pay from each delivery to your DasherDirect card if you’ve signed up for it.

Using DasherDirect can save you money on instant payments, but you will have to be okay with having your money sit on a prepaid card instead of going into your bank account.

You can transfer money from your DasherDirect card to your bank account (or someone else’s as long as you have their account and routing numbers), and there’s no fee to do so. It takes 1-2 business days to see the money hit your account and there’s a $2,000/day transfer limit and a monthly limit of $5,000 with no more than 30 transfers per month.

Costs of Driving for DoorDash

Now that you understand how much you can make in a week or month with DoorDash, there’s one major caveat we need to discuss. Food delivery drivers are independent contractors, not employees.

This means one important thing; you are responsible for your taxes. You aren’t an employee, so you’ll have to pay both the employer and employee portions of your FICA taxes. 

We highly recommend withdrawing the appropriate taxes based on your tax bracket and putting them aside in a separate account. It’s a good idea to get with your tax advisor to determine how to file your taxes. Many delivery drivers pay their estimated taxes quarterly to stay on top of their obligations.

How to Increase Your Earnings With DoorDash

While driver expenses eat into your take-home pay, there are ways you can increase your earnings overall. The tips below will help you make more than the average DoorDash pay.

Tip #1: Know the Peak Times To Deliver

This is the key to making as much as you can from DoorDash. It’s all about working smarter, not harder. Pick shifts that are busy in your area. This may take some trial and error. But if you know people that already drive for DoorDash in your area, pick their brains. Find out when they are the busiest and/or get the largest orders because that’s when you’ll make the most money.

For example, if you deliver when DoorDash pays Peak Pay, you’ll make more per delivery and increase your daily earnings.

The busiest times on DoorDash are typically during meal times and major televised events when people don’t want to leave home. Making yourself available during those time will help you earn more than average.

Tip #2: Create a Consistent Schedule

If you have your mind set on making $500 or $1,000 a week with DoorDash, you need a consistent schedule. So pick your shifts early and stick to them. DoorDash lets you schedule your hours in advance, meaning you can make a good schedule for the week.

If you work the busier times, you may find you only have to deliver for 2 or 3 hours to make the same amount of money you’d make working 6 or 8 hours on slower days or times.

Tip #3: Deliver Where Others Don’t

DoorDash as a gig is becoming more popular, and more people are doing it. Thus, if you live in a saturated area, don’t be afraid to go a town or two over. As long as it’s feasible to drive the distance and pick up enough orders to keep you busy for a few hours, you may make more money because you aren’t competing against many other drivers.

Tip #4: Be Aware of Significant Events

Even though you may love hanging with the guys at the bar during a big game, it’s also a great time to be a DoorDash driver. Pick and choose your events wisely. If you know it’s a time that people will likely order delivery. You may want to be out there making money rather than spending it with your buddies.

Tip #5: Participate in DoorDash Challenges

DoorDash often runs challenges, especially when short on drivers in an area. When you participate in challenges, you can earn nice bonuses that can help you reach that $500 or $1,000 a week mark.

To complete a challenge, you usually have to complete a certain number of deliveries in a specified period to earn the bonus.

How To Get Bigger Tips With DoorDash

When you wonder how much you can make on DoorDash in a day, a lot of it comes down to how much you earn in tips. Drivers keep 100% of their tips, and the power truly is in your hands when it comes to how much you make.

Here are some great ways to ensure you get bigger tips:

• Follow directions: It sounds simple, but many drivers just don’t do it. Read the order carefully. Did the customer ask for extra ketchup or plastic silverware? Maybe they asked you to drop the order on the porch and have no contact. Read the directions carefully and follow them. This goes a long way with customers, and many will tip a little extra if you do what they ask.
• Be friendly: You provide your customers with a service, but a smile goes a long way. Tell them to have a nice day or ask if everything looks right if you hand them the order. Show your customers that you care, and they may reciprocate with a larger tip.
• Alert customers to delays: If you’ve run into a lot of traffic or the restaurant is running behind, throw a quick message into the DoorDash app to let your customer know what’s happening. If you don’t, they’ll assume it’s your fault, and they could even remove the tip they left for you. Customers have up to one hour to change their tips for the better or worse, so communication is vital.

Final Word: How Much Can You Make on Doordash in a Day?

DoorDash  is a great way to make money on the side, especially if you live in an area with many businesses or a college town, and now that DoorDash has expanded to grocery delivery, there are even more orders to go around in areas when it hasn’t traditionally been as busy for restaurant delivery