A Dash of Disappointment: My 3 Months as a DoorDash Driver

Examining the gig economy and all the pitfalls that come with it

There has been a lot of conversation recently about the gig economy. The success of companies that utilize apps to provide delivery services to consumers has exploded recently and has been both magnified (food delivery apps) and marginalized (ride-sharing apps) during the COVID-19 pandemic. As many Americans have been furloughed or laid off from jobs and industries have been impacted by the virus, becoming a delivery driver has become a viable option for many looking to make ends meet while they look for new opportunities.

In March of this year, I found myself in such a predicament. I had been furloughed from my position and learned that it would not be coming back. I started to look for new opportunities but needed to make some money in the interim as there were hang-ups in claiming unemployment. My solution was to become a DoorDash driver. I did that for three months — as my sole source of income — before getting another full-time job. My experience of being a ‘dasher’ and my inside look at the gig economy was eye-opening.

The Pay Structure

DoorDash and apps like it will often position their services as being incredibly flexible to allow for an entrepreneurial spirit to blossom in its drivers. Their slogan puts this front and center with messaging that reads: “Your time. Your goals. You’re the boss.” Unfortunately, nowhere in this American dream fantasy land picture does the company tell you, the potential driver, how this payment system works. Here is how it went in my experience as a driver.

DoorDash drivers get paid based on three things: base delivery pay, location peak pay, and customers tips. The customer tip is fairly obvious, as tipping has been a part of the American delivery dining experience for decades. The other two require a little more explanation. Every DoorDash delivery has what is called a base pay rate. Drivers are paid per delivery as opposed to per hour; this rate is usually in the $3 range. So by accepting an order and completing it, you, the driver, receive a bare minimum of $3 paid to you. This figure can be increased if a customer decides to leave you a tip (something that can be done while the order is being made or retroactively added post-delivery).

Finally, there is the concept of Peak Pay. Peak Pay is a system where if a certain area on the map receives a lot of orders, DoorDash will pay the driver more per delivery. Typically this is an extra $1–3 per delivery. Utilizing Peak Pay is important, as it’s the best way to efficiently make money on DoorDash. The combination of these three factors is how drivers get paid, and because DoorDash classifies its drivers as independent contractors or 1099 employees, the wages are not taxed until the end of the calendar year when taxes are filed. While this combination seems appealing, there are some other factors to consider.

It’s a Numbers Game

If you have never been a delivery driver in any capacity before, you may think that these numbers sound decent, under the assumption that every order will have a tip attached to it. I am here to burst that bubble. I live in the Metro Detroit area and was Dashing in neighborhoods that were affluent like Birmingham and West Bloomfield, and areas that are stricken with poverty like the west side of Detroit. Regardless of the area, over 60% of DoorDash customers did not tip their driver.

So what does this mean? Quite often, some deliveries paid out $3 for distances that did not make the gas spent to get to the restaurant and then the end location worth it. And while Peak Pay did help in this regard, the severe lack of tipping from customers on the app was a discouraging experience. The tragedy of this situation is that you can easily reject orders that only pay out $3 (DoorDash tells you how much you will make for an order before you accept it). But the issue with repeatedly doing so is that DoorDash has a metric called acceptance rate. This number calculates how often you accept deliveries when they are sent to you in your last 100 deliveries. If you constantly decline orders, you are less likely to receive future orders than drivers with a higher acceptance rate.

While on the surface this makes sense, higher acceptance would indicate a more reliable driver; it almost forces you as a driver to have to take these low-paying orders. Worse, a high acceptance rate (over 70%) is needed to be classified as a Top Dasher with DoorDash. A Top Dasher has to meet qualifications of acceptance rate, ratings, and several deliveries to qualify. It is a rewards program that provides benefits to Dashers, such as the ability to Dash anywhere at any time (non-Top Dashers need to wait for an area to be busy enough to Dash there) and an increased likelihood of receiving future orders. It almost becomes mandatory for Dashers looking for this to be their full-time source of income to take on these low-stakes orders even if they don’t make short-term financial sense.

The Restaurant Partnership Element

One of the most important parts of the DoorDash equation is the partnership with restaurants. The company needs to have as many restaurants on the app to encourage customers to stay loyal and not switch to a competitor like GrubHub or Uber Eats. In theory, this should be a match made in heaven. Restaurants get more exposure on the digital front, allowing them to grow their potential customer base. And in turn, DoorDash keeps customers on their app instead of traditional delivery setups and other delivery apps.

However, the reality is that restaurants have a love-hate relationship with DoorDash that is quickly turning into mostly hate. Restaurant owners and managers have disdain for the platform because of the fees that they are charged per order. The company is taking fees of up to 30% from restaurant owners in return for their restaurants being visible on the DoorDash app. (And in some cases, the restaurants lose money on orders). Restaurant employees that I have spoken to have lamented how DoorDash drivers behave inside their establishments. Many suggest that drivers are rude and inconsiderate of the staff, citing a lack of hospitality expertise, especially since many restaurants have been grappling with skeleton crews and longer wait times.

There are a couple of reasons behind the issues between Drivers and restaurants. First, DoorDash does not have a proper vetting system for its drivers. I applied to be a driver and submitted to a background check. An hour later, when the background check cleared, I was in the clear to start dashing. There was no way to determine if I would be an effective delivery driver for the company. Second, Dashers are always thinking about time. They are trying to get to restaurants and destinations faster to get more orders to maximize their time spent logged into the app. Longer wait times mean less opportunity to be receiving new orders and making more money.

Regardless of the reason, there is a disconnect between drivers and restaurant employees. DoorDash drivers are seen as a nuisance riddled with incompetence. Restaurants are looked at as another roadblock in the eyes of Dashers looking to make money. This frayed dynamic leads to a lack of consistency in picking up orders as a driver for DoorDash that contributes to hostility. Every restaurant has a different method, even if they are the same company. McDonald’s is a great example of this. Some locations will have Dashers go through the drive-thru window, while others will have delivery drivers ring the doorbell to receive orders. These nuances per location are not outlined in the Dasher app and lead to an experience far from ideal for all parties involved.

The Realities of an Erratic Business

The word that best summarises my experiences in the gig economy is erratic. Everything about the dashing experience as a driver lacks consistency. There are days when orders are coming through consistently, and it appears a great way to make a living. Dashers set their own schedules and work on their terms, so good days feel even better. But for every good day, there are the bad ones. Far too often, I had days where I would be on the road for 6 hours or so and driven over 150 miles — with only $40 to show for it. This was usually due to few orders, lack of tips, and orders that required driving longer distances to complete.

The gig economy is volatile and comes with its fair share of compromises. From a working perspective, it feels like marginalization for all parties involved. Customers pay more for the privilege of food being delivered. Restaurants pay more from their bottom lines to have their food available on the app. And drivers are not even classified as employees, making working for a company like DoorDash the definition of a mixed bag. Ultimately, it feels like another example of a tech company out of touch with the pulse of the country outside of Silicon Valley.

My experience with DoorDash was much like the consistency of my cash flow during my time as a Dasher: mixed. While Dashing did allow me to stay afloat while I found my next opportunity, it was riddled with frustrations. Navigating through the minefield of specific drop-off requests and various restaurant pickup policies was a nightmare, and it leaves me questioning the long-term viability of these services.

As many government-issued lockdowns have been lifted, the reliance on ordering delivery will surely wane as many people attempt to reclaim some sense of normalcy. As the necessity for these delivery services decreases, one has to wonder how much longer they can be viable in the foodservice industry when all the elements of that model (restaurant owners, restaurant workers, and delivery drivers) seem to have a bone to pick with DoorDash. Perhaps this is why the company has expanded to grocery stores and retail outlets for deliveries as a way of seeing the writing on the wall.

Of course, this was my experience as a Dasher, and everyone’s experience will be different. But my three months doing the job were far from ideal, and I couldn’t be happier to have a full-time job once again.