Market Data 
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Chandler Moncada, a 29-year-old former Uber Eats driver in Phoenix. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
In May 2023, I got laid off from my full-time job in SEO and started driving for Uber Eats to pay my rent. I would recommend doing literally anything else than delivering food for a living.
It was a really bad time in my life, and in 10 months, I made about $9,000.
To make about $100 a day, you need to work 12 to 15-hour shifts
Food delivery drivers generally make less than the minimum wage. One study last year found that the average driver in NYC makes $7.09 an hour.
I would start my days at 5 a.m. and work until midnight. You usually get less than $1 per mile, but Uber will also suggest deliveries that aren’t worth it, like a $3 delivery — but from point A to point B is 12 miles.
That’s before factoring in gas, which you cover yourself and is around $4 a gallon where I live. Taking all those orders means you’re almost paying Uber to work. Maybe only one out of every 40 orders is truly worth your time.
On slow days, I could make as little as $30
I could be waiting around for hours, too. Sometimes, I needed to make money to eat, so I would throw a couple of gallons of gas in and only take home $20.
That meant I couldn’t pay bills — I was just making enough to survive. Fortunately, I had a good support system of friends to fall back on. If it wasn’t for them, I would’ve been sleeping in my car.
Then there’s the wear and tear on your car
I have a 2009 Toyota Avalon, which is economical, but I had to replace two tires during this time. It gets about 20 to 22 miles a gallon, but that adds up and means the work isn’t very profitable.
Your car insurance also goes up when you drive for Uber Eats. My insurance was with Progressive, and they charged an extra fee. It’s not a lot, but it can hurt when you’re making so little.
Uber’s system pressures you to take orders
Uber hides the tip the customer has entered, so it’s difficult to tell how much you’ll make from a delivery until you’ve accepted it.
The fee structure encourages the customers to wonder why they should tip when they’re already paying all these fees. People see the delivery fee on their order and think the driver receives it, but that’s not the case.
If I saw $8 for a delivery, I would usually expect a $5-$6 tip on top of that. The biggest tip I ever received was $100 for a massive grocery order.
Customers can change the amount of their tip after the fact
This usually happens if their food is late or cold.
Some customers will tip bait: They’ll offer a big tip so you grab the order, then change it after it’s been delivered. That really sucks and would happen often.
I focused on delivering in nicer areas, as they usually tip better. In Phoenix, that meant looking for deliveries to Paradise Valley and Scottsdale.
We’re supposed to be measured on acceptance rate, but I don’t think it actually matters
Acceptance is calculated by the number of orders you take out of those offered. If your acceptance rate is low, Uber sends a warning to encourage you to increase it.
I received enough of those to realize that they were empty threats. I was never removed from the app, and my acceptance rate was around 11%.
If an order wasn’t economical, I would cancel it. A friend and I experimented with cancellations just before I quit, and we still made more money than other drivers we knew because we were so picky with our orders.
They try to positively incentivize, too, with badges for platinum, diamond, and gold drivers based on certain metrics. I was diamond most of the time — to achieve that, you generally have to work full time and have a satisfaction rate of 95% or above. The only cool part is you get a free Costco membership.
My advice to drivers is to avoid stacked ordering
If you’re going to pick up an order, sometimes the app will say there’s another delivery you can add on to make an extra $5. What they won’t show you is the mileage.
In the beginning, I used to fall for it. It’s a bad idea because you’ll pick up another order before delivering the first, and it’s cold by the time it gets to that first customer.
I’m no longer driving because I got a new job
Delivering food is very draining and dangerous at times, and there are plenty of stories of Uber Eats drivers getting robbed. I found Reddit forums really helpful for finding information and a network of people to lean on.
I recently landed another full-time job, so I no longer have to deliver. I’m so blessed to have gotten off the road and back into my field and to have a decent salary.
