How to Make More Money as an Uber Eats Driver

Have you ever wondered how to make more money working as an Uber Eats driver? Delivery driving is rapidly becoming more popular ' and, with $4.8 billion in revenue for 2020, Uber Eats is definitely one of the biggest food delivery apps. However, learning how to earn more gig work can be an excellent option to ensure you're getting what you deserve. After all, since most gig work and delivery driving is done on a piece rate, the price you get per hour often varies.

Fortunately, by considering today's guide, you can learn more about making money as an Uber Driver. Hopefully, this could help ensure you get a fair rate for your work; it's more than possible to make good money with delivery driving, be it as a part-time or full-time job.

HOW TO MAKE MORE MONEY AS AN UBER DELIVERY DRIVER

Uber Eats, as with many food delivery apps, pays its drivers on a piece rate. That is to say, you get paid per delivery you make, rather than per hour. Still, on average, most Uber Eats drivers will make around $12 to $17 while making deliveries. However, while other delivery driving apps ' such as DoorDash, GrubHub, and PostMates ' might have a higher average hourly rate, there are two key benefits of Uber Eats that still makes it an excellent app for deliveries. These are:

1. Uber Eats pays based on your time elapsed and per mile. As such, while apps such as DoorDash usually pay based on the order value, Uber Eats typically pays based on the amount of time and fuel you spend driving.
2. With Uber Eats, you can enjoy access to a wider pool of orders. Getting larger and more valuable orders with Uber Eats is easily possible with a little careful order selection (as we'll consider) to ensure you're taking on the most valuable deliveries. The wide pool of orders means these are often available, making it possible to complete several deliveries at once!

These are just two of the reasons why people choose to drive through Uber Eats. Plus, it's well worth considering that you can always deliver for both Uber Eats and other apps simultaneously ' helping you make substantially more money as an Uber Eats driver.

But what options are available in this regard? How can you make more money as an Uber Eats driver? Well, we recommend the following ten tips to make more money as an Uber Eats driver. But remember: there's no single solution to make more, so sometimes, it just takes a little bit of creativity!

#1 Work More Often

Where possible, the most obvious way to make more money as an Uber Eats driver is simply to work more often. Indeed, many people assume they are limited as to how much they can work as an Uber Eats driver. However, this isn't entirely true. In fact, you can work almost freely as an Uber Eats driver, allowing you to take on more driving hours and make more money as a result!

This doesn't need to be much to make a big difference to your income. For example, driving just an extra 10 minutes per day could net you almost an additional $1000 per year, depending on your hourly rate ' that's a huge difference for very little extra work, really!

Plus, it may be worth considering ways you could dash at times that might otherwise be unproductive. For example, picking up and dropping off order as part of the school run to pick up the kids can be a great way to transform non-earning hours into a money-making endeavor. Alternatively, if meeting up with friends for a catch-up and money's a little tight, why not ask if they'd be happy to accompany you while making deliveries instead? You'll still get paid, and you can have a chat with your friends while doing so. It's a win-win, really.

Are There Limits to How Much I Can Work?

While it's great to have freedom, unfortunately, you can't work completely unrestricted with Uber Eats. Indeed, there is a limit on how much you can work based on a 24-hour period. For example, you'll only be able to work for 12 hours at a time in a 24-hour period. After this, as explained on the Uber Help Pages (which varies by region), you'll have to go offline for a minimum of six hours before you can begin delivering again. After six hours, this will reset your driving time down to zero again.

#2 Drive During Surge

One of the most effective ways to earn more with Uber Eats is to drive at peak times. Since Uber Eats works with over half a million restaurants across the United States, there are potentially thousands of people looking for meals at any one time. And, when these orders become too much for the current delivery team to handle, Uber Eats puts out a surge pricing offer to encourage more drivers to get involved. Surge pricing could potentially award almost twice the payouts compared to normal. As such, this might be one of the best Uber Eats driver hacks to consider if you've been looking to boost your income.

#3 Drive at the Right Times

It's not just the "surge times" that are valuable ' even without the payment boost, driving at optimal times is an excellent way to bolster your income. You should also remember that some days are likely to be slower days than normal ' these may offer less earning potential.

Indeed, there won't always be high-value gigs available through Uber Eats ' but there are typically many more gigs available around mealtimes, such as around lunch or dinner.

As such, if you can, it may be worth signing onto the Uber App during the busiest hours to see whether you might be able to find more lucrative delivery opportunities.

#4 Make the Most of Promotions

One of the features on Uber Eats that's often under-used by delivery drivers is the promotions feature. Through driver promotions, drivers are rewarded for completing deliveries, such as for the number of completed trips, the number of trips per hour, and the like. However, it's well worth considering since driver promotions can substantially increase your hourly rate with Uber.

#5 Don't Rely on Payment Per Minute

One excellent feature of the Uber Eats payment system is the 'pay per minute' metric. However, it's easy to become overly reliant on this. But there's a catch. Indeed, the Pay per Minute is usually only around $0.12 ' meaning that you'll only get $7.20 per hour ' around half the average Uber Eats payment rate. This fact is also only applicable if you're forced to take a detour. So, instead of relying on the payment per minute, try to complete more deliveries per hour instead ' it'll substantially increase your earning potential!

#6 Integrate Multiapping

Have you ever thought about trying multiapping? It might not be for everyone. Still, multiapping can offer countless benefits, helping you make the most of the many different delivery apps. For example, you could benefit from the higher hourly rate of DoorDash driving (predicted to be around $24 per hour) while enjoying the greater selection of orders available through Uber Eats.

And it's pretty easy to see why this works, too. Just image: you take on a delivery worth $5 with Uber Eats, and it gives you a $3 tip. If this delivery takes 25 minutes, you will make around $19 per hour before fuel costs. But what if you took a 5-minute detour to pick up a $3 delivery with DoorDash, which gave a $4 tip? Now, you'd driven for half an hour but have made a total of $15 ' equating to $30 an hour!

What's more, multiapping and taking on multiple deliveries at once is a great way to overcome the risk associated with tips. Indeed, when delivery driving, you can't see your tip until after you've completed the order normally. But, for the aforementioned job, even without tips, you'd still make $8 in half an hour, which at minimum would work out to $16 per hour. So, if you're looking for additional rate stability (and potentially substantially more pay), multiapping could be ideal for you.

#7 Plan Your Time

Down-time is one of the most significant ways to lose money while delivering with Uber Eats ' which is why planning your time is so vital. For example, there's no point hanging around a restaurant car park aimlessly waiting for a new order; try to accept the delivery before leaving the previous, to streamline income. Make sure you'll arrive early to collect the delivery, to be safe, though.

#8 Be Professional for Tips

When it comes to Uber driving, one of the biggest sources of income is often in the form of tips. With this thought in mind, if you've been looking to earn more with your Uber deliveries, it's well worth considering hanging around to give your customers a chance to tip you manually and through the app. Indeed, when you take on a delivery, you won't know how much tip you're entitled to. However, if you provide a genuinely impressive service ' arriving early with the food piping hot, for example ' your customers may be more likely to tip.

First, start every conversation with a smile and a question: 'Are you [Insert Name Here]?' This offers a more personalized service for the customer and helps show you're genuinely looking out for them. Then, before you rush off after delivering the order, just hang around for a moment ' it may be enough to remind your customers to tip. And, if not, just walk away with your head held high; remember, you'll very rarely get a tip if you directly ask for one! Leave this up to the customers, instead.

Remember, your customers can also rate your service and provide a tip. Of course, this works both ways ' if they don't get a great service, you can be sure that Uber Eats will hear about it!

#9 Know When To Say No

While Uber Eats' payment system is based on ensuring that every driver gets recognized for the amount of work they do, that doesn't guarantee a stable income. With this in mind, some orders ' high tipping customers ' will be worth much more than others ' namely, those with low tipping customers. Alternatively, restaurants that are slow to prepare food will result in substantially more idle time ' cutting into your working time and causing you to lose out resultingly.

However, it's, of course, a balancing act here ' as with anything in life. And while turning down offers will impact your acceptance rate, from time to time, it's important to do so to ensure you're not taking on jobs that won't pay fairly.

Fortunately, if you know a particular restaurant is especially bad for making you wait, you can instead blacklist them through your gig HQ. Don't deliver for restaurants that waste your time!

#10 Use Para

Did you know that the Para app now offers support for Uber Eats drivers? In fact, Para offers countless benefits for Uber Eats drivers and provides several excellent features that make monitoring your deliveries easier than ever. These include the following:

• Monitor the total mileage for orders
• See drop-off addresses to help plan your route
• Automatic dollar per mile estimate calculations
• Restaurant and building flagging
• Total driving time, helping you plan around your commitments

These handy features make it so much easier to choose high-value gigs when working on Uber Eats. Plus, the Para app is ideal for multiapping, thanks to its ability to even predict how much tip you'll receive on other apps. This feature is currently in the works for Uber Eats, too; so it's a great time to get involved for any delivery drivers looking to make a little more on their deliveries.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Have you been looking to learn how to get more for your trips on Uber Eats? If so, then we hope today's Uber Eats hacks and tips may have helped. After all, while Uber Eats might be one of the lower-paying delivery apps online, it can be highly lucrative if you take the right steps. For example, by integrating multiapping, taking on multiple deliveries at once, and ensuring you've integrated a driver helper app such as Para, you can boost your earning potential through Uber Eats and find the most effective way to deliver for you.

Remember: just because Uber Eats is lower-paying by default, it's a hugely valuable app in many cases for order volume and payment structure. And, with a little bit of clever work, you can boost your Uber Eats earnings substantially as a result.