Being an Amazon Flex delivery driver is one of the darling jobs of gig driving. Based on Gridwise numbers, gig drivers earn as much as $36 per hour delivering for the online retail service. You can read about it in two recent Gridwise blog posts: Amazon Flex Driver Pay [2023] and How to Make $1,000 a Week with Amazon Flex.
Drivers soon find there are downsides to Amazon Flex. The most prominent is their Amazon Flex standing, the performance metric used to monitor gig drivers. Too many bad ratings, and you can get deactivated.
And then, no more Amazon Flex or their perks for you.
However, if you understand the guidelines, you can live in the same world as the Amazon Flex standing system. These are the things we’ll cover.
- What is the Amazon Flex standing?
- How is your Amazon Flex standing measured?
- Factors outside your control.
- Know how to improve your Amazon flex standing.
- What happens if you get deactivated?
- Gridwise can help.
What is the Amazon Flex standing?
The Amazon flex standing is how Amazon evaluates the performance of its gig drivers. Most gig driving services use a rating system. Rideshare drivers are familiar with the five-star system used by Uber and Lyft. Amazon is different. They rate drivers at four levels:
- Fantastic. You’re doing a bang-up job!
- Great. You’re doing a good job. It could be better.
- Fair. You need to get focused. There are some issues.
- At-risk. You’re in danger of deactivation.
The first two ratings are a good place to be. An Amazon Flex fair standing is more concerning. You should identify and work on your problems. Then there is the dreaded Amazon Flex at-risk standing. This is bad and means that your days as an Amazon Flex driver are numbered if you’re not careful.
According to reports, most Amazon Flex delivery drivers keep their ratings in the top two tiers. You get extra scrutiny if you fall into the fair or at-risk levels.
How to determine your Amazon Flex rating
Open your Amazon Flex driver app. Go to the menu and navigate to the activity hub. Your status is updated every day. If Amazon sees a problem with your ratings, such as an abrupt downward slide or even a gradual decline, you will receive notices through the app. According to some drivers, though, this doesn’t always happen. Deactivation can sometimes be swift and, in some cases, ruthless.
A bad standing can cost you money and Amazon Flex bonuses
Letting your Amazon Flex standing fall below great costs you money. It affects the blocks’ quality on the Amazon Flex driver app. Experienced Amazon Flex drivers know it’s all about the quality of the blocks.
Amazon also gives perks to their drivers, those with fantastic or great ratings. You can earn up to 6% cash back on all fuel and EV charging, 2% cash back on Amazon.com and Whole Foods Market purchases, and 1% on all other purchases through an Amazon Flex Debit Card. Read about it on the Amazon Flex delivery driver website.
How is your Amazon Flex standing measured?
The folks that run the delivery side of Amazon are interested in two broad categories. First, they want the system to work well. Second, they want customers to receive their orders as promised. According to the Amazon Flex website for drivers, these categories include
- on-time arrival
- on-time cancel
- delivery completion
- on-time delivery
- delivered and received
These five categories fall into two larger areas: reliability rating and delivery quality. According to some Amazon Flex delivery drivers on Quora and Reddit, how Amazon judges these factors varies from situation to situation. There is no set number that moves you from one category to another in your Amazon Flex standing. Drivers grumble that the standings are a capricious system based on a logic Amazon does not share. Drivers also report not always getting satisfactory answers to all their rating questions.
Welcome to the life of a self-employed contract worker. Understanding these topics, however, can give you insight into maintaining good ratings.
Reliability rating
On-time arrival. As mentioned earlier, Amazon wants their delivery system to work well. For Amazon Flex delivery drivers, this means showing up on time for reserved blocks. Amazon requires you to arrive at the warehouse within five minutes of your block start time. This is what they call on-time arrival. If you miss that time slot, you will not be allowed to start your block, and it gets marked as a no-show. Not showing up on time means that the Amazon Flex delivery department folks have to make that block available online again, and they might have to attach a premium price to it to attract a delivery driver.
On-time cancel. Amazon realizes that life happens. You might have a family emergency, experience car problems, or get sick. You can cancel a scheduled block, which Amazon calls forfeiting, without harming your ratings if you cancel more than 45 minutes before the start of that block. This is called on-time cancel and ordinarily does not get counted against you. If you realize you will be a no-show within that 45-minute window, you can still cancel, but it will go against you.
Amazon does not state on its website how many blNo set number movesating average, but reports say that they look at your performance on the last 20 blocks you completed.
The key to maintaining your reliability rating is to show up in that five-minute-arrival window, and if you have to cancel, do it no later than 45 minutes before your block time. The best advice, though, is just don’t cancel.
Delivery quality
Delivery quality is divided into three areas.
Delivery completion. Amazon looks at delivery completion based on how many packages in your block were delivered. There will be times you cannot deliver a package: it has an insufficient address, there is a mean dog in the yard, you can’t get access to a building, or it might be a business delivery and the business is closed. These situations are out of your control, so it’s frustrating. Amazon records every package you don’t deliver, which might count against your Amazon Flex standing. Your solution is to document everything on the app. Amazon Flex delivery drivers must drop off undelivered packages to the originating Amazon hub by 10:00 AM the following day. If they arrive after that time, they get marked against you.
On-time delivery. Pay attention to the packages in your block and note any that indicate a specific delivery time. Even if you have sorted your packages and this delivery is not until the middle of your block, you might have to go straight to that delivery location to meet the time requirement. The same goes for packages going to a business when it’s getting toward closing time. Deliver them out of order if you need to meet that deadline.
Delivered and received. This can be frustrating because now we’re dealing with porch pirates, those thieves that follow both Amazon Flex delivery drivers and regular drivers and steal the packages after they are delivered. You take a photo of a delivered package using the Amazon app. This photo gets transmitted to the recipient as proof of delivery. But if a porch pirate comes along after you and steals the package, it can count against you as a missed delivery, and there is very little you can do about it.
An active porch pirate on your block on a particular day can drastically affect your standing on Amazon Flex. Do your best to place the package where the recipient can easily see it, but it’s unseen from the street. Porch pirates rarely walk up and check for packages near the door. They cruise around and look for what they can see from the street. If you suspect a porch pirate is trailing you as you complete your block, call the police.
As with reliability issues, Amazon is closemouthed about how many delivery issues will alter your standing with Amazon Flex. Industry sources say that the average is based on your most recent 500 deliveries. This sounds like a big number, but 500 deliveries represents about two weeks of work if you’re a regular on Amazon Flex, less if you’re a busy driver completing lots of blocks.
Other factors that can get you deactivated
Bots. The internet is full of bots that help you procure more and better quality blocks on the Amazon Flex driver app. Amazon prohibits these, as stated in the Amazon Flex Site Terms under the License and Site Access heading. Amazon purportedly incorporates algorithms into their app that detect drivers using bots. ThisOnlineWorld.com reports that bot developers are getting better and better at making their bots unrecognizable. Using a bot, however, is still a risk.
Driver photos. Amazon requires drivers to take a selfie of themselves before the commencement of each block. The app compares this photo to your profile photo using facial recognition technology to ensure that it’s you picking up the block, not your Uncle Fred, your cousin Goober, or a porch pirate who has figured out a new scam. Drivers find that getting the photo to fill as much of the frame as possible works best. Although facial recognition uses biometrics, changing your appearance (growing a beard, coloring your hair, etc.) might fool the software into thinking you’re someone else. You can’t start your block, it counts against you, and you could get deactivated.
Safety. Amazon is a business, and all businesses take safety seriously. When you’re picking up your block in the hub, follow all rules and don’t engage in horseplay. Safety violations will get you deactivated quickly.
Factors outside your control
This is a reality, and it’s frustrating for Amazon Flex delivery drivers. There are all sorts of scenarios that you have no control over.
- The warehouse might be running late or have other problems that set you back.
- Some drivers report that the Amazon Flex driver app navigation is notoriously bad (Tip: regularly update the app to ensure you’re running the latest version).
- A porch pirate operates in your area and is incredibly adept at finding packages.
These are only a few of the things that can happen to an Amazon Flex delivery driver, and the resolution department might not see your side of the issue. You have to live with it, but so do other drivers. And remember that most Amazon Flex delivery drivers manage to stay in the higher standings.
Know how to improve your Amazon Flex standing
There are two ways to move your rating out of the Amazon Flex fair standing or the dreaded Amazon Flex at-risk standing, and they’re most effective if done in unison.
First, look at your ratings and see what things you’re getting dinged for. Do you have issues with being on time at the hub? Did you forget that you reserved a block last week and were a no-show? You need to correct that.
What about delivery quality? Good Amazon Flex delivery drivers circle back at the end of their block, revisiting undeliverable addresses. Something might have changed. Maybe they can now get access to a building or gated community. Perhaps that big dog keeping you away is now in the backyard.
Pay attention to addresses, especially in private communities. They’re often confusing. It’s easy to deliver to the correct address number but on the wrong street. Good drivers always double-check.
Second, although the exact formula for determining the Amazon Flex standing is unknown, it’s safe to assume that these numbers are based on averages. Doing more blocks is an excellent way to move the needle on your average.
Don’t let a bad rating freak you out and upset your rhythm. Like they say in the rodeo, “You gotta get right back on that horse!”
What if you do get deactivated?
What can you do if, despite your best efforts, you get deactivated from the Amazon Flex driver app? It happens.
Be proactive. There is a path on the Amazon Flex driver app that allows you to appeal deactivations. Use it. You might have a phone number for Amazon, but the people overseeing deactivations for Amazon Flex like electronic correspondence. They are not interested in multilayered storylines, elaborate plot twists, and multiple characters. Keep it simple. They may reconsider your case if you have been a good Amazon Flex delivery driver and have the history to show it. If you’re falsely accused of using a bot, the algorithm could be wrong, or it could be a case of mistaken identity.
Gridwise can help
A vital part of your gig driving insurance policy is to use the Gridwise app. Gridwise has convenient features allowing you to maximize earnings in many gig driving jobs – including free mileage and earnings trackers! Using Gridwise also helps when you multi-app for other services, give us a try!
Download Gridwise to get more out of your gigs
And have fun out there.
