If food delivery is part of the gig driving mix that’s on your Gridwise app (and if you haven’t already, you should download the Gridwise app today), then being an Uber Eats driver is a must. Uber Eats is a solid #2 in the US food delivery market, with a 18.7% share, according to the Gridwise Annual Gig Mobility Report. And like the rest of the food delivery industry, Uber Eats continues to grow.
Uber Eats, and food delivery in general, has the potential to reach parity with rideshare and even outpace it in growth. The biggest reason? Food delivery companies continue to identify new vertical markets—alcohol, pharmaceuticals, dry goods, and agricultural products. With all this in mind, it’s time to answer, How much do Uber Eats drivers make in 2024?
For another perspective on Uber Eats, check out this recent Gridwise blog post, Uber Eats Driver Pay: How Much Do Drivers Earn? The information bears repeating, though, so you can also read more here.
Here's what we cover:
How is the Uber pay rate calculated?
The first question drivers ask is, How much does Uber pay? A number of factors determine Uber pay, and it’s important to understand them all.
- The per-mile charge
- The per-minute fee
- Tips
- Surge pricing
- Quests
- Boost+
- Basic fee
- Minimum wage
Let’s take a closer look at each one.
The per-mile charge. This is often where the bulk of earnings come from. The tricky part is that the per-mile fee varies city by city or sometimes region by region. For example, the per-mile fee in Los Angeles, as of this writing, is $0.80 per mile.
The per-minute fee. Now that Uber gives passengers and drivers up-front fees, the per-minute fee is determined by the app’s GPS, reflecting real-time traffic.
Tips. Drivers receive 100% of all tips through the Uber app. This is where you can make a difference in your Uber driver salary. We will discuss how to increase your tips later in this blog post, or you can also check out the Gridwise post 12 Ways Rideshare Drivers Can Earn More Tips.
Surge pricing. Surge pricing happens when demand in a specific area is greater than the supply of drivers. A heat overlay on your app’s map will show where surge pricing is in effect. Areas where there is a greater demand glow orange. The darker the orange, the greater the demand and the greater the surge.
Quests. Quests are bonuses offered to drivers for accepting a certain amount of rides in a specific time window. They might appear at the beginning of the week, instructing drivers that they will receive a bonus if they accept a certain number of rides during a certain period. For instance, the offer may be, “Accept a ride between 7:30 am and 8:30 am, and if you accept two additional rides, you receive a $12 bonus, even if the subsequent rides are outside the window.” Quests can vary depending on the offer. It can be three rides, or ten rides over a longer period, so pay attention to the details.
Boost+. Boost+ is similar to surge and incentivizes drivers to work in an area where Uber anticipates an increase in demand within a few hours. For instance, if there is a baseball game, the area around that stadium might have a boost+ designation so that when the game concludes, there are drivers in the area.
Basic fee. A Southern California driver once picked up a bachelorette party in Palm Springs. When he saw that their destination was a popular bar a few blocks away, he told the ladies they could have walked there. “You try walking in these heels,” one of them replied.
If you get one of these short rides, don’t agonize too much. Uber does give you a guaranteed minimum fee for short rides. Depending on your region, it’s $3 or $4.
Minimum wage. There are a few cities that have passed a mandatory minimum wage for gig drivers. In Seattle, it’s $17.27 an hour. In New York, it’s $17.96. Uber is compelled to make up the difference if you don’t earn that much driving.
How much do Uber Eats drivers make?
Why are the numbers significant?
The best gig drivers, including Uber Eats drivers, track the numbers to see what they’ve done. They examine other factors, such as time of day and their geographical delivery area, to determine what’s working. Recognizing this, Gridwise Analytics, a part of Gridwise, anonymizes and aggregates numbers from the more than 500,000 Gridwise drivers. They then publish these numbers so drivers can review and compare their performance against others.
Read more about this vital source of gig driving data at Why We Launched Gridwise Analytics.
Uber Eats hourly earnings
The population of Uber Eats drivers, indeed, most gig drivers, comprises a mixture of those who drive full-time and many others who drive part-time. Hourly earnings are a way to view wages equally, regardless of job type, and determine the average pay for an Uber Eats driver on an hourly basis.
Daily earnings for Uber Eats drivers
Uber Eats drivers are on the road anywhere from an hour or two to as many as 12 hours a day (the legal limit). This means daily earnings are not always the best reflection of performance, but they do give drivers something to go by.
The other factor to consider when looking at Uber Eats drivers' daily earnings is the number of drivers who have more than one app on at a time, known as multi-apping. For many drivers, Uber Eats occupies only a fraction of the time they are on the road each day. Drivers also work other food delivery services and even rideshare and package delivery. Other drivers, who work part-time, turn on their Uber Eats app only when they are headed home from their nine-to-five jobs or during other spare time.
Uber Eats driver weekly earnings
Again, the best Uber Eats drivers are constantly examining their earnings to see how they’re doing compared to other drivers.
Graph courtesy of Gridwise AnalyticsFor another analysis of Uber Eats driver pay, check out this post in the December 2023 Gridwise blog, Uber Eats Driver Pay: How Much Do Drivers Earn?
How much do Uber Eats drivers make in individual cities?
There is also a lot of variance in Uber Eats drivers' pay on a city-to-city basis.
A select look at 2023 Uber Eats earnings per city
| MSA–Metropolitan Statistical Area | Gross earnings per hour (average) |
| Los Angeles, Long Beach, Anaheim, CA metro area | $21.04 |
| San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, CA metro area | $20.66 |
| New York, Newark, Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro area | $14.76 |
| Chicago, Naperville, Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro area | $14.66 |
| Dallas, Ft. Worth, Arlington, TX metro area | $14.57 |
| Houston, the Woodlands, Sugarland, TX metro area | $12.94 |
| Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, FL metro area | $12.73 |
Factors that affect Uber driver pay per hour
As an Uber driver, there are two different hourly pay figures to look at. The first is your total earnings. The second is your earnings after expenses.
Total earnings
BusinessInsider.com reports that the ranks of Uber drivers swelled to over 5 million in 2022, an increase of 31% over the previous year. An influx of new drivers affects total earnings in two ways.
A smaller piece of the pie. An oversaturation of drivers on the streets means more drivers vying for passengers.
New drivers typically don’t earn as much. Experienced drivers know how to make more money on Uber using the strategies often discussed in this blog. It takes newer drivers time to learn those strategies. In the meantime, the reduced income of newer drivers pushes the average down. The good news here is that as a veteran driver, there’s a good chance your numbers are higher.
Earnings after expenses
Gig expenses is an area that many drivers don’t completely consider or realize they can save money. Uber driver expenses include
- fuel
- car payment
- cell phone bill
- maintenance and repairs (oil changes, tires, breakdowns)
- mileage depreciation
- supplies (bottled water, candy and gum, charging cords, etc.)
USInflationCalulator.com reports that inflation was 7% in 2021, 6.5% in 2022, and 3.7% so far in 2023. In the five years before 2021, the highest single year was 2019, when it was 2.3%. This means that all the expenses related to being an Uber driver have increased while total earnings have decreased.
The cost of fuel has made a considerable dent in driver earnings. According to AAA, the national average for a gallon of gas in January 2021 was $2.41. As of October 25, 2023, that price is now $3.541, an increase of 42%.
Higher oil prices drive other prices higher, too. Transportation costs skyrocket, as do the costs of raw goods. It takes an average of about seven gallons of oil to manufacture one car tire, so you can expect the price of tires to increase as well.
How can you better track your expenses? Check out the features of the Gridwise Expense Tracker and download it today.
How to make more money on Uber
Earnings are down, and expenses are up, but that’s no excuse for less money in your bank account. You can make a difference. There are things you can do to earn more money through the app, save on expenses, and pay less in taxes.
1. Track your results
Management guru Peter Drucker once said, “What gets measured gets managed.” There are many drivers, most of them high earners, that track their earnings on an Excel spreadsheet. You can also do this on the Gridwise app and always have it at your fingertips. It allows you to see trends and where you can improve. You might realize that starting your shift at 8:00 pm on a Saturday night, for example, is a drag on your hourly rideshare earnings. You could do better delivering UberEats, then switching to rideshare later in the evening.
2. Drive UberXL
Driving a car that carries at least six passengers qualifies you for UberXL, a category that earns you a higher Uber pay rate per mile, as much as 30% higher. Depending on your region, most nights UberXL will get you fewer rides. There are some nights, however, when it pays to break out the family SUV, including New Year's Eve, sporting events, or concerts and music festivals.
3. Where to drive and when to drive
The Gridwise app includes two handy features: When to Drive and Where to Drive. These allow you to check for the hot spots near you where demand is the greatest in real time.
Where and When to drive features on the Gridwise App
4. Work on tips to increase your Uber pay rate
Uber drivers earned tips equalling 12.01% to 14.38% of total earnings during the last eight quarters. If you’re tracking your results now, you can check where your tips are in relation to this baseline and try to do better. Don’t forget the Gridwise blog post, 12 Ways Rideshare Drivers Can Earn More Tips.
5. Pick and choose your rides
Part of your strategy as a driver is to avoid rides that take you away from the action. For instance, if you’re in Santa Monica, California, on a Saturday night, you might see a ride that will take you to the northernmost corner of neighboring Pacific Palisades. That’s a 20-minute drive, and after you drop off your passenger, you’re in an area that sees little ride potential. Pass on this one. There are more profitable rides.
6. Know what the per-mile rates are in your area
The per-mile rate for rides originating in Los Angeles County is $0.80 a mile, but areas that pay less per mile are just adjacent to that. A ride to LAX from the outer suburbs, where the per-mile rate is less, might pay around $55. The same ride a mile closer to LAX, over the county line into the Uber Los Angeles region pays you closer to $65. Know those boundaries. They are in your app.
7. Keep your passenger ratings up
Every passenger in your car gets the opportunity to rate their experience with you based on a five-star rating. Keeping your rates at 4.95 or higher is not that difficult, and it’s vital because many driver promotions are available only to drivers with a rating of 4.9 or higher. For more information on keeping your passenger rating high, read the Gridwise blog post How to Improve Your Rideshare Driver Ratings.
8. Multi-app
According to Gridwise Analytics, about 31% of drivers multi-app across platforms, meaning they work Uber and Lyft. The number of drivers who multi-app across categories, meaning they drive a combination of rideshare, food delivery, grocery delivery, and/or parcel delivery, is 21%. One of the reasons drivers do this is that different gigs have different peak times for demand. Food delivery is busy from 4:30 pm to about 9:00 pm, while rideshare is busier in the late evening and early morning hours. Some drivers even work Amazon Flex and other parcel delivery services, which are busier during the daylight hours.
Check out this Gridwise blog post to see how drivers use Roadie to augment their Uber driver salary (The Ultimate Guide to Being a Roadie Driver).
9. Maximize your mileage
One of the most significant expenses for any driver is fuel. There are things you can do to increase your mileage and get the most out of a tank of gas. Read the Gridwise blog 13 Ways to Save Money on Gas as a Rideshare or Delivery Driver to discover how.
10. Shop insurance rates
There are gaps in the insurance that the gig platforms provide drivers, compelling drivers to seek additional coverage for all eventualities. Insurance companies vary widely in their rates. It pays to check around. Two articles on the Gridwise blog address gig driver insurance: Rideshare and Delivery Insurance in 2023 and Insurance Basics for Rideshare and Delivery Drivers.
11. Track your miles as accurately as possible
The standard mileage deduction for the IRS is 65.5 cents per mile. A gig driver who puts 20,000 miles a year on their car can deduct more than $13,000 from their taxable income. The Gridwise app includes the best mileage tracker for Uber drivers, working in the background to track every mile you drive for Uber, and saving those mileage figures in an easy-to-handle database format.
12. Track your other expenses the same way
Everything you purchase as part of your business as an Uber driver is tax deductible, including bottled water, gum and candy, charging cords, and more. The Gridwise expense tracker helps you maintain accurate records that reflect everything.
13. Experiment, experiment, experiment
Conditions change all the time. People alter their patterns. You’ll only discover this by experimenting. One Southern California driver routinely drove on Thursdays, spending the day in Los Angeles, working the airports and trade shows. One Thursday he got a later start and worked through the evening. That’s when he discovered Thirsty Thursdays, the phenomenon of people starting the weekend fun early. “It made a difference,” he said. “Thursday nights are often as good as Friday nights in downtown LA.”
14. Take note of the better restaurants
Some restaurants are serious about takeout. These are the ones that have orders ready to go for drivers. Other restaurants are notoriously slow and unprepared. They waste your time, and the late delivery reflects poorly on you. Avoid the latter group.
15. Track the sporting events
March Madness is coming, followed by baseball, and then football season. Keep tabs on these events and adjust your driving schedule. Check out the Events icon at the bottom of your Gridwise app.
More tips on how to increase your Uber pay rate
Check out these additional Gridwise blog posts to help increase your Uber driver salary:
Gridwise can help you maximize Uber Eats driver pay
Gridwise is dedicated to providing the tools for gig drivers to realize their full income potential. We’ve already talked about the Where to Drive and When to Drive functions on the Gridwise app. Gridwise also has the best mileage tracker for Uber Eats drivers.
There are many more features and benefits of the Gridwise app, including
- traffic and weather alerts that keep you abreast of driving conditions
- an earnings tracker that lets you sync your various apps and automatically record earnings
- an expense tracker that helps you keep records and track expenditures
- informative graphs showing earnings and expenses for all the gig apps you use, allowing you to see where you’re earning the most
- access to affordable car insurance to keep you covered
- tools that help you multi-app and track your performance
- deals and discounts for drivers, including savings on gas
- an informative blog with the latest news in the gig driving world and information on strategies and tactics for earning more and working smarter
Ready to take your gig work to the next level?
Download Gridwise, the app that helps you track your expenses and maximize your earnings
More insights into Uber Eats driver pay
Check out these Gridwise articles to learn more about Uber Eats earnings:
