Do DoorDash drivers see the tip? That’s a question you might be wondering when you’re placing your order on DoorDash or if you are a Dasher looking to make money with DoorDash.
This is an important question for two reasons. If you’re a customer, you probably want to get your order delivered quickly and you probably want to treat your delivery drivers well. The simple fact is if you leave your DoorDash driver a good tip, you’re more likely to get your order delivered to you sooner. That’s because for most Dashers (this is what DoorDash calls its delivery drivers), the tip makes up most of the money they earn for each delivery.
If you’re a Dasher, you want to know whether you can see the tip because it’ll help you decide whether you want to do the order.
When it comes to whether DoorDash drivers see the tip, the short of it is that they don’t technically see the tip until after they complete the order. That being said, Dashers can still tell if the customer tipped them based on the payout that DoorDash is offering for the delivery.
Let’s get into more detail about whether DoorDash drivers see tips.
How DoorDash Pays Drivers
DoorDash uses independent contractors to deliver orders. The payout for every order consists of two parts:
- The base pay that DoorDash is paying the delivery person
- The tip the customer leaves the delivery person.
For example, if DoorDash offers a Dasher $6 for a delivery and the customer tipped $4, that means DoorDash paid $2 to the Dasher and the customer paid $4 to the Dasher.
In general, DoorDash pays a fairly low base pay of $2 to $4. The remaining payout to the Dasher comes from the tip left by the customer.
Now that you understand how DoorDash pays Dashers, you’ll have a better understanding of whether or not DoorDash drivers can see tips.
Do DoorDash Drivers See Tip?
Technically, DoorDash drivers cannot see tips before they deliver the order. However, it’s easy for most Dashers to figure out if a customer tipped or not.
Here’s why. Because DoorDash typically offers a very low base pay, the vast majority of the delivery payout usually comes from tips. If I receive an order and the payout is $2 or $3, I know that the customer didn’t tip or left a very small tip.
Once a Dasher completes the order, they get a detailed breakdown of the payout for the order. This breakdown shows what DoorDash paid to the Dasher and the tip left by the customer. Here’s an example of the screen that Dashers see after completing an order:
In this example, I saw that the delivery request would pay me $6 for the order. Since it was close by and I knew I could complete the delivery quickly, I accepted it. After completing the order, I was able to see that DoorDash gave me a base pay of $3 and a peak pay bonus of $1. I could also see that the customer left me a $2 tip.
There’s one thing to note. If a customer leaves a really large tip, DoorDash will often hide that amount. I don’t understand why they do this, but I think their rationale is that they think they can convince some Dashers to take a chance on low-paying orders in the hopes that the payout will end up being higher than what DoorDash offered.
For example, here’s an order I accepted that came with a really large tip. When I accepted the order, DoorDash told me I would earn $12.50. That’s a good amount, so I accepted it. After completing the order, I discovered that the customer had tipped much more and my total payout for the order ended up being over $32. That made me very happy that I accepted this order.
So what’s the takeaway here? If you’re a customer, be aware that if you leave a really big tip, your delivery driver might not realize how big your tip is before they deliver your order.
If you’re a Dasher, my advice is don’t bank on any order paying more than what DoorDash initially offered. While some orders might end up paying more, most of the time, they’re doing this a trick to try to get Dashers to accept low-paying orders. So, don’t fall for it.
Why You Should Tip Your DoorDash Driver
If you’re a customer reading this, you should be aware that while Dashers can’t technically see your tip before they deliver your order, in practice, every Dasher can tell if the customer tipped.
Tips make up the bulk of the earnings for many Dashers. If you don’t tip, the payout on your order is going to be lower, which means there’s a higher chance that no one will accept your order. So if you find yourself waiting a long time for your order to be delivered, it’s very likely it’s because you didn’t tip.
The takeaway – tip accordingly if you want your order delivered quickly.
Final Thoughts
DoorDash drivers can’t technically see the tip before they deliver the order, but in practice, they can tell if the order comes with a tip based on the payout they’re getting for the order.
If you are a DoorDash driver reading this, be strategic about how you approach your delivery requests (you can read this post if you want some DoorDash strategies: How To Make $500 A Week With DoorDash). Only accept orders that are paying you enough to make it worth your time.
And don’t accept an order hoping that the order will come with a bigger tip. For the most part, orders will pay exactly what DoorDash said they’ll pay.
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- Vanpowers Manidae Ebike – The Vanpowers Manidae is a fat tire ebike that I’ve been riding as my primary winter commuting bike and have also been using it to do food delivery with apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. After clocking in a decent number of miles with this ebike, I wanted to write a post sharing what my experience with the Vanpowers Manidae ebike has been like. Check out my Vanpowers Manidae Review.
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Kevin is an attorney and the blogger behind Financial Panther, a blog about personal finance, travel hacking, and side hustling using the gig economy. He paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer.
Kevin is passionate about earning money using the gig economy and you can see all the ways he makes extra income every month in his side hustle reports.
Kevin is also big on using the latest fintech apps to improve his finances. Some of Kevin's favorite fintech apps include:
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Feel free to send Kevin a message here.
I really don’t understand it u wasting all your gas for a 3$ Ride cross the world and gas is really high and all my lil money goes towards the gas 🤦🤷
Doordash currently displays the base pay and any prepaid tip on dasher offer. My husband and friend both are Dashers and I have gone along with my husband and saw for myself the offer details.
The best thing about being a dasher is instant payouts to dasher direct account once the dash is completed. Daily money helps make ends meet sometimes. The worst part is the compensation! Base pay is calculated based on estimated time to complete order and desirability of order. Often the base pay is only $2. Totally not worth it. If it took 20 minutes from accepting the order to completing the delivery that is $2 that would translate to just .10 per hour! If you dash per hour on a 20 minute delivery at $15.00 per hour you would get paid $5.00. Still not really worth it. Making it worthwhile is the customer tip for sure, To make it worth it my husband dashes for at least 20 hours a week at the hourly rate which is $15.00 where we live. However dashing at the hourly rate is not always available. Sometimes Doordash says there are no ore dashes available at the hourly rate but per order is available.
Doordash claims a dasher can choose when they want to work which makes dasher independent contractors. This is misleading. Unless you are a top Dasher ( 4.9 rating and 100 completed orders in the past 20 days) dashes may not be available at all due to too many Dashers and not enough orders. So really dashers can only choose from the available time slots. Top Dashers get priority offers over regular dashers. When you add up your time and vehicle expenses plus wear and tear on your car it might not be truly profitable unless you live in a big city and are Top Dasher.
I can’t believe Doordash convinced dashers and the government that dasher are independent contractors instead of employees. Delivery services and rideshare services do not meet ANY of the requirements for independent contractors but they do meet ALL the requirements o be an employer! The new law requires rideshare and deliver companies to offer medical benefits. The requirement for medical benefits is to have work 30+ active hours a week. Active hours are calculated from arrival time to pick up passenger to passenger drop off for rideshare companies. Doordash active time is from time of acceptance of an order until completion of deliver if dashing per hour. Dashing per order active time is upon arrival at restaurant until completion of delivery. Doordash claimed they would have to increase there fees to customers if they were classified as an employer and that dashers would not get to dash when they wanted to. Doordash increased their fees anyway and dashers still don’t have complete control of working hours nor do most dashers meet the requirements to receive medical benefits. Plus Federal income taxes are higher for self employed and independant contractors.
The least Doordash could do is offer insurance for the time dasher are logged in to dash instead only on an active dash since most insurance companies now have a huge fee for a rideshare or deliver driver rider. If the rider s not on the policy any incident that happens while logged into the delivery or rideshare app will not be covered and the service company insurance policy won’t be honored because it requires agents to maintain personal insurance policies!
Inconclusion, the daily payouts are nice but being a dasher isn’t really worth it and may actually cause you to PAY to dash!
Thank you for letting rant!
Your math makes no sense
I’m pretty sure that the discrepancy between what you see at first and the higher payout is because DoorDash gives customers another opportunity to add to the tip after receiving the order. I remember sometimes being asked to give a tip afterwards.
That’s not it. On the Dasher side, DoorDash hides particularly large tips for whatever reason, then when the order is completed, it’ll immediately say, your payout was higher than expected. This is not from the customer tipping more after the delivery.
While DoorDash does give customers the option to tip more after a delivery is completed, in the thousands of deliveries I’ve completed, I can count the number of times that has happened on less than one hand.
Good article and very true. While I’ve gotten several orders with higher tips, I definitely don’t count on that happening, it’s just a nice surprise when it does. When I first started dashing, I accepted pretty much everything, but now that I’ve been doing it a little while, I’ve gotten much smarter. I’ve turned down many orders because they want me to drive 13 miles for only $2 or $3 total (meaning the person didn’t tip, or tipped ridiculously low).