If you’re ordering food with Uber Eats or working as an Uber Eats delivery driver, you might be asking yourself, do Uber Eats drivers see tips?
The short answer is that Uber Eats drivers do not technically see customer tips until about 1 hour after an order is completed. That being said, that doesn’t mean Uber Eats drivers can’t figure out what a customer tipped. When an order request gets sent to an Uber Eats driver, they receive an expected payout, which includes whatever the customer put as a tip when they placed their order.
In this post, I’ll take a deeper dive into the question of whether Uber Eats drivers see tips. We’ll also go over how tipping works in the Uber Eats app and explain why, if you’re ordering food, you should always tip your Uber Eats driver.
Do Uber Eats Drivers See Tips?
So, as previously stated, Uber Eats drivers can’t see the customer’s exact tip until about 1 hour after the order has been completed. However, while Uber Eats drivers can’t see the exact tip a customer left, they can usually figure out how much the customer tipped simply by looking at how much the order is paying.
Uber Eats drivers are independent contractors, so they are paid on a per-delivery basis. When a customer places an order, it gets sent out to available drivers, who are provided with an expected payout for that order. Here’s an example of what an order looks like when it gets sent to an Uber Eats driver.
For this order, I was told that the payout would be $7.55, which included the expected tip.
The payout for an Uber Eats delivery consists of three parts: (1) the base fare that Uber Eats pays, (2) surge pricing, if applicable, and (3) any amount the customer tipped. Generally, the base fare for an Uber Eats delivery will be $2.50 to $4. Since I knew this, I also knew that for this order, the customer likely tipped a few dollars, raising the expected payout to the $7.55 offered.
So, while Uber Eats drivers can’t see the exact tip amount left by a customer, they can generally tell if a customer tipped.
When Do Uber Eats Drivers See Tips?
Customers leave a tip for their Uber Eats delivery person at the time they place their order in the Uber Eats app.
If you’re a customer ordering with Uber Eats, at the end of your order screen, you’ll receive an option to leave a tip for your delivery driver. It’ll typically, give you the option to tip 15%, 20%, or 25%, as well as an option to put your own custom tip. Uber Eats defaults to customers leaving a tip, so to leave no tip, you have to manually change the tip to $0.
For delivery drivers, you’ll see the exact tip the customer left approximately 1 hour after completing the order. The app will then give you the option to send a thank you to the customer. When you click the button, the customer receives a push notification on their phone thanking them for their tip.
Changing Tip Amount In Uber Eats
The one thing to note about Uber Eats is that it allows customers to change their tip for about 1 hour after they receive their delivery.
This is both potentially good and bad. In theory, if you’re a customer and there’s a problem with your order, you can change your tip and leave a smaller one for the delivery driver. Or, if your driver goes above and beyond for you, you can increase your tip to reward your driver.
This is different from DoorDash or Grubhub, both of which have customers leave tips at the time they place their order and do not let them change their tip amount later.
Here’s an example of an Uber Eats order I completed where the customer lowered their tip after I delivered it.
The vast majority of orders (I’d say about 95% of the orders I accept) pay exactly what Uber Eats expected I’d earn with the tip. In fact, I also get a good number of orders where the customer increased the tip after I delivered it.
What Happens If You Don’t Tip Your Uber Eats Driver
Since Uber Eats delivery drivers can’t see the exact tip you leave, some customers may be tempted to leave no tip at all to save money. In general, I don’t recommend doing this. As I explained in the previous sections, while Uber Eats drivers can’t see the exact tip left by a customer, they can usually tell what the customer tipped based on the expected payout.
The reason why tipping is important is that Uber Eats drivers can choose whether or not to deliver a customer’s order. If you don’t tip, Uber Eats will likely offer just $2.50 to $4 to the driver to complete an order. Wise Uber Eats drivers will reject those orders, which means your order might not get picked up for a while. If you want to get your order picked up and delivered to you quickly, leaving a fair tip is important so that a driver will accept your delivery request.
Unfortunately, some unscrupulous customers have figured out ways to take advantage of drivers with a scheme called “tip baiting.” Since customers can change their tip amount for up to 1 hour after receiving their order, some customers will initially leave a large tip to get a driver to deliver their order, then change their tip afterward (often lowering the tip to $0).
In my experience, very few customers engage in this tip-baiting practice. I’ve only seen it happen a few times with the thousands of Uber Eats deliveries I’ve delivered, so it’s not something I worry about when I’m working. But, it is something that can happen.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, Uber Eats drivers cannot see the customer’s exact tip when they place their order, but most drivers can figure out if a customer left a tip based on what the order is paying. If you’re a customer and want to get your food delivered to you quickly, you should leave a fair tip.
Customers can change their tip amount after receiving their order, however, so if you’re a driver, you should always provide good service and aim to deliver the customer’s order quickly. And if you’re a customer, you can change your tip to reward good service or punish bad service.
Sandy Bella says
Uber eats also charges a high fee for delivery which dissuades some customers from additionally tipping the driver. I think uber should reconsider this as well