The New DoorDash Pay Model: Are Dashers Being Paid Less?

You may have heard news stories accusing DoorDash of taking tips from drivers. DoorDash responded to the criticism and released a new pay model that guarantees that all tip money goes to the driver. But as you might imagine, not everyone is happy.

Jonathan from Gig Sharks recorded a solid video covering the new model, and how it can sometimes lead to very low base pay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtGdT1cmz_s

Welcome back to Gig Nation. My name is Jonathan. I released a video covering the new DoorDash pay model, breaking it down in exactly what it could mean for drivers. I was optimistic about this pay model because Tony Zhu himself, he had some comments about it and he said that DoorDash delivery drivers would be making a base pay of between $2 and $10 per order before tips and that overall drivers would see their earnings increase.

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There was a lot to be excited about, a lot to be happy about. And DoorDash has begun to test this new pay model. They’re testing it in a few different cities and at the end of September they’re expecting to kind of roll it out to, nationwide they’re going to be having this new DoorDash pay model in place.

The new pay model is in response to outcry against the old one

And this was a response to all of the outcry about tips being stolen. So in the new pay model, tips are going to be more transparent. You’re going to see exactly what you’re getting tipped. But pay is definitely changing.

A lot of people are saying that they’re seen a lot of orders coming in at between $2 and $3 and they’re really upset about what they’re seeing. Let’s take a look at a couple of these comments. And the first subscriber that commented let me know that they got an order that was about two miles and they got paid out $2.21 for this delivery.

Base pay on some orders is not $2 or $3

Now obviously that wasn’t a delivery with a tip included because $2.21 cents is just above that $2 base pay threshold. And luckily a customer didn’t tip 21 cents. That’s probably like the lower end of what you’re going to see. And obviously this Dasher was not very excited about getting paid that much for a single delivery.

Commenter Jackie said that old payouts between $6 and $9 per delivery and now that they’re testing the new pay model in our areas she’s seen between $2 and $3 for many deliveries. So that’s a huge pay decrease.

Is DoorDash becoming Postmates?

People are expecting DoorDash to look more like Postmates. A lot of drivers don’t like the Postmates model. They had come to DoorDash for a reason because they weren’t liking what they were getting out of Postmates. And so let’s dive a little bit deeper into this because what we’re going to see with the new DoorDash pay model is definitely some lower end delivery payouts.

And with keeping all of these tips transparent, instead of putting them in one big pot and kind of spreading them out among delivery drivers, you’re giving drivers 100% of their tips when it goes to them. So the real question is, are drivers seeing consistent $2 to $3 orders all of the time? Or are they just getting those here and there?

Maybe at non-busy times DoorDash doesn’t really have to try too hard to fulfill those orders. Because as a Dasher you’re going to have to approach this new pay model quite a bit differently. You know, in the past with tips being spread out with DoorDash, keeping those delivery minimums to about anywhere from four to $7 in most areas, pay was very consistent.

You really knew exactly what you could expect as soon as you took an order. But with this new model and this new pay structure the market is going to more accurately reflect what exactly you’re seeing in your pay. So without these tips being spread around, when you’re getting 100% of tips, you’re not going to see that average being real consistent.

Remember: You don’t have to accept low-paying orders

You’re going to see some lower orders and some higher orders, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for DoorDash drivers. We’re allowed to decline as many orders as we want. We can let our acceptance rates slip if we want to. As an independent contractor, that is something that you are 100% entitled to, so you don’t have to take these lower orders.

What this means for drivers is that we actually have to start looking at our strategy more and only signing onto deliver DoorDash on the times when it’s popular, only accepting those higher paying orders.

This new pay model is definitely advantageous to people who are just looking for the best orders only signing on during those busy nights when they know that they’re going to get those higher payouts and they’re more likely to get tipped. That’s really where the advantage comes in.

And so the real question is, will DoorDash actually be able to implement this new policy? Will they be able to follow through with it? It is something that Postmates is able to execute successfully. They definitely still fulfill all of the orders that they need to. But a lot of dashers in the past had already tried Postmates and switched over to that app.

DoorDash could suffer if drivers decline these low-paying orders

If DoorDashers switch up their strategy and they’re no longer taking all orders what we may see going forward is a little bit, a little bit less transparency from DoorDash.

The way that Postmates is able to keep you on their platform is by not showing you everything up front. You may see that lower payout order and it could end up being a longer distance. It’s hard to know everything within the app. They hide certain things from you.

The question will be, does DoorDash have to switch things up and show you less in order to get you to accept those orders? Or will they just decide that this new pay model isn’t really working out because dashers aren’t going to be taking as many orders?

And we all know that DoorDash’s number one goal is customer satisfaction. They need to keep their customers happy. So if customers are placing orders and they’re not getting fulfilled, they’re taking a long time to fulfill. There may be sitting there, DoorDashes are passing on it, then this really isn’t going to work well for DoorDash.

Let me know what you think about it. If this new DoorDash pay model is going to work out, if it’s going to be beneficial for drivers, if the drivers that we’re seeing right now maybe they’re just complaining about the bad orders. Maybe they were paying a little bit too high and now they’re more accurately reflecting the actual pay that they can pay drivers.

Do you have experience with the new pay model?

Maybe they’re lowering it in some markets where there’s less demand and in other markets where it’s still busy, maybe if you’re in a big area like New York or San Francisco, you’re actually going to be seeing higher pay with this new pay model.

Let me know exactly what you think and if you have had an experience with DoorDash testing in your area, leave a comment on what you’ve been seen with the new order structure because I’d love to hear about that from you.

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