What I Learned After 100 Postmates Deliveries

Diversifying your income is a key tactic in the unpredictable on-demand economy, and delivery apps can be a good way to balance out your work. Delivery is especially useful when rideshare is slow. Depending on the city you live in, a midday lunch rush could pay more than Uber or Lyft.

Postmates is one of the top nationwide delivery apps, and I found a good quick youtube video by Your Driver Mike that explains the lessons he learned from driving for Postmates. Take a look at this video to see what you can learn, and scroll to the video transcript to read the points he covers.

In this video, I go over five things that I’ve learned after 100 Postmates deliveries, and I think some of these are going to surprise you.

1. The base pay isn’t as good as other apps

Amazon Flex, Doordash and Uber Eats, I’ve driven for them all, and really they all have higher base pay per delivery. That’s just based on my opinion driving all of those platforms. Now, when you do get your delivery requests on your app, there’s a lot to consider.

2. Postmates gives you next to no order information to consider

Unlike other apps like Doordash, Postmates does not give you the exact miles of the delivery, the exact route from these starting and ending destination for the delivery, the guarantee to pay for the delivery, you can’t see any of that.

3. Promos and incentives aren’t as good as other apps

You can see here a few screenshots of some traditional delivery incentives on Postmates, and if we do the math here, we’ll really seeing $5.50 average delivery, $6, maybe $7 per delivery when these promos are satisfied. However, there is other incentives on other platforms like DoorDash that, not only give you a guaranteed amount, let’s say $6, ideally $7, but during their promo periods, you can also get an extra $1, an extra $2.

4. Delivery distances may be shorter

Maybe the only good thing with Postmates, in my opinion versus other apps, is that that sometimes I notice the deliveries are shorter than other apps, but not always.

5. Postmates is good as a backup

Postmates is only really good as a filler in your delivery portfolio. If all of my other apps are dead or if I can’t schedule blocks on other apps, I use Postmates as a backup just to take some of those smaller deliveries just so I’m making something.

Let me know how your experience has been on Postmates and what your current favorite delivery app is, post that down below in the comments.

Your Driver Mike here, I do appreciate you watching. Leave a like if you enjoy the video, subscribe to join the Your Driver Team and I will see you in the next one.