In today’s world, people are always looking for side jobs to earn a little extra to meet their financial goals in a short period. Therefore, many people find working as a delivery person a great opportunity as then they will have flexible working hours. Also, it does not take too long to apply and get started with the job.
In recent years, the demand for food delivery services has increased dramatically. If the demand for a service increases, the demand for service providers – drivers increases too. Therefore, currently, every food delivery service is on the mission to hire as many drivers as possible to gain higher profits. The more drivers they have, the more requests they will cater to and the faster their services will be.
If you have ever wanted to work as a delivery person to earn a little extra money, working with a popular and best-paying company like Postmates might be the best option to go with. Postmates pays their drivers well and knows how to take care of them, unlike other food delivery services.
Are you interested in starting a side job with Postmates? First, you need to learn how much they pay their drivers and how often they pay. Scroll down to find everything you need to know for starting your side hustle with Postmates.
How much do Postmates pay their drivers?
Often people in America start their side jobs with food delivery services to make extra money for themselves. However, before you start your side job with Postmates, you must know how much money you can make by delivering food, medicines, groceries, or any other item to people’s doorsteps.
After signing up as a Postmates driver, you will work as an independent contractor. Therefore, you will have an option to choose your working hours, and your pay will depend on how many deliveries you make each day. For your better understanding, here is a list of main components of Postmates driver’s pay:
Sign-up bonus
In recent years, Postmates have become more popular among people for all the right reasons. As a result, the company receives hundreds and thousands of delivery requests each day. Therefore, it is looking to add as many drivers as possible to cater to most delivery requests and provide an exceptional delivery service to its valued customers.
Postmates have increased the driver’s sign-up bonus to lure more drivers to their platform. As a part of the Postmates driver referral program, drivers can get an opportunity to earn up to $1000 if someone signs up to drive with their invite codes. Of course, the more drivers you bring to the platform, the more money you will make.
Pay for making deliveries
Depending on your location, you can earn up to $1500 a week working as a Postmates courier or driver. Like other food delivery apps, Postmates does not offer fixed salaries to its drivers. Instead, they are paid for each delivery.
Now you must be wondering how much the Postmates drivers get paid for each delivery? Well, it depends on the fare of each delivery. Here is how driver fare for each delivery is calculated
- Pickup
- Dropoff
- Wait Time
- Distance
Postmates has a quite transparent paying system for drivers. Therefore, the more deliveries they will make on-time and at the right locations, the more money they will make. Also, the best part is drivers can work without pressure, as Postmates does not rate their drivers with a performance rating system like other food delivery services do.
Guaranteed earnings
Recently, Postmates have started an incentive program for drivers guaranteeing that they will make a specific amount of money in a particular time period. For example, if a driver completes 20 deliveries, they will earn $500. However, if the driver is unable to earn $500 after completing 20 deliveries, the company will pay the difference.
This incentive program makes drivers feel appreciated and motivated enough to give their best each day.
Driver incentives
Want to maximize your earnings as a Postmate driver? Then, keep a close eye on driver’s incentives displayed daily on the Postmates app. When it comes to bonuses and promo codes, Postmates is quite generous. Therefore, it will offer a variety of bonuses to keep the drivers motivated to make more deliveries.
You will be notified about these bonuses through SMS, email, and the Newsroom in the Fleet app. However, to earn these incentives, you will be required to make multiple deliveries in a certain timeframe or work at peak hours. After all, Postmates know how to keep their drivers going!
Tips
Tipping the couriers or drivers is basic etiquette that many Americans follow. Also, Postmates time to time, encourages its users to tip their drivers well. Also, the company has an in-app tipping system to make it easy for the customers to say a little thank you to their drivers for their excellent service.
Moreover, the company does not take anything from the customer’s tips. Therefore, the tipping amount will only belong to the particular rider.
How is the amount for each delivery calculated?
Are you still struggling to understand how much money you will make from each delivery? For your better understanding, here is the Postmates pay model for drivers:
- An amount for each completed pick up
- An amount for each completed drop off
- Postmates has set a rate for waiting time. The number of minutes you waited at the pickup location will be multiplied by the rate set
- A per-mile rate is set for the distance between the pickup & dropoff locations
- Any peak hours bonus that is shown when you accept a delivery offer
- All the rates mentioned above may vary from city to city
How are Postmates drivers paid?
Postmates is one of the few companies in the United States of America that allows workers to get paid daily rather than weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Therefore, if you have to pay rent, buy groceries, or fill gas, you will not have to wait for your weekly, biweekly, or monthly payments.
4 Tips on how to make more money as a Postmates driver
People are always looking for ways to make more money working as Postmates drivers. If you fall in a similar category, follow these tips to maximize your earnings:
Work during peak hours
The best time to maximize your earnings as a Postmates driver is driving at peak hours. There are hundreds and thousands of delivery requests during lunch and dinner times, and the chances of getting tipped well are also quite high.
Therefore, in order to make extra money for yourself, make sure to take delivery requests at peak hours. By doing so, you will not need to wait for the delivery requests to appear on the screen. Instead, you will jump from one delivery request to another due to high demand. Therefore, you will be able to make the most of your time as well as effort.
Here are a few busiest times on Postmates:
- Every day from 10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
- Every day from 5:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
- Fridays
- Saturdays
- Sundays
Deliver in high-demand areas
There are some high-demand areas in every city, such as famous restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacies, and makeup stores. Therefore, during peak hours, make sure to stay close to these areas to receive more orders.
However, for that to work even better, you must drive a bike as it will help you quickly navigate hot spots. If you have a car, you may get stuck at one of those hotspots and complete only a few deliveries by the end of your shift.
Give customers a receipt of purchased items
What can make the customers angry or unhappy? The missing receipts for purchased items. Customers like accountability, and one of the ways to show it is by presenting a receipt to them. By doing so, customers will know that they are not being exploited and will return a favor with a good tip.
It is a proven technique to encourage customers to give more tips, whereas missing receipts only boosts the customer’s anger. Therefore, make sure to put the receipt safely in your pocket or backpack.
Don’t drive more to get deliveries
There are days when Postmates drivers don’t get delivery requests. When it happens, many drivers become frustrated and keep on changing their locations to acquire delivery requests. Sometimes it may help, but most of the time, they only spend more fuel for absolutely nothing.
Therefore, the best approach is to wait patiently until something comes up. However, if you still do not receive any delivery requests after waiting for 15 to 20 mins, you should consider moving to one of the city’s hotspots.
Also, you can check the Postmates app for areas that needs more drivers and head that way. If you cannot find an opportunity to earn more, you should at least find one to spend less.