Before driving for a restaurant delivery service like Grubhub, many potential gig workers have one question on their mind — how much do Grubhub drivers make compared to other delivery services?
As a leading restaurant delivery service, Grubhub offers gig workers flexible work hours, the opportunity to be your own boss and set your own schedule, and steady hours delivering take-out orders around your city.
If you’ve been tossing around the idea of driving for a restaurant delivery service — like Grubhub — but are up in the air as to which delivery app to drive for, this article will give you some insight into how much Grubhub drivers make compared to other food delivery services.
Pay Comparison Methodology
Since exact hourly pay figures are hard to come by in the gig economy, we turned to Indeed.com to source our salary comparison information to keep things on a level playing field.
Indeed enables independent contractors to anonymously report their hourly delivery driver salaries so prospective employees and new drivers can get an idea of what they can expect to make.
The common theme among a majority of restaurant delivery companies is withholding exact hourly rate payment figures — and for good reason.
The last thing a delivery company wants to do is throw out payment details and then not live up to the promises made on its website.
With Indeed payment information, we’re able to use self-reported wages that actual drivers have earned.
Since these figures are self-reported, they should be taken with a grain of salt.
It’s a natural tendency for people to say they make more than what they actually do, so some of these numbers may be inflated.
While the methodology isn’t perfect, the average wages provided enable us to give you a rough idea of what you can expect to earn.
Without further ado, let’s see how much you can make as a Grubhub driver.
How Much Do Grubhub Drivers Make?
Grubhub delivery drivers earn money for every delivery they make, the mileage they drive from restaurants to customers, and every tip they receive.
According to Indeed.com, Grubhub drivers can expect to make around $20 per hour.
This $20.48 per hour wage is an average hourly wage based on 400 driver salary submissions.
Take into consideration that there will be days where you’ll make more or less than this figure.
Regardless, the money you make will be well above the minimum wage in your area.
In some places, Grubhub even offers to pay an hourly minimum wage.
This is a minimum base pay that kicks in if you have a slow shift and aren’t earning as much as you’d hope.
So, how does Grubhub’s pay rate compare to other online food ordering platforms?
Grubhub Driver Pay vs. Other Food Delivery Services
Grubhub ranks right around the middle of the pack when it comes to hourly wages for restaurant delivery services.
In comparison to four other food delivery services — Caviar, Postmates, DoorDash, and Uber Eats — Grubhub comes in third place.
To give you an idea of where the rest of Grubhub’s competitors rank, here’s the list of hourly wages for all five delivery companies.
- Caviar: $24.99 per hour
- Postmates: $24.98 per hour
- Grubhub: $20.48 per hour
- DoorDash: $18.87 per hour
- Uber Eats: $14.07 per hour*
*Low sample size of only 16 salary submissions
Let’s take a look at each service to see if we can uncover why some services make higher hourly wages than others.
Caviar
Caviar is the cream of the crop of restaurant delivery services.
Strapped with a high-end name like Caviar and a focus on carefully vetted premium restaurants, this service comes with an hourly wage of $25 per hour for drivers.
Since Caviar offers customers access to only the best restaurants in your city, people may naturally spend more on every order they make.
This means that order totals are higher, your delivery fares may be higher, and your customer base may be willing to give you larger tips.
Whatever the reason, Caviar tops our list for the highest hourly wages.
Note that Caviar isn’t nearly as common as the other platforms on this list, so make sure you check to see if it’s available in your area before going any further.
Postmates
Even though Postmates is more than only a restaurant food delivery service, we still decided to include it on this list.
Postmates delivery drivers make nearly the exact same hourly wage as Caviar drivers — $24.98 per hour.
Now it’s important to realize that Postmates is unique among its competitors in the fact that it’s much more than only a restaurant delivery service.
As a Postmates driver, you’ll be responsible for delivering anything under the sun including groceries, takeout orders, office supplies, convenience items, alcohol, and anything else the customer can dream up.
Since deliveries consist of all these different categories, this opens up many more delivery possibilities for drivers.
This means that you can remain busy throughout your shift and not be reliant on only food deliveries.
So what’s our takeaway? Postmates may keep you busier than the other services mentioned on this list.
If you’re interested in delivering for Postmates, there is no better time than now to sign up.
DoorDash
The next service on our list is DoorDash, a service that’s more comparable to Grubhub than both Caviar and Postmates.
DoorDash ranks right behind Grubhub with an hourly wage of $18.87.
DoorDash offers an identical service and is in many of the same markets Grubhub.
For reasons we don’t have the power to uncover, DoorDash drivers make slightly less than Grubhub drivers, however, this is about a $1.50 difference and seems negligible in the grand scheme of things.
Food delivery is largely dependant on how much you’re willing to work, when you’re scheduled to work, how many tips you receive, and how hard you’re ready to hustle.
The difference in hourly wages between these two services may be obsolete when a big part of how much you make is in your own hands.
If you think DoorDash may be right for you, take a look at becoming a DoorDash driver.
Uber Eats
Uber Eats rounds out the list with a wage of $14.07 per hour.
Although this is quite a bit lower than the other food delivery platforms, we must call out the fact that this number is only based on 16 salary submissions on Indeed.com.
The fact that there are only 16 salary submissions is a clear indicator that this number may be slightly misleading.
Since Uber Eats falls under the Uber umbrella and many delivery drivers transition from Uber’s rideshare service, the majority of salary submissions on the website are geared towards Uber rideshare drivers.
Regardless, this hourly wage is much less than every other food delivery service on our list.
With that being said, we recommend doing some further research on your own to gather your own opinion.
Should You Deliver for Grubhub?
With all of the hourly wages listed above, where do you stand as to which food delivery app you’re thinking about driving for?
Since Grubhub’s hourly wage of $20.48 falls right in the middle of the pack, we think it’s not that bad of a choice for interested delivery drivers.
The nice part is that you can test drive each one of these delivery jobs and figure out which service you like the best and which one you’re able to make the most money with.
And who’s to say you can’t drive for more than one of these services?
While it may not be encouraged by each platform, there’s really nothing stopping you from driving for multiple food delivery platforms.
With so much money to be made out there, it’s up to you to do your research and take the first step toward your next gig economy job.
