shift leader

warehouse associate

dasher

team member

delivery driver

DoorDash

This job is high stress, though not the worst I've ever heard of.  It's a different kind of stress, though.  The rating system is also unfair and lopsided.

Disclaimer: This information is a couple of years old, so it might be different now.  But I doubt it's much better.

It's also very mindless, menial, and pointless.  Within 1 week you'll learn and figure out probably 90% of what you need to know, and in 2 weeks, 99%.  If you like work where you actually think and figure out problems, this is not a good job for you.

The PAY:

When the ads actually did say "up to $16-17/hr." they aren't lying.  But it's filled with a lot of caveats.  The average is $12/hr. in gross, pre-tax income.

Even if you follow all the tips and ideas to make the most of it, when you do the math, you'd be lucky to make $8/hr. in the end, overall.

One thing will eat away at income right away - gas is the big one.  I estimate about 15% of the gross income was used up on gas.

Another thing will eat away at income right away too..  taxes.  It doesn't work the way it does for regular W2 jobs.  There no income tax deduction, so even if you make only $1,000 for the whole year, you're supposed to pay income taxes on that.  In addition, because you're an "independent contractor" you'd have to pay the employer portion of SS & Medicare tax as well, doubling this to 13.6%.  Even if you take tax deductions based on mileage, which you'd be entitled to, the rate will still be around 15-18%.  This assumes a poverty level income, which would mean being in the lowest income tax bracket.

When the average gross income is around $12, and you lose about 30% of it on income taxes, the net income is about $8/hr.

If you do this for any amount of time, other things will eat away at the income.  If over half your driving miles are for the sake of doing this, you'll probably have to upgrade your auto insurance.  I can't estimate what the increase will be, but it's safe to say it's mostly younger folks doing this, so this cost increase will likely be substantial.

It will also of course hasten the frequency of when you need more car repairs, including the kind of things you probably can't fix yourself, even if you're handy.  If you could fix almost any car problem, you'd make far more as a mechanic.  I can't estimate what this might cost you, since it depends on the car and how you take care of it.

The JOB:

So, I talked about overall pay, but what about the job?

It's stressful sometimes.  A lot of the time, you will be sitting around doing nothing waiting for orders to come in.  But the only thing that has in common with doing nothing is not getting paid.  You'll always be on edge, the way firefighters are waiting for a fire, waiting for an order to come in and being ready to accept it within 1-2 minutes.  This is a different kind of stress, but it's not any easier.  You never really know when the next gap will be, between orders.  One time I waited 2+ HOURS for an order to come in, at a time of day when there should have been some.

You might be tempted to turn off the car to save gas, but if the weather is too cold or hot, forget it.

Depending on your phone, you may or may not be able to do other things on it while waiting for orders.  Hopefully you can, or else you will be VERY bored most of the time.

In theory, the job sounds very easy.  You drive to fast food restaurants, pick up orders, and then you take the orders to customers of the platform.  But in reality, it's not always that simple.

Order Examples:

Sometimes, it really is that easy - go to a fast food restaurant with a drive-through line, and you deliver it to someone who lives very close by, and even meets you outside by the window.  You don't even have to get out of the car.  You don't even mind the order paid only $6.  But that's more the exception than the rule.  If only every order was like this.

Most of the time an order goes like this.  You have to park and walk in to the restaurant.  Hopefully parking won't be too hard.  You might have to wait on the order, but hopefully not too long.  You pick it up, and the customer is usually a few miles away.  You get there..  hopefully, they live in a house, or failing that, an apartment without a gate and a lot of parking.  You park again, and have to carry the order to the door.  You must ensure the customer gets it, so you have to knock and wait.  But at least you usually don't have to wait long.

Order snafus:

Sometimes, something will happen that will ruin things.

It's an apartment or neighborhood with a gate, but the customer fails to provide a code and doesn't respond right away.

The customer gives the wrong address.  Hasn't happened to me but has to others.

The restaurant has a very long wait.

The order includes X, which the restaurant ran out of.  Then the customer doesn't reply in a timely manner when you ask what he wants instead or whether to drop item X.

You get to the customer's door only the customer doesn't answer right away.  Time is money.  The more you wait the more you don't get paid.

The Rating System is Unfair:

Every driver is given an overall rating based on customer score.  After the first 50 or 100 orders or so as you figure it out, you are expected to maintain a certain minimum score.  It depends on the area, but 4.4+ out of 5 is typical.

The good news is, most will give a 5 if they even rate at all.

The bad news is, the rating is completely subjective and the average person is terrible at objective, or even mostly objective evaluation.  If the customer is racist against the ethnicity of the driver, or even something as dumb as the customer trying new food he doesn't end up liking, the customer can rate a 1 out of 5.  Even if the customer is just having a bad day, it can be 1 out of 5.  Factors completely outside of the driver's control.

And, there's virtually no recourse for the driver.  On some other gig platforms, drivers can rate customers so there's some recourse.

Tips/Ideas/Thoughts:

If you still want to give this a try, there's a few tips that should increase odds of success.

Know how I said $16-17/hr. wasn't technically lying?  It's not a lie, it's a partial truth.  If you deliver in the evening, typically between 5 and 8 or 9PM or so, you might get $17/hr. in gross income because there might be back to back orders.  But you will feel a bit rushed, and that's for only 3-4 hours a day.

Recall that I mentioned you'd lose about 30% of that from income taxes and gas, and that's if you're in the bottom tax bracket, which if you're doing this, you probably are.  That's an effective rate of $11.90/hr. even during the peak.

There's a LOT of stop and go driving.  If you have a manual transmission car, your left knee might start to hate you after a few hours.

Because it's a lot of stop and go, perhaps even more so than most delivery, you will likely be more tired than you would be driving 10-12 hours on a highway, after a few hours.  However, if you stay logged in for 12 hours a day, you'll be sitting around most of the time so maybe not.

Avoid downtown areas with parking meters or otherwise highly restricted parking areas.  A parking ticket could easily wipe out half a day's earnings.  Parking meters are also not worth it.  Avoid most traditional university areas, because parking can also be tight and dorm rooms may be hard to find.

Avoid toll roads, because it'll cost as much as you'd make on the delivery, if not more.

Pretty sure the algorithm goes by GPS location, so there's likely an advantage to returning to an area with a lot of fast food restaurants in one area.

There's time periods with a per delivery bonus of +$1 to +$2 per delivery, sometimes +$3.  Always take advantage.  It goes by when you accept the delivery.

Don't always be put off by low minimum potential earnings.  Many/most platform customers will use cash for tips which won't be shown.  Even if not, $6 for 15 minutes of effort isn't necessarily bad.

The stated minimum is usually what the orders will pay.  Don't be fooled.

If it's after 10PM, or before 6AM, don't even think about it.  There's almost never any orders, and the odds of dealing with drunks or other potentially dangerous or unruly types goes up dramatically.  It's not worth it.

Try to position yourself near regular houses and neighborhoods without gates if you can.  Failing that, hopefully apartments without gates.

But keep in mind, some of the best tips might come from customers you least expect, even if it's a pretty bad apartment.

Avoid dangerous, high crime areas.  Enough said.

If an order contains an ice cream or soft serve cone, cancel it.  Strongly consider canceling any order that contains actual ice cream.  It'll melt, get sticky in the car, you can't hold it steady, and it'll be in no shape for the customer once there.  Don't do it.

Don't consider any orders that contain alcohol.  This seems to be a new thing (before they just didn't do alcohol orders at all), but they require showing ID from everyone regardless, even the 60 year old with graying hair.  Folks really don't like to be asked that, and some of them might rate you a 1 because of this, even if it's beyond your control.

If a restaurant is cash only, cancel the order.  The mountain of paperwork would be onerous otherwise.

Given the already low pay, and how the taxes work, it's not really worth it as a secondary job as a way to supplement, unless your primary job is something like fast food.  Since the higher tax brackets would make it even less advantageous.

If you have a main job already and looking for a way to make meaningful extra money, odds are there's better ways to go about it that may be accessible to you.

Better yet, try to get a different job instead and do that if you can.  Or consider selling blood plasma.  At least you really can sit around and do nothing until it's your turn.

First, let me thank doordash for being a thing. working for them has helped me get extra money for that new game or some extra grocery's or that extra bit of money for a bill and such. if you put in the time you can make a small handful of cash.

HOWEVER, 
you MUST, have a fuel efficient car to see wide profits, im talking 27-30+ mpg city driving type of car to see good profits. This is because doordash does not pay for your gas, wear and tear. 

Management- 
management isnt really a thing since the app tells you when you can work and open schedules. you can ''dash now'' if its busy in your area otherwise you have to wait until the area turns red. the only interaction with management was when i first started when they sent out a survey asking dashers what they thought, apparently alot of them said the pay was bad. so doordash corporate went ''face to face'' with dashers and asked these questions again and sent everyone a email saying ''nobody in person said the pay was bad so issue is resolved'' 

Pay-
You can expect a delivery to AT LEAST give you $5, i have gotten 4.60$ delivery's before too, the higher end is 6.80$ - 9.00$ 

i usually can do 2 orders per hour, if they give me something to add to my current route 3-4. the most iv done in one hour was 5 orders. ill explain why these are so low later. 

doordash on busy nights offers ''bonus pay'' but these have caveats, like accept 80% or more orders (meaning you cant decline but 1-2 orders in your dashing time) and do 3 or more orders during the allotted time. so you only get your bonus pay if you follow their rules to earn it. This is one of the things that sucks. 

in a daily run, doing 6 hours, 3 in the morning, come home, nap, eat, go out 3 hours for dinner rush i can normally make $40 a day, $50 on a good day.

the most i have ever made in one day was $100, but that was nonstop all day from 9am to 6pm and i used alot of gas so only $60 of that was spendable. 

Merchants- 
This...This is the bane of doordash...the restaurants. 

Doordash has no preliminary rules or walk-through's that a company must have before being able to allow dashers to show up. So many a time, a company that can barely keep up with its inside seating area is allowed to do delivery service with us. This is where the issues start, we dashers make our money on a margin of time spent at the pickup location and time it takes dropping the food off, this judges how much we make per hour based on how quick the restaurant can give us the food. 

many times i have spent 20-50 mins waiting for a order inside a restaurant that has no business doing delivery because they are far to slow and cant even keep up with their walk in customers. This makes a entire hour wasted on one pickup turning my hourly average to whatever that delivery was. 

Gas and Margins-
Doordash does not pay for your gas, you can claim it on your taxes if you keep your receipts all year, but really, who does that?

i drive a 2013 v8 pickup, so my margins are very narrow. if you have a fuel efficient car you would probably make more since you get further per gallon. Doordash could have you drive around the block or it can have you drive 10 miles down the road and then back to the restaurant for another order at the same place. it all just depends. 

making $100 in 2 days i was able to actually spend $60 of that on what i needed. the rest was for gas. 

My personal issues with the company and setup- 

They need to just average the pay at $10 a delivery, i shouldn't have to spend 3 hours trying to make $30 and paying for the gas i burn. i would prefer to just have a solid $10 per delivery. 

They need to have a discipline system for merchants that constantly give us dashers late food. i get a busy day at a restaurant but there are locations that are ALWAYS slow and behind. it takes money away from us drivers and the merchant nor doordash seems to care about this. 

They need to have some form of gas-comp system, maybe no full reimbursement but some sort of discount at specific stations. i mean even 50cents off a gallon somewhere would help or something. you end up having to drive so far sometimes and its a murder on your gas. 

They need to explain to customers in the app better that the DELIVERY NOTES section is not for asking for extra food from the dasher. the dasher app only lets us see the delivery notes AFTER we are headed to drop off the food. so if you ask for something at the restaurant in that section, more than likely im not going to turn around and try and go get it. people seem to think us dashers can get them ''free soups'' ''free salads'' ''complementary bread sticks'' when alot of that stuff is for dine in customers only. 

APARTMENTS 
my gosh, these are the hardest orders of all. and you get paid the same for one of these as a house delivery. This needs to be changed, half the time they forget to tell you the apartment name, or their building number or their apartment number so your just screwed driveing around trying to figure it out on the app. alot of times they wont even text you back to give you this stuff. late at night trying to find building numbers is such a pain. this needs a pay bump for apartments.


Overall, its good for some quick side cash, i have had emergancys come up where doordash has helped me. only after i spent alot in gas first though. just alot of kinks they need to help us dashers with first.

As of 30 minutes ago, I reached my 3rd anniversary working at DashMart and felt the need to write a review for anyone who is looking to get in, considering how high turnover rate can be. 

For anyone unfamiliar with what exactly DashMart is: it’s essentially a ghost kitchen, but instead of restaurants it’s storefronts. Mostly various kinds of ice cream, cookie, and dessert stores. When I first started in 2022, there were only 3 stores, with 2 having slower traffic and DashMart being the main source of our orders. However, 3 years later we now have more than 20 different stores operating under the same building. From hemp products, to balloons and flowers, we have a little bit of everything for everyone. The processes in place are an absolute mess and very difficult for new employees to figure out. We see up to 100 orders an hour during peak times, with many of them being FULL GROCERY orders. It’s a fast paced environment, with Dashers coming often before the order is even picked. 


Having worked both in retail and the food industry, this wasn’t anything new to me. However, the heavy load is never equally distributed among you and your coworkers. Sometimes they’re glued to their phone, sometimes they’re chatting it up with other coworkers, sometimes they’re reading a book while sitting at the packing stations. But no matter what you do, whether you address the employee directly, talk to a shift lead, or plead to your site manager over and over, accountability is NEVER held. That is especially true if you are deemed a favorite in the eyes of the site lead. 

Speaking of management, things here in the warehouse are an absolute MESS. Having worked in several warehouses over the years, it is astonishing to see how many things are just brushed over or left for someone else to fix or eventually hurt themselves on. Inventory has got to be our biggest problem here. The moment we started taking on more store fronts was the moment everything went downhill. Management does not care about where things are stocked at, as long as it’s done. I will find raw meat products stocked in the same bin as desserts or dairy products, which is a HUGE health violation. Items are often stocked into backstock without checking accessible shelving for easier picking. Our shelves were initially designed to keep our products organized, so with most inventory being in backstock, it is sometimes impossible to find an item. Inventory counts are often inaccurate as well. When these problems have been addressed to management, it’s brushed aside. Our site manager’s office is very unorganized as well, it’s no wonder the warehouse is, too. 

There have been very few opportunities for advancement and growth. While Operations Associates typically last 6-9 months, Shift Leads typically hold on to their roles, leaving no availability to move up. In my 3 years, a shift lead position has only opened up once. It was given to an employee that had been here under 6 months. However, roles can be easily transferable from site to site. I wouldn't necessarily call that advancement though. 

We have quarterly meetings with management to go over our performance metrics. At the beginning of the year and at the end of summer, those meetings include a pay raise based on your performance, typically 3-6 percent. It’s not very much, but is more frequent than most jobs I’ve had. 

Aside from all of this, it’s not uncommon to find trash and scraps or whatever random junk people want to leave behind. I’ve never worked with such an inconsiderate group of people. I’m often left wondering how employees are picked, because most of my coworkers do not have warehouse or retail experience, which I personally believe should be strongly recommended. The job itself is easy enough, but occasionally you have to do some heavy lifting or move some pallets with a pallet jack. Things that some of my coworkers have never had prior experience with. 

With everything said, there have been a few pros to these cons. I live within 5 minutes of my location, which has been incredibly convenient for me. Most days, we have inventory that is close to expiration and we can take it home. Just have to be quick or some will definitely take it all without a warning. It is kind of fun being able to try new products I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. Additionally, we get a free DashPass account. This isn’t anything too great, honestly, it just limits the amount of fees we have to pay for delivery. I wouldn’t pay for it if I didn’t work here, and honestly don’t understand the benefit of even having it. There are hardly any worthy promotions and some restaurants can choose to still charge delivery fees even with the DashPass. 

The last 3 years have felt like a fever dream. I haven’t even mentioned yet that I work the night shift. I’m perpetually exhausted. I never see my wife or kids. The hours are relatively flexible, probably ideal for a college student or someone without kids. Most days are stressful, frustrating, overwhelming. I can’t believe I’m still here. 




I have worked for Door Dash for about 4 months now and almost reach 300 orders. I can tell you guys that this company really poorly managed. But the most important question is, how is the pay? Well I can tell  you that you get pay 64 cents (for one whole order after gas) to at best $1 per mile  your drive + tips. I am not joking, 64 cents...The app AI is pretty bad, once it required me to drive 25 miles (40 km), after the calculation minus the gas and time, I get pay 64 cents. I accepted the order so I can contact customer support to yell at them. Well...to reason with them politely. They said the paid is automatic and is fair. I asked them to take the dash away from my app, I am not driving 1 hour to make 64 cents. The gas price was at 139.9 for regular at that time. After the Dash is canceled, it massed up  my bonus on my other payments!!! There is a thing call "Rush Hour Bonus". It is very everyday. Sometimes is +$2.5 to +$5 on top of the guarantee pay. Let's say the app ask you to go to a restaurant, it is going to tell you the distance of the drive plus the pay for that dash. Let's say it is $10, the bonus is $5 You get $15+$1+tips, sound not bad right? But there is a catch, you have to accept 80% of the order to get the bonus. So that day I have 3 orders from 11am to 2pm. I finished my 2nd dash at 1:57pm and It was all good till then.....Right after I finish my 2nd dash, I hit confirm, a new dash came and it was the "drive 40+km and get pay 54 cents order". I had the customer support to take this dash away and found out It mass up my bonus. So yea the pay was very bad that day.

The stupidest thing they did is to make you accept 80% of the order to get the bonus. They actually hurt the company that way. A lot of drivers accept almost every order to get the bonus no matter how far they are but it is end up hurting the company because some of the drive are FAR AWAY like 35mins to 1 hour drive. Some of the customer order from restaurant that is walking distance from them but they have to wait for a hour or more for the food BECAUSE THE AI in the app is total incompetent. It only choose from the pool of available driver that is not on a job during the time and who is closest to restaurant. Sound reasonable? but NO! it is not. It should also look at how many drives are around the area and how long till they finish their delivery. The company had lost a lot of customers that way because a lot of time the APP choose someone that is extremely far away for the job and I get lot of complains from the customers. I  had talked to the customer support and they said they will talk to the higher up but NOTHING had change.

There are few companies that better than Door Dash, such as Urber Eats and Skip the Dishes. Funny thing about Skip the dishes it that they had took over so many of Door Dash's customers because 1, they have a lot of advertisement, such as Radio Ads AND their sign is 4 times bigger than  Door Dash's (those stickers on restaurant's front door. Also they don't do BS that makes you to accept 80% of the orders. Also they lost a lot of drivers because they are loosing a lot of customers AND drivers to other companies.

At last Benefit...There is zero benefit, not even protection actually. If you has some kind of car accident during the job, you wont really get cover by the company. It only cover if you have FOOD in your car during the accident happen, if not then too bad. So if someone hit your car and you have no food in your car then you are on your own.

The customer support for Dasher also seems to be gone, or they changed it too much that I can find support anymore. All I can find is those "Self Help FAQ type" section. 

In conclusion, The pay is from really bad to OK depend on area and luck of the day. The minimum wage in Ontario right now as in 2018 is $14/ hour. You DON'T make that most of the time. It is more like $10 to $12. Sometimes a bad day you make $15 for 3 hours...not include gas...The company is poorly manage and the AI is badly design. But it is good if you want a job that can let you work whenever you want. I only turn the app on to work if I wants to go shopping around, I can to do that because there are  A LOT OF WAITING time.

If you want an authentic Review from someone who works full time here, please read. 

I’d highly recommend that you stay as far away from this job as possible. 

PAY RATE: 
After factoring in gas, miles, overall wear & tear, time of delivery, etc. you are only making $6-7 per hour. You will only receive 1-2 deliveries an hour on certain days. You will NOT get paid for sitting around waiting for a delivery. The app has a ton of bugs so it’s likely you will experience a situation where you need to complete an action and will not be able to such as calling a customer or swiping to complete a delivery.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT:
Every time something goes wrong, you have to contact Customer support and EVERY SINGLE PERSON is foreign. Customer Support speaks broken English and it’s very difficult to understand them when in a stressful situation. In certain situations, DoorDash Support is unavailable so you have to just attempt to figure the issue out on your own. 

SCHEDULING: 
You used to be able to adjust the time and schedule yourself to work hours based on your particular life style. As of the New Year you can only schedule yourself to certain time blocks of 2-4 hour shifts (Some are literally 30 minutes to an hour). Most of the shifts are designed around boosted pay so you aren’t able to get in on the money. This is because DoorDash doesn’t want to pay you far wages. And if you are lucky enough to schedule during a boosted pay period, all it’s doing is covering the gas money and wear & tear from the past. If you plan on using this job as a weekend job, I highly advise you to not even try it. Although it may seem like the ideal time to deliver, you will wait for 30 minutes to an hour to receive orders. Why? Because there’s too many dashers on the road. 

TAXES:
DoorDash claims you as an independent contractor so you are responsible for all of the tax work. Here’s where things can lead to a massive disappointment if you don’t keep track of your taxes. KEEP TRACK OF YOUR MILES. You are able to write off miles & half of your phone bills or basically anything that allows you to work & deliver the food. I’d recommend saving at least 30% of your wages in a separate account in case of any altercations that may occur come tax season. 

BOOSTED PAY:
You are required to make 2 deliveries from the start of boosted pay and you must accept 80% of your orders in order to qualify. Sounds easy until you get an order that has a trip total of 20 miles and it takes 40 minutes to complete. You are basically forced to accept the order just so you can stay in the 80% range. Also if pay starts at 4:30 and you receive an order at 4:29, you will not be credited towards that delivery. Boosted pay can be very sketchy at times. 

ACCEPTING ORDERS:
Most deliveries are within 5-15 miles overall. But on busy nights where the app gets confused, it’ll offer you deliveries in the 20-30 mile range and are usually in another delivery zone. DO NOT ACCEPT those because after you make the delivery, you will not be able to accept any more orders until you are back in your scheduled delivery zone. Also note that it’s common to drive 120-170 miles on an 8 hour shift. 

OVERALL SUMMARY:
There’s a huge risk while doing this job if you are leaning on it as a source of income. If you have a nice car with very little mileage; believe me from personal experience, you will put A TON of miles on your car. Pay rate is very little after factoring everything. Customer Support is absolutely asinine. Scheduling is a joke. You are responsible for all aspects of taking car of your car. If you are willing to work this job by all means go for it. I’m just writing my personal experience and what I’ve heard from other dashers along the way.

Let me start off by saying that the support staff you call when you're having an issue, are by far the most polite, nice, upbringing, helpful people I've ever had contact with. They're always concerned about what's going on and how to resolve any issues for you. They're very understanding and actually make effort to make sure you're happy. I could keep going about that topic so I'll just move on. 

I apologize for the long review, but it's worth the read. 


I do enjoy the fact that I make my own hours. If I don't feel like going, I don't. If I need a little extra cash just to get me by; I can go for a few hours and end my dashing session when I made enough. The best part is that I can decide how much money I want to make. I made 500 dollars in a about four days. The downside to that is, you literally have to go all day. (Well depends on how much an order is, or if you're dashing in "peak hours"... which is also an upside.) Which leads me to my next topic. 

Gas. (Have you seen those gas prices lately?) Sometimes you sit for long periods of time with no orders. Sure you could sit with the car turned off, which I've done too. But in my personal opinion, I get more orders while driving around aimlessly in the area I'm dashing in. ( Never go to the "hot spots", they're useless... trust me I've tried so many new ways to try to get orders) Which of course takes gas. Sometimes I make less dashing that day, than what I put in my gas tank. So just depends on you and what you can afford to do. Just hope you have patience and the will to drive.....

The app gets funky sometimes. The GPS and the Red Card as well. 
I've had times where the app would stop working right in the middle of me dashing. The GPS gave me the wrong address (because the app automatically give you a route that opens your GPS so you don't have to type it in yourself). So it took me to the wrong house and as soon as I try to contact the customer or go back to see if there was a different address on the app, the app shuts down. The support staff hotline was super busy so I couldn't reach them. It was a disaster. So embarrassing. I've also had the red card be declined because either Door Dash forgot to put funds on the card or they didn't put enough. So then you would have to call them to fix it, which could make you run late and get bad ratings or low percentages in other categories. 
Little things like that just happen here and there. 

I'm sure there is more to say, but I want to end with the fact that DoorDash canceled DailyPay services and switched to their FastPay. 
DailyPay would let you get your funds immediately while FastPay says it takes up to a day to get your funds. DailyPay would let you transfer funds more than once a day and FastPay does not, you can transfer once per day. If you don't have a bank account or cant get one, I use my Turbo Tax card through Green Dot Bank. I can use it for direct deposit, it has an account and routing number which DailyPay had no problem using to give me my funds immediately, DoorDash's Fast Pay wont allow me to use it.  I have to have a "real" bank. DoorDash recommends two online banking companies for people who don't have bank accounts. I checked them out and didn't seem happy with either of them. They're not something I would want to have. DailyPay was through the well known Wells Fargo. I would trust them over any weird online bank I've never heard of. This whole thing just put a bad taste in my mouth. I would boast (and recommend) about how great DoorDash was. Now it's getting too complicated. I'm not sure if I'll continue to stay if I don't have the option to use DailyPay. 

Overall, I would recommend working for DoorDash and I Would give it at least a 4 rating if things didn't change.

My above review summary/title begins with a clause in affirmation of how being a Dasher is advertised, and the latter statement is very much at odds with how Dashing is advertised. Despite the freedom and flexibility inherent to the job experience, the reality is this is a money-making opportunity only for people who already have a very reliable car and who live close to high-earning or otherwise very generous neighborhoods/areas. Your car must be in great condition at the beginning of the job or you may find that repairs simply from driving all day for Doordash cost more than you earn. 
If you do not fit all of these hidden requirements, you may find yourself not breaking even, and actually losing money on Doordash, but those are not the only hidden expenses or restrictions to your work opportunities as a Dasher. It can get you in a lot of trouble one way or another if something happens and you were dashing without rideshare/delivery insurance, which can be quite a bit more than a regular auto policy, further restricting Dashers' ability to make money from the job. Even if none of these prevents a Dasher from losing more money to time and expenses not compensated (neither time spent waiting for orders nor gas mileage is compensated)  than they earn, it is likely because the Dasher lives somewhere that magically does not have long construction projects or other events that jam traffic beyond what base pay or tips can make up for, or even more likely that the Dasher is massively skewing their work-life balance as the only times I have found I can actually break even are evenings and late night and that does not work for most people with children or spouses or partners with other jobs.
You also must be prepared to sometimes wait a very long time for food to be prepared before you can even attempt to deliver it, all the while toeing the line between termination from a low acceptance rate or completion rate and waiting so long in store or in traffic that you're losing time and money by Dashing.
If none of these things are an issue for you, then Doordash might even be fun way to earn a little extra money. You just have to be in a very specific kind of situation to take advantage of that without it becoming more trouble and time than it is worth.

The app is also remarkably glitchy for a company which has asserted it is in the apps and technology business and not the delivery and food service business. App crashes which are especially common during order acceptance can cause the Dasher to miss an order they were trying their hardest to accept as they are offered only a small window of time (up to maybe a minute and a half, as little as 30 seconds) to accept orders and missing orders can affect not only earning but a low enough acceptance rate can actually get you fired.

There were two periods when I worked for Doordash the most and those were before and after the bulk of COVID19 lockdown. Before it was actually less restricting and higher earning, but not just because more people were ordering delivery due to lockdown. After this time, in the midst of all around inflation and skyrocketing gas prices which have not gone down, Doordash lowered their base pay by a dollar. Base pay is different than hourly pay as it is by delivery; 2-3 deliveries per hour means that they really lowered the base pay by $2 to $3. During these trying times and worker protests, other companies were begrudgingly raising their pay by that much, so to say it made me feel undervalued as a worker is an understatement.

What is the best part of working at the company?
DoorDash presents itself as a flexible work model, but the reality is far more difficult: the system constantly places drivers in uncertainty and operational risk.
The most critical issue is the lack of effective support and communication. When problems occur, drivers are often left without clear explanations. Neither the reasoning behind decisions nor the underlying process is transparently communicated. As a result, drivers are left uncertain about whether issues are their fault or system-driven.
Operationally, there is a clear lack of control and consistency. It is common to receive multiple orders assigned to the same restaurant at once, only to arrive and find that orders are not ready. This leads to frequent 15–20 minute wait times. Despite being outside of the driver’s control, these delays are still reflected negatively in performance metrics.
In practice, the system operates on a simple logic:
operational failure → driver responsibility
Restaurant congestion, preparation delays, and coordination issues constantly disrupt delivery flow. Instead of balancing these factors, the system shifts the entire burden onto drivers.
In addition, earnings are low and inconsistent. When considering wait times and operational inefficiencies, the income generated is often disproportionate to the time and effort required. The model is not sustainable in the long term.
Overall, the system offers flexibility, but it comes at the cost of constant uncertainty and financial instability for drivers.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful part is the lack of control over operational factors that directly impact performance. Delays caused by restaurants not having orders ready, extended waiting times, and order cancellations being reflected in driver metrics create a constant level of uncertainty. In addition, the lack of clear explanations or effective support when issues occur makes the situation more stressful.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The work environment appears flexible and independent, but in practice it involves a high level of operational uncertainty. Drivers work independently, and most of the workflow depends on restaurant readiness and system-based dispatching. This requires constant adaptation to changing conditions.
In terms of culture, the environment is heavily metrics-driven and focused on individual performance. However, communication and support are not always transparent or explanatory, which often makes it difficult to fully understand the reasoning behind certain decisions.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day is mostly structured around waiting for orders, driving to restaurants, and completing deliveries. The flow of the day depends heavily on system dispatching and restaurant readiness, so it does not follow a predictable schedule like a traditional job.
Waiting times at restaurants are common when orders are not ready upon arrival, which makes time management inconsistent. Because of frequent gaps between orders and unexpected delays, the day requires constant adaptation rather than structured planning. Overall, it is an independent but highly variable and unpredictable workday.

I worked here for two weeks, but it looks like at the end of my second week I have to quit. I had to return an order to a restaurant. I was driving down the road with the phone and it said I had arrived. Anyway, I did not see the name of the apartment complex listed, just an address. I went to the lettered building the person texted me. I went to the number in that building that was texted me. It was the wrong person and place. I left, went to four other complexes, which were all the wrong ones. Addresses were sometimes hard to see on the roadside or signs (except for one), but I did not receive the name of which complex it was, just a street address. I was tired of texting the customer again and I'm wary of calling people bothering them after several tries. Why did she or doordash not tell me the name of the apartment complex? Why wasn't it appearing or listed on my app? So eventually I had to drive 1.5 miles back down the main street and return food to the restaurant where the lady looked annoyed at me. Was circling around in my car like an idiot. The gate code given did not work at any of the gates. Was out walking around in a dark creepy apartment area in the middle of night. A high dude smoking a joint came and told me how to exit. Had a gate crash on top of my vehicle. Wish someone would hire me for a real job. Burnt a lot of gas, which is expensive, not complaining about the pay, it was great for extra cash, but this is not going to work out. Just no, no, no, no. There is a "handsoff" rule in Georgia and I've been breaking it for these deliveries. I don't like to break the law.  Also, these are HUGE apartment complexes. One after the other sometimes and it is easy to get lost back inside them! Not trying to make a big deal about this, but this can actually be intimidating a little bit. Sometimes people have given good directions but it is raining and I cannot see well and they are describing a turn in an alleyway as a "fork" in the road and it is looking like a lefthand turn to me, and things like that. Also, I have almost wrecked my car a couple of times just in two weeks while being distracted by the app or looking for an approaching road or address. I would have recommend this job as good extra money for college age or young people, but will NOT do that because of distractions with the app while driving and some other tendencies of this job. Also, if you are going to do this try it mostly in your own zone because driving to a zone just outside of Atlanta I wasted forty-five minutes sitting in a parking lot there and no orders came in! Then I had to drive back home anyway.  
In addition there were some major drawbacks such as, Expensive Gas Fill Ups (not financially or environmentally friendliest job for me!), must be in zone to accept delivery but can route you back out of zone to deliver (or even send you out to pickup!), bad, confusing, or negligent directions lacking names of complexes, basic drive back directions once inside (if app doesn't do this!), correct apt. building #'s, and accepting orders after required pickup time listed. I felt there was an issue with dangerous and distracted driving while using the phone and attending to the app. In two weeks only once did I receive a cash tip from a customer, which made me kind of sad. So although I had fun the first couple of days, it is time to say bye to DoorDash. Am sorry because I really thought this would work out too.

DoorDash is a great company if you need the flexibility. With that being said, they completely hobble your flexibility because if you have not completed 100 dashes within 30 days, you lose the power to be able to dash when you want. To explain this, I will give you an example. If you made 10 deliveries on August 16, they “roll off” on September 16. So if you have 102 deliveries completed on Sept.15, at 12am on the 16th, you will have 92 deliveries completed. This causes you to lose your “platinum” status. With that goes your access to better offers (supposedly) and your ability to dash when you want. You then have to hope and pray that someone cancels a dash during the day or that it gets busy enough to warrant allowing “anyone” to dash. You have to schedule yourself a week out. On Thursdays, the schedule is released for Wednesday of the next week and you have to schedule pretty much within a 4-5 hour block, otherwise all available times in your area will be gone and you are pretty much up a creek for dashing that day. The policy before was completing 100 dashes within a month-they would start over on the 1st or 2nd of the month. I have had a few bouts with illnesses and had a few surgeries this year that have prevented me from dashing for sometimes over a week. Getting back up to that “platinum” plateau is near impossible if you slip too far now because you may do 8 dashes that day, but you have 7 roll off the following day. It’s a way to make you a cog in their machine. You are stuck having to accept ridiculous orders in order to climb back up the ladder. I refuse to do it. They do not care about their employees at all. They also don’t give you freedom to choose what you want. I have a Tahoe-(I know that is not the ideal vehicle for this job, but I had anticipated picking up deliveries from Home Depot and such)- If I am getting an order that is paying me $6 to drive 12 miles (one way!), I am going to decline it. I live outside Atlanta where traffic is a beast we have to fight everyday. An order like that would take me upwards of 45 minutes to 1 hour to deliver (and that is if the food is ready…if it’s pizza, tack on an additional 15-20mins). If you are on dash by time, you do not get paid anything from the time you deliver it. If it puts you “out of your zone”, you have to wait until you get back in your zone to start getting orders again. You get punished by declining an order because it causes your acceptance rate to go down. You need an AR above 70% to qualify for gold or platinum status. I am a good employee. I communicate with customers and I deliver the items with care. This company manipulates you into accepting orders that are less than subpar. They keep hiring more and more people in these areas because newcomers are, for lack of a better word, deceived into thinking it’s a wonderful job. DoorDash gives them “priority” for the first two weeks or something, and they get great orders and think “oh! This is a wonderful job!”. Meanwhile, there are drivers who have been with them for months, years, who sit there for an hour just waiting to get one awful order.  It’s a terrible business model. They take advantage of everyone (customers and employees). I continue to do it because I am over a barrel and really need the money, but it makes me sick every time I go out there to work for such an awful company. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Shift leader 212 salaries reported	$20.65 per hour
Warehouse associate 2 salaries reported	$16.15 per hour
Dasher 29 salaries reported	$127,156 per year
Team member 261 salaries reported	$17.27 per hour
Delivery driver 55 salaries reported	$20.45 per hour

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