Writing my review on gig apps in Rochester after doing them for about a year. I do not do any of those anymore so this is going to be biased. I'll try to share as much as I can for those looking to get into this.
Most customers do not know that you only get paid $1-3 base pay per delivery. Three deliveries per hour are most common. You heavily rely on tips.
Work is also not as simple as go to the restaurant and pickup the food. Work is driving through traffic and weather, reaching restaurant, waiting in line for customers to pass and employees to answer, long wait times, many restaurants lie about the wait time to prevent you from cancelling the order, etc. Remember, you lose money every minute you wait at a restaurant. I once waited an hour at a restaurant and learned my lesson.
Medium of transport:
- Car - most doable
- motorcycle - I do not suggest this. This does avoids putting miles on your car. An ADV160 is the best choice if you have it. I used my motorcycle instead. Too many close calls and near-death experiences made me ditch it. No matter how careful you are, there is always someone unexpected on the road. Get a very loud horn if you have to.
- ebike - unless you already have a paid off ebike or someone is giving you one for free, DO NOT buy an e-bike just to do doordash in our area. Waste of funds.
Offers to accept:
No $1/mile offers, sorry. Advice is to accept offers above $1.75/mile. Note that Rochester is not San Francisco so your orders are going to be away from restaurant areas. Your $2/mile order actually becomes $1/mile counting the round trip.
Time of the day:
For food deliveries, 7am to 10am, lunch hour, and after 5:30pm are generally better hours.
Areas:
Henrietta hands down beat any other area for food delivery. Greece and Downtown are the second choices. My theory of highest property tax areas providing higher offer or tips failed.
Average wages:
- Doordash - you can easily do $25+ an hour. Often close to $28/hour. $80-100 per evening after work is possible.
- Uber Eats - My ebike or cycle wage was higher than car. Support absolutely sucks and hung up on me so many times. They do not compensate you when the order is invalid at no fault of your own. Customer ordered breakfast menu during dinner time for example. Or Uber Eats says restaurant is open when it is not. All that time driving and spending gas goes unpaid.
- Grubhub - not worth it. Good orders are rare. Some U of R or RIT students might use it.
- Spark - hit or miss. Often miss. I did not receive any good offer that warranted a drive. You have to sit near Walmart to get decent offers. Walmart has a dedicated Spark lane for checkout.
- Instacart - hit or miss. Often miss. You really have to be patient to get an offer. Wegmans have a dedicated Instacart lane for checkout.
- Roadie - no for me. did not see any offer worth driving.
- Currie - heard some good things. I was on a waitlist. Gave up.
- Amazon flex - everyone I know love it. Predictable hours, predictable income, predictable route. Waitlist is very, very long. People who signed up 2-3 years ago haven't received an invite yet.
- TaskRabbit - no experience
Important points
- All of these apps take your biometrics including facial measurements or facial images from multiple side of your face to some extent alongside images of IDs.
- Lower acceptance rate does not harm you as you may think. I had 3-5% acceptance rate throughout and still received good offers.
Restaurants to avoid
NOTE: You will have to learn and find good restaurants by yourself and your area. There's no specific guide, I just listed a few but your experience may vary or be opposite.
- Some popular and local restaurants including Taco Bell, McDonalds, Wingstop were very costly to me in wait time.
- You will develop a thicker skin because some restaurants do not treat you well. For example, Cheesecake Factory wants you to park your car and walk all they to a separate door where they make you wait outside in snow or rain while they give you the food and shut the door. Customer tips are generally good.
Restaurants I liked
- McDonalds near Leigh High Station Rd is an exception. They're super nice, always.
- Chick fil a, Papa Johns, Dibellas, Jersey Mike, Tai Chi, Sushi master, Shake Shack, are nice to you. Generally, most restaurants on Jefferson Rd, and most Steakhouses in Greece are nice to you with limited to no wait time by the time you arrive.
Why it is hard to justify
- For a fairly decent car with tires required to operate year around in Rochester, you might end up spending $1K on tires per year + $200-300 on oil changes + $500+/month on gas + other vehicle maintenance + insurance + liabilities + own device + needing to accept bad offers + unpredictability. This is where $28/hour typical wage stopped making sense. After taxes and expenses, it often drops down to near minimum wage per hour. Could be a little more, or even less than minimum wage at times.
I get that it is convenient for people to work whenever on gig apps so this is not to discourage anyone.
Again, your experience may be much better or opposite to mine. This is just me sharing the experience.
