Many people probably look at jobs like DoorDash and think it must be a fairly easy way to make some extra cash. A lot of people do take it on as a side gig to try to boost their bank accounts a bit, but it may not be as simple as it seems.
One DoorDash driver decided to run a little experiment. He accepted every order he got for 12 hours straight to see how much money he could make. He then filmed a video of himself sharing the results. Unfortunately, things didn’t go very well for him.
The video was re-shared on the X account Financial Dystopia, and it certainly fit the theme. “I just accepted every single DoorDash order for around 12 hours straight,” he said in his video. “Started around 8:00 a.m. and ended around 9:15 p.m. on a Monday in the Virginia Beach area.”
“My earnings before taxes, wear and tear, gas, insurance, etc., was $215,” he revealed. “My biggest tip was $14.25 from a Food Lion grocery order, and my smallest tip was $3 from a Starbucks order.”
A grocery order is certainly going to cost more than a quick meal, so it makes sense that was where his biggest tip came from. However, even if the Starbucks customer only ordered a coffee, $3 seems pretty low for having someone deliver it right to your door. “I was dashing about 12 hours and 10 minutes,” he said. “I was active for nine hours and 56 minutes.”
The real kicker was how much the venture could have cost him. “I put 225 miles on my 2009 Subaru Forester,” he shared. “I’m tired as [expletive], and my car needs a tune-up badly now.”
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No one could say this man isn’t a hard worker. But, if $215 sounded too low for the amount of work he did, the amount of money he actually earned is even more disappointing.
One of the 13.9 million X users who saw the video asked Grok, X’s built-in AI program, to run the numbers and determine how much he actually made when accounting for those things he mentioned, like gas and insurance. On the surface, for $215 over 10 active hours, it sounded like he made about $21.50 an hour. The real answer was much worse.
Grok estimated that the gas cost was about $31. Additionally, it calculated the “full vehicle costs.” That totaled $155. So, this man made a net of $60 total. That’s $6 an hour. Even Grok noted it was a “tiresome gig.”
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According to DoorDash’s website, Dashers’ pay is made up of a combination of base pay, promotions, and tips. Base pay is how much they make, “depending on the estimated time, distance, and desirability of the offer.”
In other words, orders that take more time or require more travel pay more. Promotions are “incentives” that DoorDash runs to allow Dashers to earn more money, like “Delivery Streaks.” The one perk is that Dashers keep all of their tips.
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DoorDash estimated that their base pay is typically between $2 and $10, but could sometimes be more. That’s obviously a minuscule amount, so it seems like Dashers largely rely on tips. If people aren’t willing to tip well, there’s no chance that they’ll be paid fairly for their labor. What many people don’t realize is that, like servers, DoorDash drivers basically rely on tips.
Things like DoorDash are great for people who want to make a little extra money on the side, but it’s not really a model that’s set up to be sustainable as an actual job. Hearing stories like the one from this man almost makes it sound like a rip-off.
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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
