This is why DoorDash delivery workers usually prefer cash tips

When you order a burger and fries on a food delivery app, do you know where your tip is going?

After a New York Times story over the weekend highlighted popular food delivery service DoorDash’s tipping policy, people were surprised to learn that DoorDash takes the tip paid in the app, but ensures a minimum payout to its delivery workers, known as Dashers. 

This prompted a look at how you tip delivery workers who bring food orders to your door from restaurants by car or bicycle. Here’s an example from the NYT reporter’s experience delivering in New York City on an electric bicycle.

DoorDash offers a guaranteed minimum for each job. For my first order, the guarantee was $6.85 and the customer, a woman in Boerum Hill who answered the door in a colorful bathrobe, tipped $3 via the app. But I still received only $6.85.

Here’s how it works: If the woman in the bathrobe had tipped zero, DoorDash would have paid me the whole $6.85. Because she tipped $3, DoorDash kicked in only $3.85. She was saving DoorDash $3, not tipping me.

On the DoorDash Reddit page, a customer posted Monday, “I’m a regular customer of [DoorDash] that has started doing cash tips because of this. I know I’m one person but I’m hoping that word keeps getting out and the situation keeps improving!”

As the Verge pointed out, all other apps like Uber Eats, Grubhub, Postmates, and other delivery apps give workers 100 percent of tips, similar to ride-sharing apps Lyft and Uber. Earlier this year grocery delivery service Instacart reversed course on its tipping policy after similar internet outcry.

A DoorDash spokesperson said in a statement that the company guarantees a minimum amount for making a delivery that’s displayed before Dashers accept or reject a delivery. 

“Dashers tell us they value knowing the minimum they’ll earn upfront, and our model is designed to make the guaranteed minimum fair for every delivery—including the vast majority of orders where DoorDash provides a pay boost to ensure the Dasher receives at least the guaranteed amount,” the statement said.

A spokesperson said about 15 percent of the time customers don’t leave any tip.

Dashers mostly said they always prefer cold-hard cash (“Cash 100%,” one Redditor wrote), like a Dasher in the Silicon Valley area who explained that he and most Dashers prefer cash for various reasons, although he could see some small problems. 

“The only issue would be that you spend the earnings (because it’s more accessible) instead of have it direct deposited,” he wrote. He said robbery concerns don’t even register.

The main photo on the Facebook group “Bay Area Dasher Community” is a holiday note from a satisfied customer who left $40 in cash.

A new DoorDasher Lyndsey Williams emailed she’s completed 16 deliveries and has yet to receive a cash tip. “It is a Catch-22, because I understand DoorDash needs to profit to maintain business but also, they’re a multi-billion dollar company, and I’m working this as my third job just to be able to pay rent,” she wrote. She said she makes about $12 to $13 per hour with DoorDash’s structure, which she called “pretty fair” even when she sees how a $5 in-app tip on a $6 order could almost double her earnings as cash.

Some Dashers don’t see the benefits of cash tipping. 

“Hate cash tips, it’s annoying to have so many small bills, it’s more convenient in app,” a Dasher wrote on the DoorDash Reddit page. Another Dasher in the Rochester, New York, area emailed “If everyone started tipping cash then the companies … would just lower their minimum payout. That’s business.” 

Instead he’d prefer delivery workers stop complaining about the realities of the gig economy and just accept this is how it works. He suspects many workers are only part-time and aren’t as familiar with the ins and outs of independent contract work. 

That’s the nature of gig-based work, it doesn’t bring in a wage, another Redditor noted. 

“Personally, I’ve seen more customers start to tip me cash upon delivering their food, which is encouraging and suggests to me that the word is getting out to tip Dashers using an outside delivery payment option or cash upon arrival. The best way to know that the Dasher is getting the tip directly … is to tip cash or use Venmo or PayPal. Problem solved.”