Because of DoorDash Driver Saturation, I’m Going to Try for Top Dasher

Author’s note: Please read all the way to end to see how it turned out.

I don’t know about your market, but over here where I live, it’s HARD to make a buck these days on the Uber and Doordash apps because of driver saturation. I live in Katy TX next to Houston. I’ve tried dashing in Houston but it’s a nightmare. Too many apartment complexes. So, I stay here in Katy.

Lately, mostly due to the pandemic and people leaving low-paying jobs and other reasons, people have jumped into the gig economy. I jumped into the gig economy in 2018 trying to earn extra money on the side to supplement my writing gigs. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I lost the majority of my writing clients for various reasons beyond my control. So, here I am, close to 2022 and I am left with one writing client. I would say this is mostly for two reasons: because of an oversaturation of writers and because a lot of people are now turning to video and less to reading text. So, I now do Uber and DoorDash full time. Lately, I can only manage to make around $100 in 8 hours. I would say that this is because: the rise in gas prices is eating into my profits, an oversaturation of drivers, and the fact that most customers tip very little now and they lowered the base rate of pay to drivers on DD.

Many people talk about how they would not try to become a top dasher on DD because of various reasons. But I’m the kind of person who likes to try things out for myself and come to my own conclusion. Let’s jump into this topic more below:

DoorDash has now become among the biggest online food delivery and ordering platforms in the U.S. By the end of 2020, DoorDash racked up more than 20M customers, 450,000 merchants and 1 million drivers, also referred to as “Dashers.”

The company is a reliable platform for drivers to make a full or part-time income. If you’re willing to really work for it, you can earn $1000 per week, especially if you use the right tools and strategize.

However today, like I mentioned earlier, there are more than a million delivery drivers on the platform, which creates a ton of competition among dashers attempting to obtain orders. In order to maximize earnings, dashers have to be creative and need a better way to stand apart and receive more deliveries.

If you want to improve your delivery game, you may think about becoming a Top Dasher. Here is a breakdown of what you should know about their program:

Top Dasher program is a rewards program recognizing and rewarding high-performing drivers. Those drivers have high acceptance ratings, customer ratings, and high percentage of successful food and retail deliveries.

If you really want to get to this pinnacle in delivery, here is what you must do:

1. Have a 4.7 customer rating

2. Have a 70 percent order acceptance rate

3. Have a 95 percent delivery completion rate

4. Completed more than 100 deliveries in the month

5. Completed 200 total lifetime deliveries

The program is meant to motivate drivers to complete and accept as many deliveries as they can. While this type of performance from dashers is very beneficial for the company, whether it is rewarding for dashers is worth asking. Before answering this, let us dive into the benefits the company offers to dashers who qualify.

Benefits of Being a Top Dasher

The program is a monthly program renewing on the first day of every month. If you meet the criteria by the end of the present month, you’ll receive accessibility to benefits for the next month.

There are a couple of main reasons you may think about becoming a Top Dasher: to “Dash Anytime” and receive more deliveries.

Dash Anytime

Any dasher may dash, as well as compete for orders without having to schedule in advance. When a delivery zone gets busy it’s marked red on the map. But once orders start declining in the zone, (marked as grey on the map), the company places limits on who is able to dash. It’ll balance supply and demand and gives dashers more opportunities to earn money without waiting too long between food and retail orders.

Top performers are exempt from that restriction and are able to dash anywhere, anytime, without previous scheduling. However, the option to dash anytime does not guarantee food and retail orders. If the zone is slow and there are several active Top Dashers, they’ll be faced with the exact same competition for food and retail orders that they typically might compete for without being a top performer.

More deliveries

The company’s system offers preferential treatment to top performers over standard dashers once both compete for the exact same order. For instance, if there are two drivers nearby and somebody searches for “pizza delivery near me,” they’ll give Top Dasher the choice to take that order first. It may help you beat the crowd and make more money on deliveries, even within crowded markets.

DoorDash is currently tweaking that benefit within some cities. Instead of prioritizing Top Dashers for every order, they’re experimenting with offering priority accessibility for high-value food and retail orders (orders that are above $30). Those tweaks might be the company’s move to address one of the main complaints they get about the program — Dash Anytime.

Are these benefits worth it?

Unfortunately, the answer isn’t that black and white and varies from one driver to another and from one city to another. Becoming a Top Dasher is usually a good thing, there are specific factors you should consider as you evaluate the program and its effect on your earnings.

You might need to accept more low-ball offers

It’s the most apparent downside of the program. With the mandatory requirement to accept a minimum of 70 percent of all orders offered, dashers must take a lot of low-ball offers and may miss out on higher-earning offers.

When a driver is forced to drive over 20 miles round-trip and be paid less than $5, it does not make sense to accept that order. A driver would probably turn down those types of orders if they were not interested in becoming Top Dasher.

But maintaining or reaching a 70 percent acceptance rate is possible even as you refuse low payouts. The target must be reached by the end of a month, so dashers may strategize by being very selective at the start of a month and then change course at the end if they’re falling short of their goal.

What’s the issue with Dash Anytime?

Some dashers might argue that the choice to dash anytime without having to schedule is not that much of a benefit and doesn’t translate into significant earnings. But the company recommends that top performers should continuously schedule shifts and dash in busy zones.

When it actually makes sense to be a Top Dasher

It is a beneficial program if you need to schedule a dash ahead of time and want the flexibility to work where and when you need to. Also, it is useful if you frequently change zones.

However, if being eligible for the program means accepting an overabundance of low payouts in your area, it might not be worth your effort and time. You are better off concentrating on scheduling slots ahead of time and accepting bigger payouts to maximize the value of your precious time.

So as of today’s date, (11.25.2021) my stats are as follows:

· Customer rating: 4.86 — so this is fine

· Acceptance rate: 42% — I’ll need to get this up to 70%

· Completion rate: 91% — I’ll need to get this up to 95%

· 1734 lifetime deliveries — this is fine, and I know I at least have 100 completed deliveries per month because I do it full time

Update: 11.30.2021

So as of today’s date, (11.30.2021) my stats are as follows:

· Customer rating: 4.87 — so this is fine

· Acceptance rate: 63% — I’ll need to get this up to 70%

· Completion rate: 92% — I’ll need to get this up to 95%

· 1779 lifetime deliveries — this is fine, and I know I at least have 100 completed deliveries per month because I do it full time

So I probably won’t make Top Dasher for December, so I’ll keep my stats up and see what happens next month.

Conclusion

So, let’s see how long it takes to get there, and I’ll keep you posted on that. Then, I’ll work it and let you know my verdict on whether it’s worth it or not to be a Top Dasher!

So, stay tuned!

11.27.2021 Update

Okay so recently, a Top Dasher emailed me and sent these stats with this message:

Top Dasher is worth it. I can deliver anywhere in the US Anytime. I keep my Acceptance over 92% Completion over 97% and On Time at 97%

I treat delivering like a real business. I work 60 to 80 hours a week and do 190 to 220 DoorDash orders per week. I take $2.75 orders to get $25 to $40 orders. My average hourly revenue is between $20.40 to $27.50.

Advice: do as many orders as possible without refusing. And be On / Before Time

The Top Dasher also sent these screenshots:

Update 12.5.2021

After listening to different opinions and working toward trying to get Top Dasher, I have decided to abandon the idea of becoming Top Dasher.

This is my new strategy here.

This is mainly because I can’t fathom the idea of taking garbage orders. {People who don’t tip}. I work hard and my car works even harder. I just can’t reward people with good service and make the trip to their house if they aren’t going to appreciate my service. So for now, I will remain a cherry picker. From now on, I work in the Galleria area of Houston. I no longer work in Katy and Northwest Houston. Katy never has any work during the daytime, the time I prefer to work. And in Northwest Houston, there are too many tolls that eat into my profits. I don’t take anything less than $5 for a trip and I try not to go more than 5 miles because I don’t want to go too far out of my zone.

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