Kerri-Ann Roper
In the US, tipping culture is a considerably bigger deal than it is in some other countries like the UK.
Not only do Americans tip servers more often than we do, they do it more generously too.
The reason for that is that, as a general rule, food servers, bartenders and delivery drivers earn too little to live on with their base pay. Most of their income comes from tips, and customers tend to know that and tip accordingly.
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That said, it’s not a seamless system and there’s no end of stories where tips have become a point of contention between customers and servers.
In those cases, a server has usually confronted a customer over a missing or lacking tip: cue a brief public tiff.
While bartenders don’t have the luxury of deciding which jobs to take, delivery drivers for services like DoorDash typically accept jobs from a list.
You might imagine that the best way to make cash with this system is by taking on and fulfilling as many delivery jobs as possible, but one delivery driver has got a better method sussed out.
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In 2023, a Philadelphia delivery driver spoke up about how he makes more money by taking fewer jobs, and it’s all about the tips.
The driver, known only as Jay, was working for the likes of DoorDash and UberEats for ten hours a week at the time.
Those hours were supplementary to another job he was doing in the week, with the delivery driving being his side hustle.
Whilst doing deliveries, he only accepted the best-paying deliveries, and that usually equated to being the jobs with the biggest upfront tips.
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To that end, Jay said at the time that he declines as much as 75% of orders that get pushed through to his apps.
He shared his take on gaming the deliveries system on his TikTok (@downtownhustle) and, along with keeping his full name under wraps, he’s kept his face hidden in his videos.
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Jay told Business Insider that he would hang around in wealthier neighbourhoods on his bike because that was typically the best way to fish for the big tips.
As DoorDash and UberEats use distance and inconvenience factors when deciding how much to pay as a base rate for each job, it made sense to Jay to focus on orders with big tips.
Jay explained that payments could be worth $4.50 per order at the time, with an order of $2-$2.50 indicating that there was no upfront tip - therefore, he could figure out which orders came with a tip without having to see the order’s full details.
Of course, there’s always a chance he might get a tip on delivery, but he felt it wasn’t worth his time to take that chance.
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"I'm not doing this to gamble,” he said. “I'm doing this to make money.”
"I'm not really interested in playing the game of, 'Oh, maybe I'll do this person's delivery for a guaranteed $2.50… I don't play that game.
These apps work in a similar way in the UK, so if you’re ever wondering why your orders take a while to get picked up, it might be because you aren’t offering tips upfront.
"That's what results in their orders not getting picked up, or it takes awhile for them to get their food," said Jay.
According to Insider, DoorDash and UberEats tips in the US generally range from $3 to $7, and drivers keep 100% of that cash.
"I think people should be tipping for the premium service that they're being provided," Jay said.