Driver Pay

by Harry Campbell on September 11, 2017 72 Comments

How Much Should Uber Pay Its Drivers?

Uber has been making significant upgrades to the driver experience over the past few months, but one thing missing from all of these announcements is a rate increase. Tipping and additional destination filters will have a positive effect on a driver’s bottom line, but they don’t address the core issue for many people: drivers just aren’t paid enough.

Uber and Lyft cut rates 3 years in a row from 2014-2016, so drivers are making less today than they ever have. While Uber has always claimed lower rates mean higher utilization and thus higher earnings for drivers, I have never bought that argument. Lowering rates helps Uber grow its market share, but it also means more dissatisfied drivers and higher churn rates since drivers care most about pay and flexibility.

Uber has been able to make it work with lower rates because there is a learning curve for drivers and the company is able to spend heavily on recruiting new drivers to replace those that are quitting. But with losses in the billions of dollars a year, that model isn’t sustainable forever.

And while a lot of the positive changes Uber is making as part of the 180 Days of Change campaign are a good thing, the real question is are they enough? If Uber is going to tout driving as a revolutionary new employment opportunity and wants more satisfied drivers, shouldn’t they be paying the average driver more than minimum wage?

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by Christian Perea on September 4, 2017 108 Comments

Where Has All The Surge Gone?

Have you noticed you’re not getting as many Surge or Prime Time requests as you did in the past? There could be a reason for that. Today, senior RSG contributor Christian Perea analyzes what’s happening with Surge and Prime Time, why it’s happening and what drivers can do about it.

I think most drivers have noticed that there’s a lot less Surge on the road nowadays. Personally, I’ve noticed that over the last 6 months it’s almost completely disappeared in San Francisco. Where I once could reliably get a 2.0x in Soma everyday at 4 p.m. I can now only maybe get a 1.25x once or twice a week.

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by Christian Perea on August 18, 2017 26 Comments

Will These New Features Make Driving for Uber and Lyft Better?

Uber and Lyft are competing to make their apps and driver efficiency better, but will these changes really improve the driver experience? Today, senior RSG contributor Christian Perea outlines potential upcoming changes to our Uber and Lyft driver apps – some that will make a big difference to drivers.

Over the next few days, Uber is set to announce even more information as part of their 180 Days of Change. Stay tuned for an announcement here on Tuesday, when Uber is set to unveil Chapter 3 of the 180 Days of Change.

We’ve seen competition heating up between Uber and Lyft ever since Uber started to put the heat on Lyft with their “180 Days of Change”. We’ve compiled a list and roundup of all the leaked screenshots, rumors, and tests that are going on for drivers that haven’t even launched yet. Whatever happens, hopefully we will get some more money out of it!

Uber and Lyft are almost always testing features among different drivers throughout different markets. Some of these features make it out to the public while some are quickly put back in a box and never heard from again. Right now though, both are testing a lot of interesting changes to their apps that I think have a strong chance of being rolled out to everyone.

And of course, we’ve already seen some big changes in the last few months. Tipping on Uber, 24 hour phone support, increased pay for Lyft Line rides, and showing PrimeTime on incoming requests.

All of these are part of a big push right now to make the app better for drivers.

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by Curtis Preston on July 24, 2017 47 Comments

How Much is Uber Really Taking From Your Ride?

Today we have our third installment of our “reading your Uber pay statement” series. In our third article on Uber pay, RSG contributor Curtis Preston tackles the thorny and complicated question of how much Uber really is taking from your ride. If you missed our first two installments, please click to read Understanding Uber’s New Pay Statement and How to Calculate Uber’s Percentage in an Upfront Fare World.

You’ve probably noticed by now that Uber is taking a lot more than 25% commission on some of your rides. When you consider the booking fee, that number goes even higher. But there are also rides where Uber is taking a lot less than 25%. There are even some rides were Uber pays drivers more than what the customer paid them, especially when we talk about UberPOOL rides.

It’s easy to spot the rides where Uber takes a big cut, but I wanted to know what the numbers looked like over a large data set, so I analyzed 255 trips, and the results were surprising.

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by Christian Perea on July 19, 2017 17 Comments

Big Changes Arrive For Lyft Line and (Probably) UberPOOL

Big changes are coming to Lyft Line, and it looks like UberPOOL may follow suit! But did Lyft really come up with this rate increase for drivers, or were they spurred to do it by Uber? Senior RSG contributor Christian Perea outlines what this rate increase for Lyft Line means for drivers, and what we may expect to see from UberPOOL.

We got some good news about shared rides on July 13th when Lyft announced they would increase what they pay to drivers for Lyft Lines to match the pay for Lyft Classic. In the past, Lyft drivers actually earned less per mile and per minute on Lyft Line rides than they did on regular Lyft rides.

But now, Lyft drivers will get paid based on of the same rate card as Lyft Classic. This move is significant because it’s the first time ever that a rideshare company has announced a nationwide price increase for drivers (even if it’s just limited to Lyft Line).

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