On average, PostMates makes 7,143 deliveries a day. That’s a lot of deliveries, so chances are that you’ve used this platform before, or know someone who has. And maybe in your search for a side hustle you’ve considered becoming a driver for them.
So, can you make money with PostMates?
Yes, you can easily earn over $10 per hour. Plus you get to make your own schedule, and the work is laid back. However, it’s only available in urban areas, and you have to account for costs like gas and wear-and-tear on your vehicle.
Let’s take a closer look at what PostMates is all about, how you get started with them, and how much you can reasonably expect to earn.
PostMates Overview
PostMates was founded in 2011 by three people named Bastian Lehmann, Sean Plaice, and Sam Street.
PostMates is an on-demand company that is focused around allowing small businesses and restaurants that did not previously offer delivery to open themselves up to that and broaden their revenue and customer base.
They’re a pretty big company in the on-demand market and that is shown by their (shocking) annual revenue of $1 billion per year.
Something that makes PostMates different from other companies like DoorDash or GrubHub is that they don’t just offer food delivery. They’re also similar to InstaCart, where you can make grocery deliveries as well.
How Do I Work With PostMates?
Getting started with PostMates is pretty easy like most other app based companies and follows some simple steps:
- Get signed up
- Receive materials and app link
- Start delivering
Let’s take a closer look at what each step entails.
1. Get signed up
It’s really simple to get signed up on PostMates as a driver. All you need to do is go to their website and find the “Join the Fleet” button at the bottom of the page.
Next, you enter in your email and create a password for your account. This will be important to remember because it’ll be your log in information for working on the app.
Then you’ll have to enter in some other information – just some of the usual stuff to verify identity (like your full legal name) for the background check. You’ll also need to input your bank information to be able to get paid if you get hired.
The last thing you’ll have to enter in is your phone number. This is going to be how you are going to receive the PostMates app for the workers, which is different than the app you can download as a customer.
2. Receive materials and app link
If you passed the background check and entered in all your information correctly, then you’re good to go!
PostMates will then send you the app link to download the worker’s app (which isn’t available to just anyone on the app store).
They’ll send you a prepaid card that you’ll use for paying for the orders when you pick them up. You’ll also receive an insulated bag and some PostMates gear to wear so that customers will be able to identify you as a worker.
3. Start delivering
Once all this is done, then you are ready to start delivering.
When you want to start, just hop on your app and wait until an order comes in. Once an order pops up on your screen, a timer will start counting down. You’ll have to accept the order before the timer runs out or it will be sent to another worker.
When the order pops up, you’ll be able to see the location name and how many deliveries you have to pick up.
Then you follow the in-app GPS to get there, pick up the order, and pay with the prepaid card that PostMates sent you. Then you simply follow the GPS to the dropoff location.
Once you’re all done and finish the order, you will be able to see exactly how much you earned.
Then you just wait for more orders to come in and repeat the process.
How Much Can You Make?
As a delivery driver for PostMates, your pay is based on:
- Each completed pick up
- Each completed drop off
- How long you wait at the pick up location
- The distance between the pick up and drop off locations
- How many tips you earn
With PostMates, you get to keep 100% of the tips you earn, which can really help bump up your earnings. But you shouldn’t rely on tips, because most of the time they’re small – only a few dollars.
Another thing to realize is that their pay rates also vary based on your location.
To give you an idea: say you accepted an order, waited for seven minutes while picking it up, and the drop-off location was 15 miles away.
If you were working in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, you would earn $10.49 for that order before tips. However, if you were working in the East Bay Area in California, you would earn $17.44 for that same order, before tips.
And while on the surface it seems like you would earn more money if you’re in a more urban area, that’s not necessarily the case when you account for other factors.
For one thing, going 15 miles in a town in Kentucky will take you a lot less time than going 15 miles in San Francisco. And the less time deliveries take, the more you can complete, and the more money you can earn.
Something else to factor in would be the differences in gas costs. For example, the average price of gas in San Francisco hovers around $4 a gallon, whereas the average cost of gas in Elizabethtown is only around $2.40 a gallon.
So, when you account for other factors, the amount of profit you would take home each day would probably be about the same, regardless of location.
Are There Costs Involved?
While it doesn’t cost anything to sign up and get started with PostMates, there are a few costs that are continually involved.
As a worker for PostMates, you are an independent contractor. This means that you’re going to be responsible for not only your own taxes, but covering your other costs as well.
Since you’re going to be doing quite a bit of driving if you work with PostMates, you’re going to have to factor in wear and tear on your vehicle and gas costs.
If you live in a state like California where gas prices are regularly much higher than other parts of the country, this can become a factor to consider when deciding if it’s worth it to deliver for PostMates.
With this type of work, a commuter car or anything that gets good gas mileage is going to make it worth it. If you have a gas-guzzling pickup truck, however, there are better ways to earn income with it.
What I Like
- You work on your own schedule
- Easy and fun way to earn extra money
- Can be a full-time job if done right
What I Don’t Like
- Wear and tear on your vehicle
- Can’t see the pay before accepting orders
- Can be hard to get orders is the location you are in is oversaturated with drivers
Summing It Up
So yes, you can make some money with PostMates – potentially $10 an hour or more just for driving, picking up, and dropping off an order.
There is obviously more potential in bigger cities, however in a bigger city you might have more competition among other drivers.
All in all, whether you work with PostMates or not is really up to you, but when weighing it against some other options for income, it’s definitely not the worst way to go.
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