Does acceptance rate matter as a Doordash delivery driver? Doordash cannot require you to maintain a certain acceptance rate as an independent contractor. They CAN offer incentives (like the Doordash Top Dasher reward program) in return for accepting a percentage of delivery offers.
That means that it depends a lot on your personal situation, your market, and how you choose to operate your delivery business. Acceptance rate can mean absolutely nothing for some drivers, and quite a bit to others.
We'll look at how acceptance rate works for Doordash. We'll explore questions like what kind of trouble you can get into for rejecting too many offers (hint: you can't), and at the million dollar questions for Doordash independent contractors:
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Click on the text box below to copy the code. Please include attribution to EntreCourier.comWhat offers should I take? Which ones aren't worth it? How do I make the most of my time on deliveries? How do I best choose the trips that will be the most profitable? Does acceptance rate matter?
This is part of larger series on being a Doordash Delivery Driver Series: We'll link to other articles throughout this post, and at the end you can find a list of other articles in the series.
The topics in this article include:
- What it means to accept and decline orders on Doordash
- The process of evaluating, accepting and rejecting Doordash delivery offers
- Understanding how the Doordash acceptance rate works
- Understanding completion rate
- Strategies for accepting and rejecting delivery offers on Doordash
There are a lot of questions and answers in this article. You can click here for a full list of the 43 questions at the end of the article.
What it means to accept and decline orders on Doordash
My philosophy is that since we are independent contractors (meaning we agreed to provide services for Doordash and others as a business, not as employees) the best thing we can do is treat this all like a business and be your own boss.
That means I view Doordash as my customer. An offer from Door dash is a bid for my services. It's no different than someone walking into whatever business you operate and offering money for whatever you do or sell.
Accepting and rejecting delivery offers is a business decision.
At the same time, I recognize that you, too, are running a business. You are making your own business decisions. You have every right to have your own business philosophy. I'll tell you at times what I think works for me, but I will never tell you how you should to things.
In the end, you have to make your own decisions.
It's more than just my philosophy. By law, Doordash cannot control your work and that restriction includes them forcing you to maintain a certain acceptance rate. We're going to talk about this more, that you have a right to choose which deliveries make sense for your business.
- Can you decline orders on Doordash?
- What happens when you accept an offer on Doordash?
- Can Doordash punish you for declining orders?
- Is declining too many orders considered a contract violation with Doordash?
- Is Doordash ending or pausing dashes for declining too many orders?
Can you decline orders on Doordash?
Yes. Absolutely. In fact, Doordash tells you as much.
As independent contractors, Dashershave the right to decline any delivery opportunity offered to them; however, by accepting an order for delivery they are agreeing to complete that delivery.
From the Doordash deactivation policy
A company cannot legally control the work of an independent contractor. That means they cannot just assign tasks to you without your permission. You can decide, on an offer by offer basis, whether to accept or reject that offer.
What happens when you accept an offer on Doordash?
The moment you accept a delivery offer is the moment your independent contractor agreement goes into effect. Because your contract with them is on a delivery by delivery basis, you have no obligations until the moment you accept an offer.
By accepting an offer, you agree to the offered price and that you will complete the delivery
Can Doordash punish you for declining orders?
No. Doordash is not your employer. As such, they cannot take punitive action. This is especially true when it comes to accepting or rejecting offers. To do so is to control the work of a contractor which is not allowed.
One thing to note is that rejecting too many orders could keep you from qualifying for their Top Dasher program. That program does offer perks for Doordash delivery drivers who accept 70% or more of their offers. I don't see this as a punishment though because it's not a negative action.
Is declining too many orders considered a contract violation with Doordash?
No.
The Doordash Independent Contractor Agreement (as accessed on September 2, 2021) includes this: The Contractor understands that “(ii) they are free to accept or reject the opportunities transmitted through the Doordash platform by consumers, and can make such decisions to maximize their opportunity to profit.”
In other words, the contract clearly states that the independent contractor has every right to determine what offers and how many offers they will accept. They are free to make their own decisions as to what is profitable.
Is Doordash ending or pausing dashes for declining too many orders?
Recently Doordash has begun to pause some dashes after several consecutive orders have been rejected. This may not be happening in every market yet.
In such situations, a notice like this may pop up on the Dasher app.
The notice says that “it looks like you're not accepting orders right now, so we've paused your dash to give other Dashers an opportunity to see the orders you're declining first.”
This does not end your ability to dash. All it does is pause on your dash, and you can resume Dashing immediately by tapping the Resume Dash option.
One difference between this and a normal pause is that when you choose to pause your dash, the timer is set at 35 minutes. When this happens the timer is at a much smaller number.
The process of accepting or rejecting Doordash delivery offers
Doordash sends offers to you via the Dasher app. You need to be logged into a Dash in order to receive offers.
The Doordash driver app will set off a notification on your phone. Depending on your phone and settings, it may also start vibrating the phone as well. At about this time, Doordash usually sends a text message notifying you that you have an offer.
It's a little hard to miss. Unless of course the Doordash app is glitching, but that's another article.
On the app, you will see an offer screen that gives you details about the delivery they are offering to you. You have the option to accept that delivery or decline it.
What information does Doordash provide when offering a delivery?
Does Doordash provide any additional information to help you make a decision?
How do I accept an offer on Doordash?
How do I reject an offer on Doordash?
What reason should I choose for declining a Doordash order?
How do I stop my phone from vibrating after an offer comes in
Can I change my mind and cancel once I've accepted an offer, and how?
Can I automatically accept or decline delivery offers?
What happens if the time runs out on a delivery offer before I can accept?
Can Doordash drivers see the tip amount?
Does Doordash hide tips from drivers?
Why does Doordash hide part of the tip?
Is there any way to see the hidden tip on a Doordash delivery offer?
What information does Doordash provide when offering a delivery?
Your delivery offer will appear in the form of an offer screen.
This is an example of what Doordash displays when offering a delivery. The offer screen will provide the following information:
- A map showing your location, the pickup location and dropoff location
- The name of the restaurant
- The estimated miles one will drive
- The deadline for when the order is supposed to be delivered
- The minimum pay for the order
- How many items are on the order.
- A very prominent Accept button
- A much less prominent Decline button.
- A timer that shows you how much time you have to accept an offer.
The pay amount that Doordash displays may not be the entire amount that you will receive. Notice the line under the pay that says “(Total may be higher.)” However, you will never receive less than that amount.
If your phone's notification feature supports it, Doordash provides more basic information to you if you are not in the app when the offer comes in.
The screen above only tells you the name of the merchant and how many items. You can tap on that notification and then expand the screen to get more detail.
The expanded screen shows a little more detail including estimated miles to the restaurant, address of the restaurant, estimated distance to the customer, and address of the customer.
Does Doordash provide any additional information to help you make a decision?
While a lot of information is packed into the offer screen, there is additional information on the Floating Widget. This is a feature that only works on android phones at the time of this writing.
One needs to go into settings and enable the widget. Then, when an offer comes in, if you exit the Dasher app and go to your phone's home screen, you will see the widget.
When you tap on that, you open up a screen with additional information.
With this you can see the exact address for both the restaurant and the customer. The one thing usually missing is apartment numbers. You can then tap on the Delivery Info toggle button to get order information.
Here we see the item screen that shows what exactly was ordered (which is more than just the item count on the offer screen).
Normally, Doordash also displayed a subtotal, which was the value of the food that was ordered. In recent weeks they've chosen not to display that information.
However, these two screens offer a lot of extra detail for those who prefer to know all that information and use that to inform their decision.
As mentioned in the preceding question, Doordash does provide address information on the expanded notification screen, if your phone has that feature.
How do I accept an offer on Doordash?
The offer screen has a fairly large Accept button at the bottom. It's as simple as tapping that button.
If your phone has the notification feature discussed in the above questions, you can accept directly from that notification screen by tapping on “Accept.”
How do I reject an offer on Doordash?
There are two ways you can decline a delivery offer.
One is to do nothing. You generally have 45 seconds to accept an offer. I've heard of that time varying. If you do not do anything by the time the timer times out, the order will disappear and it will automatically decline the offer.
The other option is a three click process. Doordash apparently wants to make it a little more difficult to reject an order than to accept.
You start with hitting the Decline button. It's the smaller button on the offer screen, or you can tap on Decline from the notification screen.
At that point you'll get a confirmation screen. “Are you sure you want to decline this order? You are the best dasher for this order.” At that point it tells you what your acceptance rate will drop to. You have the option to once again hit Decline or you can hit Go Back to return to the offer screen.
It's not over yet. Now Doordash wants a reason why. You get a list of about a dozen options including Distance is too far, the order is too small, I don't want to go to this store, You can also choose “Something else,” at which point you have to type out your reason and submit.
After you've tapped your answer on all three screens (Decline, Decline, tap a reason) the order disappears from your screen.
What reason should I choose for declining a Doordash order?
The easiest answer is to pick the reason that best matches your reason for declining.
Having said that, I wouldn't recommend you spend much time worrying. Just pick something. Personally I almost always choose “Distance is too far” because it's fast and it's a good catch-all reason. I look at the combination of distance, time, and offer amount to evaluate, however “distance is too far” is the only one of those options available in the list of reasons.
Does it matter which reason you select when you decline? The best I can tell, Doordash only really uses the reasons for statistical analysis. Nothing that I choose ever seems to make a difference in what they offer. For example, choosing “I don't want to go to this store” never seems to prevent them from sending more offers from that store.
In my opinion, choosing “Something else” is a waste of time. It just takes longer to type out the answer. However, I'll admit to sometimes choosing that option and then typing in something like “$3. Enough said.” It doesn't make a difference at all and I doubt anyone will see it, but it's therapeutic.
How do I stop my phone from vibrating after an offer comes in
One of the annoying things is how the Dasher app likes to take over my phone when an offer comes in. The default notification sound will chime over and over until I make a decision. Even after I accept or decline, my phone will often continue to vibrate. I understand this is common on Android phones.
The answer to that is to open your notification screen on your phone. Usually that involves tapping on the notification bar at the very top of your phone and swiping down. When I do that, my phone immediately stops with the notification vibrations.
Can I change my mind and cancel once I've accepted an offer, and how?
You can in most instances. To cancel a delivery, you can click on question mark at the top right of the app. This will bring up the Dasher Help screen. From there you select “Unassign this Delivery.”
When you choose Un-assign this delivery, you will then go through a similar process as you do declining an offer. You'll get a warning screen, only this time it will tell you what your completion rate will be. After that you'll have to choose your reason.
Sometimes the option to unsassign a delivery is greyed out. Notice the greyed out line in the above screenshot. Often if it's later than the pickup time for an order, the option to unassign yourself in the app is no longer available.
If you need to cancel an order that you've accepted and the unassign option is not available, you'll need to contact support to do so. To do that, you'll go to the same help screen as you did to find the Unassign option. At the very bottom is an option for Dasher Help – info about Pay, Scheduling and other FAQ's. That will bring you to this screen:
At the bottom of the screen are two red icons. The icon on the left will start a chat session with customer service or driver support. The telephone handset icon will place a phone call to Doordash support. Choose the option you prefer, contact the Dasher support team and let them know you need to cancel a delivery.
Can I automatically accept or decline delivery offers?
There is no option to automatically reject or accept delivery offers in the Dasher app. However some third party apps such as the Driver's Utility Helper can let you set parameters for accepting or declining your Doordash orders. I do caution people that there may be issues with Doordash's terms of service and using third party apps that can access your Dasher app and account information.
What happens if the time runs out on a delivery offer before I can accept?
If the offer times out, Doordash treats it as though you declined. That rejection will count against your acceptance rate.
In many instances, Doordash may also pause your Dash. There's an option in the Dasher app where you can pause a scheduled dash for 35 minutes. Most times that an offer times out for me, Doordash will initiate that pause. Sometimes when things are much busier, Doordash may choose not to do so.
Can Doordash drivers see the tip amount?
Doordash does not show the tip amount on the offer. All they offer is a minimum pay. There is no breakdown of the different parts of the Doordash pay model (base pay, incentives & peak pay, and customer's tip). On most delivery offers with Doordash, you can tell when there was no tip, as the offer amount is going to be extremely low.
Some third party apps have been known to identify how much of the offer was base pay. Doordash has been changing up their program to make it more difficult for third party apps to provide that information.
Does Doordash hide customer tips from drivers?
Doordash does not always display the total amount of a delivery offer. Some say they are hiding part of the tip. A common practice has been that Doordash will only include up to around $5.00 of the customer's tip in the delivery offer.
For example, say the Doordash customer tipped $10.00 and base pay for the delivery is $3.00. The total pay on that delivery would be $13.00. Doordash may only display $8.00 as the offer amount, but the line under that says “Total may be higher.”
There have been times that Doordash has experimented with completely hiding the tip from the offer amount. During those times, the offer screen will only reflect the DoorDash base pay. I don't know if that was a glitch with the system or if it was a test to see whether overall acceptance rates improve.
In recent months, I've noticed that Doordash is displaying the full amount of the pay including the full tip in offers much more frequently. It's impossible to know if they are planning to be more transparent about total pay going forward, or if this too is just a test to see how Dashers respond.
Why does Doordash hide part of the tip?
It's all about getting all orders accepted. Doordash President Christopher Payne was asked about this in an interview with The Rideshare Guy.
Our job is to give enough information so that Dashers can make an informed decision about ‘do I want to do that job or do I not?' And we also want to make sure there's enough liquidity in the system so that the customer demand is being met. So one of the things you're talking about is the tip, and we'll show the Doordash component and a portion of the tip. But we cap that because we found that a lot of people were just waiting for the big tips.
Doordash president Christopher Payne in his interview with the RideShare Guy responding to the question about hidden tips.
What that boils down to is that Doordash needs to get all of their orders picked up. Christopher Payne's explanation points to the concern that if people are just waiting for the extremely large orders, less orders will be accepted.
I would characterize it differently. I would say it's you get the full tip amount always but sometimes there's a bonus or a surprise, that you get incremental money. One of the things we look very closely at is how often people accept.
Doordash president Christopher Payne continuing his discussion of additional pay.
I believe Payne's comments here point out there's a bigger reason for hiding part of the tip. It's all about a carrot on a stick. There's a psychological game going on here. You complete a delivery and you get a surprise extra bit of pay. So now when that $2.50 offer comes up, you might be inclined to think that the “total may be higher.”
Is there any way to see the hidden tip on a Doordash delivery offer?
It does not appear that's a possibility any longer.
There was a time that Doordash sent information including total tip when notifying you of an offer. The total amount wasn't shown with the offer but there were other ways to see it.
At one time an older version of the Dasher app would let you see if there was a big tip included. Later an app called Para introduced a tip transparency feature that displayed the hidden amount to Dashers.
Unfortunately, Doordash seems committed to hiding the tip. They've changed the way their information is sent to the phone in order to block these ways of seeing hidden higher tips.
Understanding how the Doordash acceptance rate works
We've discussed at length that you can choose whether or not you want to accept a delivery offer. Doordash can not simply assign deliveries to you.
However, Doordash does keep track of how often you accept offers. One of the metrics in the Doordash ratings part of the Dasher app is something called acceptance rate – how often you accept offers.
Does acceptance rate matter? What will Doordash do if you reject too many offers? Is there any benefit to accepting more deliveries? Let's look at all things acceptance rate:
- How does Doordash calculate acceptance rate?
- Why doesn't my acceptance rate increase when I take an offer?
- How do I check my acceptance rate?
- Does acceptance rate matter?
- Is it possible to have a 100% acceptance rate?
- What is the minimum acceptance rate?
- What happens if my Doordash acceptance rate is at 0%
- Can Doordash fire you for a low acceptance rate?
- Will Doordash give you better orders if you have a high acceptance rate?
What is acceptance rate?
Acceptance rate is the rate of delivery offers that you accept, measured in a percentage.
How does Doordash calculate acceptance rate?
Doordash calculates their acceptance rate based on the last 100 offers you received. If you accepted 70 of the last 100 offers, you have a 70% acceptance rate. If you only accepted 10 out of your last 100 offers, you have a 10% acceptance rate.
For those who have received less than 100 lifetime offers, acceptance rate is calculated as dividing the total accepted offers by the total offers you received.
Why doesn't my acceptance rate increase when I take an offer?
Remember that acceptance rate is based on the last 100 delivery offers you received. It's what some call a rolling average. Doordash simply counts how many of the last 100 delivery offers you accepted.
Say you accepted 87 out of the last 100 offers. You have an 87% acceptance rate. Now let's say you accept another offer. Your rate won't automatically go up. It still depends on how many of the LAST 100 offers were accepted. However, now that first offer you received out of the original 100 no longer counts.
Let's continue that example. Say you accepted 87 in a row, and then rejected the last 13. You've accepted 87 of 100. The next one you accept isn't going to change your acceptance rate because it's only replacing another acceptance in that count of 100 offers.
In fact, because the last 13 offers were rejections, there's no way your acceptance rate will go up for the next 87 offers because you still have 13 rejections out of the last 100 offers.
How do I check my acceptance rate?
Your current acceptance rate can be found in the Dasher app.
From the 3-Bar menu in the top left of the home screen, select Ratings. You'll see a list of ratings including:
- Your average customer rating
- Acceptance Rate
- Completion Rate
- On time percentage
- Total lifetime deliveries.
Does acceptance rate matter?
When it comes to your ability to continue delivering for Doordash, acceptance rate is meaningless. However, the Doordash Top Dasher program is an incentive program that provides extra perks for meeting certain criteria. It's a monthly reward, with one of the Top Dasher requirements being that you have a 70% acceptance rate on the last day of the month.
The question becomes whether you are better off rejecting more offers or having Top Dasher status. That is an individual decision only you can make.
Is it possible to have a 100% acceptance rate?
If you have accepted every single one of the last 100 delivery offers that Doordash sent you, you would have a 100% acceptance rate.
What is the minimum acceptance rate for Dashers?
There is no minimum rate requirement. Doordash does not and cannot require you to have a minimum rate.
What happens if my Doordash acceptance rate is at 0%
Nothing, other than you haven't done any Doordash deliveries for awhile. It takes time to get and reject 100 deliveries. However, there is no punishment or adverse action for having a zero percent acceptance rate.
Can Doordash fire you for a poor acceptance rate?
No. Doordash states in their contract that you cannot be required to accept offers. Also, as an independent contractor, delivering for Doordash is not a good job or any kind of job at all. You're self-employed as a Dasher, which means you cannot be fired.
Gig economy companies are not allowed to control the work of independent contractors. Requiring you to maintain a certain acceptance rate requirement is a violation of laws related to using independent contractors.
Will Doordash give you better offers if you have a high acceptance rate?
In February and March of 2022, I did an experiment to answer this question. I accepted 200 straight deliveries and tracked every detail. I found no evidence of improved delivery offers either as my acceptance rate increased or once I had achieved Top Dasher. You can read more about my attempt to discover if high acceptance rate means better offers here.
In the fall of 2022, Doordash rolled out a pilot program to several markets where they claimed that Dashers who accepted 50% or more of offers would get priority access on high paying offers. They defined high-paying orders by dollars per mile. In my market, it was $1.75 per mile. I did another experiment and found no improvement in order quality when my Doordash acceptance exceeded 50%.
Understanding completion rate
One thing that creates a lot of confusion out there is that Doordash tracks acceptance rate AND completion rate. Some confuse the two or think they are the same thing. In fact, sometimes I think Doordash support representatives get them confused at times as well and will provide faulty information.
Technically, completion rating has more to do with the delivery process and isn't part of the whole accepting and rejecting orders. However, because there is some confusion, I felt it was worth it to include some questions about completion rate on Doordash.
What is completion rate on Doordash?
What is the difference between order acceptance and order completion?
Are acceptance rate and completion rate the same thing?
How can I increase my completion rate?
Will my completion rate go down if I decline an order?
What is the minimum completion rate?
Can I be deactivated for a low completion rate?
Can I be deactivated for incomplete deliveries if my completion rate is above the minimum?
What is completion rate on Doordash?
Your completion rate is the percent of deliveries complete out of the 100 most recent delivery opportunities you accept.
Doordash definition of completion rate from their Dasher Ratings Explained page.
Your completion rate means how many offers you completed out of the last 100 orders you accepted. Like acceptance rate, it is a rolling average, which means it's only a count of the last 100 deliveries accepted. The result of each new delivery that you accept will replace the result from 101 accepted deliveries ago.
If you have not yet accepted 100 delivery offers lifetime, acceptance rate is calculated as the number of completed deliveries divided by the number of accepted offers.
You can check your completion rate by following the same steps you take to check your acceptance rate.
What is the difference between order acceptance and order completion?
An accepted delivery is whether you chose to accept or decline an offer. A completed delivery is what happens to a delivery where you accepted an offer.
Are acceptance rate and completion rate the same thing?
No. These two ratings track two different things. Acceptance rate tracks how many times out of 100 offers you accepted a delivery offer. Completion rate tracks how many times out of 100 you completed an accepted delivery.
How can I increase my completion rate?
You can increase your completion rate by making sure every order you accept is delivered to the customer. It is also a rolling average, which means it may take a few opportunities before you see an increase in your average
Doordash definition of completion rate from their Dasher Ratings Explained page.
The best and most obvious way to maintain a high completion rate is obviously to commit to completing every delivery that you accept.
There are times where it may not seem reasonable to stay on a delivery. Examples might be that the wait time at the restaurant is excessive, or you notice that customer instructions are rude or hostile.
Doordash claims that completion rate will not be impacted if the merchant or the customer has cancelled an order, but that doesn't always seem to be the case. I have had experiences where the restaurant has been closed, and even when following Doordash procedures for when that happens, the order is marked as incomplete.
This means it is sometimes impossible to maintain a 100% completion rate. I have found that being more selective in the offers I accept can help maintain a reasonable completion rate. It may be better to reject a delivery that involves slow local restaurants or any other situation than to risk an incomplete delivery.
Will my completion rate go down if I decline an order?
No. Completion rate is only counted on orders that you accepted.
You may have noticed that your completion rate has dropped by a point or two while you are on a delivery. The moment you accept a delivery, Doordash considers that delivery incomplete until the moment you have completed the delivery.
What is the minimum completion rate?
Doordash requires a minimum 80% completion rate. In other words, you must complete at least four out of five delivery offers you accept. This does give you some wiggle room for deliveries that are unable to be completed for reasons outside your control.
Can I be deactivated for a low completion rate?
While Doordash cannot require you to accept delivery offers, they can deactivate your Dasher account for failure to maintain an 80% completion rate. In their eyes, your acceptance of a delivery offer is a contractual obligation. They won't fire you, since you are not an employee. However, they can void your contract and refuse to continue providing delivery oppotunities.
While by accepting an order for delivery you are agreeing to complete the delivery, we recognize that unforeseen circ*mstances may arise when you’re on a dash, so you have the right to occasionally not complete deliveries after you accept them, as long as you do so before you pick up the items to be delivered. To continue using the DoorDash platform, however, you must maintain a certain Completion Rate which can be foundhere.
Doordash Deactivation policy discussion of completion rate
The deactivation policy used to state that deactivations for completion rate could not be appealed. That language has been removed, however it is believed that such deactivations remain final.
Doordash does not define exactly when they begin enforcing the 80% completion rate. While many believe they don't enforce until you've accepted 100 lifetime deliveries, Doordash doesn't state that. Some have reported a low rating below 80% but that they were able to bring it up and not be deactivated. Others have reported the deactivation happened even after they brought it up.
Because Doordash is fuzzy about how they enforce the completion rate, the best practice is to maintain high ratings as much as possible for completions. Personally, I focus on higher ratings here, and am focused on never letting my completion rate drop below 90%
Can I be deactivated for incomplete deliveries if my completion rate is above the minimum.
Yes. Notice that the deactivation policy states you have the right to drop an accepted delivery, “as long as you do so before you pick up the items to be delivered.” However, once you have picked up the food, you have an obligation to complete the delivery if possible to do so.
Completion of a delivery is made by providing the goods directly to the customer. If the customer is not available, you agree that the delivery will be considered complete only if you both (i) make reasonable efforts to contact the customer and wait a reasonable time for the customer to accept the delivery by following the “Can’t find the customer” flow in-app where available, and (ii) either leave the goods at the customer location or return the goods if a return is required for a given delivery (required returns will have been made clear before acceptance of the delivery)
Section on Marking a delivery complete when you did not complete it in the Doordash Deactivation policy.
If you have picked up the food and did not complete the delivery in an acceptable manner, that can be grounds for deactivation no matter your completion rate.
There's a lot of controversy in this section. A lot of customers have found they can get free food if they claim they didn't get their delivery. That means it's possible to be wrongfully deactivated. A good practice is to thoroughly document your deliveries so you have evidence to back up your appeal.
Something else to consider: If a Doordash customer doesn't feel like the delivery was completed to their satisfaction, you run the risk of a low ratings from the customer. Too many bad reviews can lead to deactivation. If that's a concern, we talk here about how to increase your customer rating.
Strategies for accepting and rejecting delivery offers on Doordash
Now that you understand how acceptance rate works and what it means to accept and reject deliveries, what's the best way to decide how to accept or reject delivery offers?
A lot of new drivers (and quite a few long timers) make the mistake of thinking the only way to increase total earnings is just deliver for a longer time. Often a great way to make some extra money on Doordash is simply to make better decisions about which offers to accept.
There are a lot of strategies out there. Different drivers have different ways they evaluate. Some use a gut feeling, others will apply a certain formula.
Personally, I don't have a minimum amount. I follow a 50 cent rule: if I think the delivery will pay 50 cents per minute, I'll accept it. In more than four years delivering for Door dash and other food delivery services, the 50 cent rule has been the best way to keep my earnings consistent.
Of course, In the end, it's all about what works best for you. We'll talk about some strategies and then take a look at how my 50 cent rule works.
- What is the best way to decide whether to accept or decline?
- Is it better to hit decline or let the timer run out?
- Is it bad to decline Doordash offers?
- What is a good acceptance rate on Doordash?
- What is the minimum offer amount I should accept for a Doordash offer?
- Should I accept or decline based on dollars per mile?
- How do I use pay per minute (50 cent rule) to decide on offers?
- What if Doordash doesn't offer enough good deliveries?
What is the best way to decide whether to accept or decline?
The only best way is the method you decide works best for you. Do not be bullied by others into following their particular criteria. You have to make your own decisions as to what works best for you.
Is it better to hit decline or let the timer run out?
Either way, it will count as a rejected order. I've heard some say that letting the timer run out will not count against your acceptance rate, however, this is not true. It will.
One thing to remember is that if you let the offer time out, you are unable to receive any other offers until that happens. For that reason, it's usually more practical to use the decline button, which means you get the next offer more quickly.
Is it bad to decline Doordash offers?
No. Accepting and rejecting offers based on whether they make sense to you is your right as an independent contractor. It is essentially your way to set your price for what an acceptable delivery offer is.
Doordash does try to guilt you into a high acceptance rate, saying that “consistently declining delivery opportunities negatively impacts the experience for other Dashers, the customer, and even the merchant.” However, you could also make the case that “Offering extremely low pay for delivery offers negatively impacts the experience for other Dashers, the customer, and even the merchant.”
Doordash chose to contract with you as a business rather than to hire you as an employee. That decision gives you the right to make your own business decisions related to what opportunities you choose to accept or reject.
What is a good acceptance rate on Doordash?
The best acceptance rate is whatever is most compatible with your own profitability and your own business decisions. If seeking Top Dasher status makes sense to you, you may find that a 70% acceptance rate or better is ideal. If a lot of offers pay less than your standards, a much lower acceptance rate is better for you. In the end, only you can decide what the best acceptance rate is.
What is the minimum offer amount I should accept for a Doordash offer?
This is a personal decision. Some will tell you that you should never accept less than a certain amount. Others will tell you to accept everything.
Personally, I find that the dollar amount isn't enough to make a decision on. Therefore I don't set a minimum.
I focus on profit per hour which means that both time and pay factor into my decision. A low paying delivery that can be completed extremely quickly can be very profitable. A twenty dollar delivery that takes over an hour and involves a lot of driving is not a good delivery in my opinion.
Should I accept or decline based on dollars per mile?
Like price alone, dollars per mile is an incomplete metric. A $2.50 delivery offer that requires you to wait a long time at the restaurant but only goes a block is fantastic when it comes to dollars per mile, however it can have terrible profit per hour. In my opinion, the problem with a dollar per mile metric is that it does not take time into account.
How do I use pay per minute (50 cent rule) to decide on offers?
The method I've used for more than three years is to evaluate based on how much money I think an offer will pay per minute. Originally I called it my 40 cent rule. A delivery had to pay 40 cents per minute (which equates to $24 per hour) to be worth accepting.
Since then I've upgraded that to a 50 cent rule: 50 cents per minute.
Over time I've found that time is the most important factor in how profitable I am. I found my profit per hour skyrocketed during the pandemic while average pay remained the same. The one factor that changed was how many deliveries I was completing in an hour (due to lack of traffic at the time).
To use pay per minute, you need to divide the pay by how much time you estimate a delivery will take. Doordash tells you what you will earn. They also give you an idea how long it could take (the Deliver by time on the delivery offer).
For me, the fifty cent rule is even more simple. What I do is double the pay to get the maximum number of minutes a delivery should take. A $5 offer needs to be done in ten minutes or less to pay 50 cents a minute. A ten dollar delivery needs to be completed within twenty minutes or less.
In a nutshell, I double the pay, and ask myself, do I think I can get this done in that many minutes? If I think I can, I'll take it. If I don't, I'll decline. Using that rule has kept me consistently in the $25-$30 per hour earnings range for well over a year.
Obviously, this depends on if your market can support such a rate. In some markets, you may never find 50 cent per minute offers. You should ultimately set your own criteria based on your market and your business philosophies.
What if Doordash doesn't offer enough good deliveries?
Sometimes and in some places, Doordash just doesn't offer enough high-value orders to make it worthwhile. Does that mean increasing your acceptance rate? Or do you take other actions?
This is where you have to take seriously the fact that you're operating a business. Sometimes a market won't support your business. It may be that you're choosing the wrong times and places to dash. Or perhaps you don't have enough customers.
The important thing to remember here is Doordash is your customer. A lot of times you may need to expand your reach. Look into other food delivery apps like Uber Eats, Grubhub, DeliverThat, and a number of others.
I don't mean quit Doordash. I mean open the bidding up. If the number of deliveries that pay well on Doordash isn't enough, you can work other apps. When things are slow, I'll often turn on two or three apps and let them bid for my services. Whoever offers a good delivery next wins my services.
The main thing here is to get away from an employee mindset and think of it as a business model. Doordash and all the others are your customers. If one customer isn't offering enough, there's a good chance another one will.
A full list of the 43 questions:
What it means to accept and decline orders on Doordash
- Can you decline orders on Doordash?
- Can Doordash punish you for declining orders?
- What happens if you accept an offer on Doordash?
- Is declining too many orders considered a contract violation with Doordash?
- Is Doordash ending or pausing dashes for declining too many orders?
The process of receiving and accepting or rejecting Doordash delivery offers
- What information does Doordash provide when offering a delivery?
- Does Doordash provide any additional information to help you make a decision?
- How do I accept an offer on Doordash?
- How do I reject an offer on Doordash?
- What reason should I choose for declining a Doordash order?
- How do I stop my phone from vibrating after an offer comes in
- Can I change my mind and cancel once I've accepted an offer, and how?
- Can I automatically accept or decline delivery offers?
- What happens if the time runs out on a delivery offer before I can accept?
- Can Doordash drivers see the tip amount?
- Does Doordash hide tips from drivers?
- Why does Doordash hide part of the tip?
- Is there any way to see the hidden tip on a Doordash delivery offer?
All things acceptance rate
- What is acceptance rate?
- How does Doordash calculate acceptance rate?
- Why doesn't my acceptance rate increase when I take an offer?
- How do I check my acceptance rate?
- Does acceptance rate matter?
- Is it possible to have a 100% acceptance rate?
- What is the minimum acceptance rate?
- What happens if my Doordash acceptance rate is at 0%
- Can Doordash fire you for a low acceptance rate?
- Will Doordash give you better orders if you have a high acceptance rate?
All things completion rate
- What is completion rate on Doordash?
- What is the difference between order acceptance and order completion?
- Are acceptance rate and completion rate the same thing?
- How can I increase my completion rate?
- Will my completion rate go down if I decline an order?
- What is the minimum completion rate?
- Can I be deactivated for a low completion rate?
- Can I be deactivated for incomplete deliveries if my completion rate is above the minimum?
Strategies for accepting and rejecting deliveries on Doordash
- What is the best way to decide whether to accept or decline?
- Is it better to hit decline or let the timer run out?
- Is it bad to decline Doordash offers?
- What is a good acceptance rate on Doordash?
- What is the minimum offer amount I should accept for a Doordash offer?
- Should I accept or decline based on dollars per mile?
- How do I pay per minute (50 cent rule) to decide on offers?
- What if Doordash doesn't offer enough good deliveries?
