A very common question I see in the Doordash drivers group sounds something like, “Is it better to earn by order or earn by hour on DoorDash?”. From everything I’ve seen and experienced, per hour is basically a trick to get low-ball orders taken. You end up making about the same as you would just accepting everything on per order mode.

Dash Per Hour Vs Per Order

When you do earn by time you get treated as an employee, while not being paid as an employee. They’re only paying you by active time just like you only get paid by active time per order. Strategic Dashers choose orders from the beginning that make sense and take into account variables like traffic and wait times. We are free to decline as much as we want.

Whereas dashing by time, you’ve agreed to give up control and the ability to decline. You don’t actually get paid by the hour, you get paid by active time just like the other way except you have to take every order they send you. You only get one decline per hour. They can send you far away and not even pay you for driving back.

They even tell you that you’re more likely to get orders without tips on by time. They’re giving you all the orders that everyone else declined.

Anyone with a reasonable strategy will make more per active hour and drive less doing by order.