Doordash tip before or after delivery: Which is better?

If you’re just new to Doordash this is definitely going to be one of the first questions you may find yourself asking.

For one reason, the company doesn’t essentially promote one way of tipping.

Rather they just go explaining their flexibility in allowing customers to tip before, during, and after a delivery.

But we all know tipping is a big deal in the food delivery industry…

So what works best for a platform like Doordash? Should you tip before or should you tip after? We’ll be taking a quick look at this in this article.

Doordash tip before or after delivery: which should you go for

As a customer on Doordash, you’ll want to tip before a delivery to get your order accepted faster – the primary reason people tip on food delivery apps. However, if you feel a driver needs to be tippped above the 15% (standard for tipping in most industries), you could tip this after the service.

From a driver’s perspective, tipping before delivery works best.

Now, this is not because I’m a driver ;). There are reasons to this.

To begin with, tipping before a delivery is the norm on most food delivery companies. While some companies may also have options to tip during and after the delivery (like Doordash), just few people make use of it.

And it all makes sense…

The actual reason why people tip (because they’re kinda mandated), is that without it, their order is going to barely be accepted, since drivers are keen to cherry pick orders with better pay.

Hence, without tipping before, the likely hood of your order getting accepted would be poor, talk more of tipping after – of course, you can only tip after, when your order has been accepted and even delivered.

But this doesn’t make tipping after totally useless. In fact, there are some cases when it could be beneficial to tip after.

Let’s take a look at it in the next section.

When does tipping after delivery makes more sense?

Now, there are two special cases when you may want to tip after a delivery. This applies when…

You want to tip really good

Yes, tipping before a delivery (especially when the tip is good) could get your order accepted faster, however, there may be some exception when you intend tipping really high.

If you feel like tipping a driver really good, as we’ve seen with many customers, it’s always best to divide them into two – a tip before and a tip after.

As we explained in this article, it’s best to tip before the order, normally (usually 15%- 20% of the order), and keep any incentive to be tipped after.

Now, this is just common sense. You’re always free to tip as you’d normally do.

Editors note: Cash tips could also work as an alternative, to avoid situation when tipping after doesn’t work well. And yes they’re accepted and even preferred by drivers, since they’re under the table – a driver won’t have to pay tax for it. And most importantly, it’s an easy pocket money.

But what’s the actual logic in this?

Doordash would usually hide customer tips after it gets to a certain level (unknown to the public). But usually, this happens when a customer tips very high.

In essence, this simply means, a driver won’t be able to see the total amount he earns from your delivery, but rather only a cut.

While he’ll still get the complete tip, he’ll only be able to see them in full after the delivery is made.

According to Doordash, this is done to avoid Drivers from cherry picking these kind of orders. However, on the other hand, it contradicts the idea of tipping before a delivery – getting the order accepted faster– because the shown tip would usually be discouraging to drivers.

This is the reason why tipping after can be applicable here.

It’s also worth mentioning this also happens on Uber eats.

You have special Instructions

Maybe you have a lot of instructions and you want them to be followed fair and square, you may want to leave a share of your initial tip, after the delivery – to reward the driver if he actually follows your instruction.

You don’t want to leave a driver with a big tip and then he fails to follow the instructions you gave.

In this vein, to get your orders right, you may also want to leave a note in the instruction notifying that there would be an after tip if the instructions are followed duely. A notification for a cash tips also works as well.

Final thoughts

While Tipping is quite flexible and sound voluntarily on Doordash, there are rules you may want to be following to be on track.

Lastly, tipping before a delivery is usually the way go to.

Hope you find this article helpful!