What Happens if Your Acceptance Rate Is Low on DoorDash?

Have you ever had a situation, where you had your acceptance rate go really down, to the point you’re now scared you could get deactivated (even though the company claims it doesn’t)?

Well, you’re not alone.

We’ve been there and this article will cover what really happens when you go that low.

What Happens if Your Acceptance Rate Is Low on DoorDash?

If you’ve been on Doordash for a while you should be familiar with the buzz that you shouldn’t have a problem with a low acceptance rate.

And rather, you’re better off about your completion rate and customer ratings – which could get you a penalty, unlike the acceptance rate.

And when we go through Doordash resources, we can actually confirm this…

So these are not just public or random talks, but official notes from Doordash, as we’ve seen.

However there’s a caveat – you don’t want to keep up declining every order that comes your way or in other words, have a really bad acceptance rate – since this can impact the delivery experience of customers.

Not something Doordash wants to always entertain.

In essence, you shouldn’t have a problem with a low acceptance rate, as long as you still seem to be accepting orders.

But are there other disadvantages?

Well, yes…

You lose your chances of being a Top Dasher

Having a high acceptance rate could position you in good stead for the Top Dasher program, an initiative created by DoorDash to reward its most dedicated and effective drivers.

The criteria for this program can change and may differ slightly depending on your specific region, but the acceptance rate (a minimum of 70%) has consistently remained one of the key factors in determining eligibility.

It, however, does come with some good benefits…

1. A Higher priority for orders
2. Allegedly being Open to more lucrative deliveries, etc
3. The ability to dash now and not wait have to schedule to do deliveries.

But actually, not a lot of drivers are fans of this program, because, for one reason, it requires a minimum acceptance rate of 70%, which means you’ll definitely need to accept some shitty orders.

But maybe it’s worth it?!

And maybe…just maybe you run a risk of deactivation

And no, we’re not in support of having to always accept every order that comes your way.

It’s always best to do your due diligence before accepting orders, so at least you don’t have to unassign them later due to traffic or something else (with the feeling they don’t worth your time).

As we all know completion rating has more impact, than acceptance rate.

But then, excess of everything is bad.

If you have to decline 90% of the delivery offer you get because the company doesn’t have a minimum acceptance rate, then you might just be at risk. A hypothesis, however.

Because as we explained earlier, the continuous decline of orders promotes a bad delivery experience for the company.

Note that Doordash sends order requests progressively. So it sends to you. If you decline, it has to search for another driver to pick up the order.

The driver taking your order would also not have as much as the estimated time to make the delivery. Now, imagine if the next driver doesn’t accept the order.

Probably a more bad reputation for Doordash.

The idea here is Doordash won’t get you penalized for having a low acceptance rate. However, if your acceptance rate gets too little, it may get your account deactivated or perhaps reduce your visibility.

Who knows? This may be one of the reasons people get deactivated for no reason.

But actually, no one knows.

How to Increase Your Acceptance Rate

Increasing your Acceptance rate as discussed in a dedicated article is fairly easy, at least better than having to increase your customer ratings.

All you have to do is to accept more orders than you’ve done in your previous 100 delivery offers.

This is because your acceptance rate is only a rolling average of your accepted orders over the last 100 delivery opportunities you had.

This is the reason it naturally takes time to reflect, as the older ones would need to roll out first.

Now while trying to increase your acceptance rate, you also want to be selective with the orders you take. Set a standard and work by it.

For most people, this is usually a minimum of $1 per mile delivery, while others would prefer to work by a time estimate.

Lastly, if you’re coming from a really poor acceptance rate, it’s usually advisable to reset your acceptance rate before trying to improve it.

And yes, Doordash has this feature.

What this basically does is allow your acceptance rate to begin counting from the very day it gets reset, instead of having to build up from a very low acceptance rate, which would take much time.

Final Thoughts

From our experience and officially, you should be fine with a low acceptance rate on Doordash. However, you still want to be accepting orders, as not accepting orders at all could be a red flag to Doordash