Why does Doordash make you tip before?

For every service out there, Barbing, Guest attendant, eatery, you name it – tips are usually made after the service.

So why is Doordash and most other food delivery companies different? Why should you make a tip before the delivery, and what happens when you don’t?

Let’s take a quick look at this in this article.

Why does Doordash make you tip before?

To begin with, Tipping is actually optional on Doordash, at least based on what the company says. However, you’ll always find yourself tipping for most orders you make, rather than not.

So why?

Tipping in the first place was to create a scenario where quality service is being rewarded duly, right? But obviously, that would not be the case when you have to tip before even getting the service done.

So why is Doordash always on people’s necks to Tip before?

The truth is that Tipping on Doordash is more of a practice than not. In fact, if you don’t tip before your delivery, there are fewer chances you’ll get your order accepted by a driver unless your location isn’t busy enough.

Editors tip: Customer tipping goes 100% to drivers, hence this makes up a lot of their earnings

So why are Doordash drivers usually a bit aggressive about tipping…

Well, the truth is that…

Doordash Base Pay is usually Poor for Drivers

On Doordash, as well as most food delivery companies, Tips are kinda regarded as a part of the base pay a driver earns, as the normal base pay is usually nothing to write home about.

And this is understandable since a driver can only see the total earnings he makes on a delivery rather than a section that shows how much tips, or what exactly his base pay is per delivery.

On average, Drivers earn $2, $3 and $5 as base pay for deliveries that cost them 30mins+ to deliver – I’m a delivery driver myself.

So this is normal psychology in humans – they go for the orders that pay them more per time spent (tips included) compared to the one that doesn’t (tips excluded).

Hence, if you don’t tip or tip really poorly, you’re unlikely to get your order accepted, unless your base pay is good, which is less likely the case.

So what about the delivery fee, you may want to ask?

The delivery fee on Doordash alongside other delivery companies is actually a fee to the company rather than the drivers. Drivers pay are usually independent of the delivery fee, and is calculated based on some factors which include distance travelled by the dasher, time taken, the desirability of the order, etc.

This is the same for the service fee and every other fee on Doordash.

Editors note: Another type of tip, usually appreciated is the cash tip. To do this, you can always leave a note saying “cash tip” in the instruction section while making your order. And after the deliveries is successfully made, you give them a tip in cash.

So what if you decide to Tip after on Doordash?

While it’s also not bad to Tip after, it’d most likely not make any difference, delivery-wise.

As we said earlier, drivers are keen to go for orders that’d pay more, at least from what they can see on their dashboard. Hence, an order with a higher tip before delivery is more likely to get delivered faster than one without.

…regardless of whether you’re going to be tipping an arm and a leg.

This is because Drivers can’t tell how much your tip is or whether you’re even going to be tipping at all.

However, if you choose to reward quality service with a tip after the delivery (like the norms), why not? You’re always free to. In fact, Doordash lets you tip afterwards up to max time frame of 30 days.

How to tip after on Doordash

Doordash has 3 basic ways it allows customers to tip, based on “when” the tip is made. And they are as follows:

1. Before delivering
2. During the delivery
3. After the delivery

Tipping before delivery is easy, as you just have to add the tip while making your order.

But what happens when you decide to tip during or after the delivery?

This can be done easily by following the process below:

1. Head to Doordash and log back into your account
2. Navigate to the Order tab on the app and search for the order you want to tip
3. Now, click on View Receipt.
4. For deliveries that are still in progress, follow the same process, and navigate to the progress screen.
5. Next, select the options that say “Add tip”

This is what it looks like in summary…

Quick tip: In most cases, after a delivery, you may also get a pop-up that allows you to add a tip. However, we’ve seen complaints from people about not seeing it when they use other devices, other than a mobile device.

Final Thoughts

Definitely, there are several reasons, as explained in this article, why you may want to tip before delivery. This, however, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t or can’t tip after delivery.

In fact, if you have a good tip to make on a delivery, you can split them into 2 — before delivery and after delivery.

One reason you may want to do this is due to the fact Doordash usually hide tips when they get to a certain point, and only revealed after the delivery is succesful. We talked about this thoroughly in this article.