Is Uber's Upfront Earnings For Uber Drivers GOOD Or BAD?! 6 Week Follow Up

It has been several weeks now with Uber's upfront earnings for Uber drivers. Join RSG contributor Joe as he is talking about his driver earnings, the fuel surcharge, and how much he has made plus his overall thoughts on the program.

Earnings Spreadsheet:

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About The RideShare Guy:

I'm Harry, the founder of The Rideshare Guy. I started driving for Uber and Lyft in 2015 and eventually quit my day job as an aerospace engineer to run The Rideshare Guy full time.

These days, I'm a trusted media expert on all things rideshare and have a number of contributors across the country who are all driving for Uber and Lyft and other gig companies like Instacart, Doordash, and Postmates.

The RideShare Guy has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CNBC, NPR, 60 Minutes on CBS TV, The Washington Post, Wired, Forbes, SFGate, and hundreds more.

The RideShare Guy has interviewed top gig economy leaders and reporters such as

• Executive Director Automotive Research Stanford, Dr. Stephen Zoepf, PhD MIT
• Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica Tim Lee

Tags

#Uber
#UberDriver
#UpfrontEarnings

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[Therideshareguy]

Drivers who have Upfront Earnings, what have YOU been seeing? Let us know!

[CaptainSmoothie]

I love it cause I've driven less mileage and made the same or more. Especially with the quests and able to get 80-90 rides faster due to picking a choosing.

[fairwayfigueroa]

An easy solution would be drivers receive a minimum of $5 on X rides, $9 on XL and you will solve your problem with short ride acceptance.

[MicDropBBQ]

I prefer to do 3 short rides per hour. This increases the potential to get $5-10 tips per ride. If I can get at least $5, that's $15 per hour in just tips, alone. I've gotten $20 tips for 15min rides before, so it's not uncommon to link 3 trips together for $20 each in tips - and that's $60/hr in TIPS ALONE!

I work for the potential of tips. The app won't pay much, but the tips are what makes the difference. If we can get streaks or quests for $15 for 3 rides or $18 for 3 rides, that helps with shorter rides. You get the TIPS for that hour ($15-30 in tip), the QUEST for the hour ($15-18), plus the fares.

Three short trips has the potential to run you around $60/hr (or more, based on tips) in total revenue - which is literally $1 per minute for that hour, whether driving a passenger or not.

Long rides are a waste unless you're making more than $1/minute on those rides. If you're doing a ride for 20minutes (which is around 12-13miles), you should get at least $20 in tips/fares for that ride. If you're not getting at least $20 on a 20minute ride, it's not worth the time. You're giving up the potential to have MORE RIDERS - which is potentially MORE TIPS.

The least amount of riders you have, the least amount of tips you'll get. The ONLY time I get really, really good tips is when I drive Lyft Lux with my BMW. I get $50 cash tips...$40 cash tips, like nothing. I've got videos on my page showing how I made nearly $190/hr - yes, ONE HOUR - on two trips that hour. It's all in tips!

[orlysight]

Miami still doesn’t have upfront thanks Uber

[MJSmithGroup]

My experience with the upfront info (Tampa Bay). (1) The pickup & dropoff locations are more than a little obfuscated. (2) If you get an offer while you have a current passenger, the pickup time & miles information is outright wrong. Uber is giving the time & miles estimate based on where you are at the current moment when the request comes in. You'd expect that it would give you the time & miles estimate from the dropoff of your current rider, but that's not what you're getting.

[crzystar]

Driver in Dallas here!! This model is awesome for achieving quests!!
I like it!!

[oakleysin]

I drive nearly every night in my market and can say the upfront pricing has helped me be more efficient in cherry-picking which offers I'll accept. Unfortunately, in my market, the Quest bonuses are terrible, like $15 for 30 trips. $15 isn't enough for me to accept short/low paying trips unless the ratio ($s to miles) is good. But I get mostly airport trips b/c of the hours I drive and hitting a high volume of trips per week isn't likely. I used to drive in a market in California and the quests were actually worth chasing.

One thing Uber's upfront pricing has done is made me use Lyft far less. I literally will only turn Lyft on to chase a quick streak bonus.

[red]

Uber is NOT applying a long distance pickup fee in the Tallahassee market. But they refuse to admit it.

[gerryenkin]

Loosing money as soon as you start your engine

[lleon-cvex]

Do you have the Trip Radar? Now it doesn't show you one option, there's several and it's very hard to watch and click unless you're parked and cherry picking. But don't cherry pick your way out of seeing your destination. And nobody wants to go where the fares will completely suck and waste your time which tends to be left if you don't click fast enough. This is Uber life now in LA.

[red]

Drivers have abandoned Wakula County in Florida

[bobbarcus]

Always pays the lower price I drove 2people 65 miles into LA It took 1 1/2 hrs to make $58 The 2nd ride was 12 miles and took 1 1/2 hrs I made $22.00 and I used $30 of gas

[SupermanHopkins]

Some of the ride requests we get are just ridiculous, especially when it's super busy out there. Why in the world would I take you 45 minutes away when I'm trying to reach a quest bonus?

[williamFrSFO]

Don’t have that in ‘Vegas yet, or I haven’t seen it.
The sur-charge is a joke.

[dontchastop]

I haven't driven in 2022. Has Uber raised their mileage rate? I usually drive in the summer, but if they're too cheap to keep up with fuel costs and inflation, I think I'll stay home.

[bigswole]

We need this in our market can’t think of a reason why we don’t have it! Other than to benefit Uber

[seanrowe]

Yesterday I got a trip that was 17 miles for only $10 Wtf is that? I accepted but I didn't notice how far it was! Insane

[Voltaic_Rider]

It’s makes it way easier to pick out nice airport surged runs. However I don’t know how you drivers drive with no surge since they decreased the rates on longer runs.

[mamadousamb]

This guy must be working for Uber here in ma my income poung d