The Young Money Club

About a year ago I decided to sign up for the Postmates app as a driver. I haven’t turned 21 yet so I was looking for “on-demand” ways to make money that didn’t require me to work on a schedule. So I hopped online, filled out the forms, and about a week later I got my Postmate card and a delivery bag in the mail.

It was exciting at first but school picked up and the bag along with my card drifted further and further back into my closet. Well some months passed and I was in need of some extra cash. I remembered I had already signed up for Postmates and decided to brake out my dusty supplies. I’ve used the app pretty actively in my free time for the last month and figured I’d share my own experiences.

How It Works

For those of you who don’t know, Postmates is a delivery service similar to UberEats and Grubhub. Customers can purchase anything from a phone case to their favorite meal on the app and have it delivered to them by Postmate’s “Fleet” of drivers.

As a Postmates courier you’ll receive requests through the Fleet app that you can choose to accept or decline. The requests you receive are largely based on your proximity to the pick up location but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’ll be close (as you’ll see from my future examples).

After you accept a delivery, you’ll be given directions to the pickup location. Once you arrive and collect the order, you’ll confirm that you completed a pickup in the Fleet app. You’ll then be given directions to the drop off location along with any specific delivery instructions that might be included. Once you drop it off, you simply repeat the process from earlier and confirm the drop off in the app.

That’s basically it, you’ve completed your first Postmates delivery. After the drop off, you’re greeted by a notification with your earnings for that delivery, minus any tips. Which leads me to the more interesting part of Postmates, the earnings.

How Much Can You Make?

While online answers might give you a number like $12/hr or $10/hr, the honest answer is that it depends. If you live in a busier city where demand is higher, you might be able to go online at any point during the day and get orders. This isn’t as easy in smaller cities and can lead to crazy fluctuations in earnings.

Your earnings as a Postmates driver is largely dependent on how fast you can deliver and how much you earn in tips. According to their website earnings are calculated based on:

• An amount for each completed pick-up
• An amount for each completed drop-off
• A per-minute-waited rate for the time you spend at the pick-up location
• A per-mile rate for the distance between the pick-up and drop-off locations
• Any blitz bonuses that are shown when you accept a delivery
• 100% of the tips you earn!

The actual rate for each of those variables depends on where you live. For me in Oklahoma its $1.30 per pick-up, $0.70 per drop-off, $0.07 per-minute-waited, and $0.42 per mile. You may be able to tell from those rates, that unless you’re delivering super fast you’re likely making less than minimum wage from the base pay. That means your tips are extremely important to your overall hourly earnings.

In my short time driving for Postmates I’ve earning anywhere from $0/hour all the way up to $22/hour. But I will say that my average is probably around $10-$12/hr if I’m driving during peak hours (lunch and dinner).

Is It Worth It?

The question of whether or not driving for Postmates is worth it is pretty subjective. It all comes down to how valuable your time is and if you have better things to do in your free time. Personally, when I started Postmates I did so because I had nothing better to do with my free time.

Instead of playing video games or hanging around watching Netflix I could drive around and make an extra $20 a day. That may not seem like much but if I drive 20 days out of the month, that’s an extra $400 for about 2 hours of work each day. So compared to lounging around, driving was a better use of my time.

If there was something better I could do with my time, I might reconsider how much time I invest in driving. If you spend your free time learning a new skill, doing more valuable work, or improving yourself then keep doing you. But if you find yourself wasting time or wanting to earn a little extra money, Postmates is a great option that doesn’t require a huge chunk of time.

If you’d like to sign up to drive for Postmates feel free to use my code FL-DRPMD

If you’re interested in learning about other side hustles or ways to make money check out 15 BEST SIDE HUSTLE IDEAS YOU CAN START RIGHT NOW