Best Delivery App to Drive For: Pay Per Hour Compared

Walmart's Spark paid best in 2025, at a median $21.74 per work hour including tips, in Gridwise data from more than 500,000 drivers. Grubhub ($15.38), Uber Eats ($14.07), Instacart ($12.21) and DoorDash ($11.26) followed; Amazon says most Flex drivers earn $18 to $25. Subtract vehicle costs at the IRS 76-cent rate and the gap widens.

So the best delivery app to drive for is the one that pays most where you live after your car's costs, and the numbers below let you work that out. This page compares single apps. Running two or three at once is a separate skill, and our food delivery multi-apping guide covers it. If you are weighing delivery against carrying passengers, see the rideshare driving guide.

What does each delivery app pay per hour?

The most useful public dataset comes from Gridwise, a mileage and earnings app used by gig drivers. Its April 2026 analysis ranked the apps by median hourly pay in 2025, using one method for all of them.

A few things to read into that table.

• Medians, not averages. Half of drivers earned more and half less. Gridwise's averages run higher because a few strong earners pull them up: it puts the 2025 Uber Eats average at $18.06 and DoorDash at $12.43. Compare medians with medians.
• "Per work hour" is Gridwise's definition. Its DoorDash post notes that "the real effective hourly rate, accounting for time spent waiting and repositioning, will be lower" than per-active-hour figures. Hours spent waiting for an order in a parking lot are the hidden cost of every app.
• Tips are a large share. Gridwise's DoorDash analysis says base pay covers 42 to 43% of total trip payout, with tips the rest. An app where customers tip well in your area can beat its national ranking.
• Amazon's figure is a claim, not a measurement. The asterisk on Amazon's page notes earnings vary. It is a useful ceiling, not a median.

What is left after the cost of your car?

Every one of those figures is before the cost of driving. The IRS publishes a standard mileage rate meant to cover fuel, maintenance, insurance and depreciation. For 2026 it is 72.5 cents a mile from 1 January to 30 June, and 76 cents a mile from 1 July to 31 December, after a mid-year revision.

Miles per hour vary by app and market, and no app publishes them. The table uses 10 miles per work hour as an example (our assumption, not data):

That is our arithmetic. Drive 15 miles an hour instead of 10 and every row drops another $3.80. Drive 6 and every row gains $3.04.

The IRS rate is a full cost of owning and running a car, so if your car is paid off and cheap to insure, your real cost per mile is lower than 76 cents. It is still the honest figure to plan with, because the depreciation and repairs arrive eventually. Track your own miles and earnings for two weeks, then use the hourly rate calculator to see what your hour is worth against the job you are comparing it with.

Spark deserves a specific check. Its orders start at Walmart stores, so if they take you further than restaurant orders do, its lead on gross pay shrinks once miles are counted. Measure your miles per hour on each app, not ours.

How many hours does $500 a week take?

Turn the after-cost figures into the number most drivers care about: hours behind the wheel for a target. At 10 miles per work hour and the IRS 76-cent rate (our assumptions from the table above):

Our arithmetic, before tax. The bottom rows are not realistic weekly hours, which is the point: on median pay and full vehicle costs, the lower-paying apps cannot reach $500 a week by themselves. Drivers who do reach it are earning above the median (busier zones, better tippers, peak hours only), driving fewer miles per hour, or running more than one app at once.

Do some cities set a minimum?

Yes, a few. New York City is the clearest example. Its Department of Consumer and Worker Protection says that apps doing restaurant delivery must pay workers at least $22.13 per hour, not including tips, for time spent on deliveries, after an inflation adjustment from 1 April 2026. Since 26 January 2026, grocery delivery apps including Instacart must also pay a minimum, which the city set at $21.44 an hour excluding tips when it took effect.

If you drive in a city with a pay floor, the national medians above understate your pay. Check your city's labour department before choosing an app on national data.

How do you get paid?

Each app has its own payout schedule and cash-out options, so check them before you sign up. Amazon says Flex blocks without tips are paid to its Amazon Flex Debit Card shortly after the block ends, including at weekends, through Instant Pay. That matters if you are driving to cover a bill this week.

What about tax?

Delivery apps treat drivers as independent contractors in most of the US, so no tax is withheld. The IRS says the self-employment tax rate is 15.3% on net earnings, on top of income tax.

The mileage rate works in your favour here. Every business mile you log can be deducted at the IRS rate, so a driver who logs 10,000 business miles in the second half of 2026 deducts $7,600 from their earnings before tax. That is why drivers who log every mile pay far less tax than drivers who do not. Our side hustle tax guide covers setting money aside and quarterly payments.

What does the pay data leave out?

Gridwise's figures are the best public comparison, but read them for what they are.

• They come from Gridwise users. Drivers who install an earnings tracker may work differently from those who do not. Gridwise's Uber Eats sample alone was 101,709 drivers, so the numbers are not small, but they are not a census either.
• Bonuses sit outside the medians. The table uses total trip pay: base pay, surge and tips. Gridwise says adding promotions and bonuses lifts the Uber Eats median from $14.07 to $15.03 an hour. Incentives come and go by market and week, so treat them as a bonus rather than a plan.
• Hours are work hours, not every hour online. Gridwise's DoorDash post says the effective rate including waiting and repositioning "will be lower". If a third of your time online goes on waiting for offers and the figure you compare against leaves that time out, your real hourly rate is a third lower.
• Time of day changes everything. A lunch and dinner rush pays differently from a Tuesday mid-afternoon. The multi-apping guide ranks peak windows by what they typically pay.

The way through is your own log. Two weeks of honest records on two apps tells you more about your streets than any national median.

Which app suits which driver?

You want the highest gross per hour and live near a Walmart: Spark, then check your miles.

You want scheduled shifts with pay known in advance: Amazon Flex. Amazon says blocks are typically 3 to 6 hours, with earnings shown in each offer before you accept it.

You want restaurant orders in a city: Grubhub and Uber Eats paid better medians than DoorDash in 2025, but order volume differs by town. The app with steady orders where you live can beat the one with a better median and long waits.

You want groceries and do not mind shopping: Instacart, accepting a lower median than Spark in Gridwise's data.

You already drive passengers: Uber lets drivers take delivery orders as well as rides, so Uber Eats can fill gaps between trips. The rideshare driving guide covers the passenger side and the classification change planned for December 2026.

Signing up for two apps in the same week and comparing them on your own streets is worth more than any national ranking. The multi-apping guide covers running them together safely.

Is delivery driving worth it in 2026?

At the medians above, delivery pays somewhere between $3.66 and $14.14 an hour after vehicle costs on our 10-mile example, before tax. That is a real income for some drivers and a slow loss for others, and the difference is miles, market and tips.

It is worth it when you need cash this week with no setup, you have a fuel-efficient car you would own anyway, and you work the busy hours (lunch, dinner and weekends). It is not a business you can grow: the app sets the price, and your earnings stop when you stop driving. If you want a route whose income can rise with your skill, pair a few delivery shifts with building something you own.

Who should skip this?

• Anyone with a car on finance or an expensive insurance policy. Your cost per mile is high, so the after-cost figures above are optimistic for you.
• Anyone in a market with few orders. Waiting time is unpaid, and it turns a $15 hour into a $7 one.
• Anyone counting on it as a full-time income without tracking miles. Log every mile from day one, or the tax bill will take most of what is left.

Your first two weeks, dated

• Mon 2 Nov: Apply to two apps: Spark or Flex, plus one restaurant app (Grubhub, Uber Eats or DoorDash). Approval is not instant, so apply to both now.
• Tue 3 Nov to Fri 6 Nov: While you wait, install a mileage tracker and set it to start automatically.
• Week of 9 Nov: Work the same hours on each app: two lunch shifts and two dinner shifts. Log earnings, hours online and miles for every shift.
• Week of 16 Nov: Divide earnings by hours online for each app, then subtract miles times $0.76. Keep the app with the higher after-cost figure for your busiest hours.
• Sun 22 Nov: Set aside a share of every payout for tax, and repeat the comparison once a month, because pay on all of these apps changes.