Gig drivers earn money by taking individual driving or delivery assignments through apps. The work can involve restaurant pickups, grocery shopping, package routes or passenger trips. Choosing an app is only part of getting started: the kind of work, your available hours and the distance between jobs affect how a shift works out.
Free tool: Get the weekly shift tracker to calculate hourly returns and pay per mile from your own records.
What do gig drivers actually do?
- Restaurant delivery: collect a prepared order and take it to the customer. Time at the restaurant, parking and finding the delivery entrance all count toward the job.
- Shop and deliver: find items in a store, handle unavailable products, check out and deliver. This adds shopping and customer communication to the driving.
- Package routes: collect packages and complete several stops. Evaluate the whole route, including the trip to the pickup location and the journey after the final stop.
- Passenger trips: transport people rather than orders. This guide focuses on delivery; check the passenger platform’s separate eligibility and vehicle requirements if that is the work you want.
For example, Shipt describes its Shop & Deliver work as selecting, purchasing and delivering items within a requested time frame. Spark Driver offers shopping and delivery opportunities. Look at the actual offer type rather than assuming every job on an app involves the same tasks.
How to get started as a gig driver
- Pick a type of work that fits your time. A short window between other commitments is different from an afternoon available for a route. Include travel to the pickup area.
- Check the official signup page for your location. Confirm eligibility, documents and local availability before buying equipment. A signup form does not mean work is immediately available. Spark’s FAQ explains that a full zone can temporarily stop accepting drivers.
- Complete onboarding. For example, Uber Eats describes signup, screening, required documents and activation before a new delivery person can receive requests. Follow the requirements shown for your own account.
- Learn one workflow first. Understand pickup instructions, substitutions where applicable, delivery confirmation and how to contact support before trying to coordinate multiple apps.
- Record a complete shift. Keep the start and finish time, total driving distance, payouts and expenses together. This gives you a usable comparison with your next shift.
Your first shift: check before moving to the next step
This is a practical preparation checklist, not a platform requirement. Use it alongside the instructions in your app.
| Stage | Check before continuing |
|---|---|
| Before going online | Account activated, phone charged, required equipment ready, and enough time to finish the work. |
| Before accepting | You understand the pickup, destination, payout shown, time commitment and any shopping or loading involved. |
| At pickup | The order and instructions match. If payment, access or missing items prevent progress, use the app’s support process. |
| Before finishing delivery | The handoff and any required confirmation are complete. Do not mark delivery complete early. |
| Before another order | You are safely parked, free of the previous commitment and still have enough time for the next job. |
For a shopping walkthrough, use the Shipt first-order workflow. If you are switching between platforms, read the multi-app guide and DoorDash pause instructions.
How to compare delivery offers
A higher payout does not automatically make an offer better. Ask three questions: how long will the whole job take, how far will I drive, and where will I finish?
Worked example, not reported earnings: suppose one offer pays $18 and takes 45 minutes including pickup waiting, delivery and repositioning. That is $24 per hour before expenses. A $24 offer taking 80 minutes works out to $18 per hour before expenses. The smaller offer has the better time-based result in this example.
Now add distance. If the first offer involves 12 total miles, its gross payout is $1.50 per mile. If the second involves 20 miles, it is $1.20 per mile. These figures are comparison tools, not profit: they do not subtract fuel, vehicle costs or other expenses. Use your own complete trip distances rather than only the distance displayed between pickup and drop-off.
- Gross per hour: payout divided by total minutes, multiplied by 60.
- Gross per mile: payout divided by total miles driven for the work.
- Shift comparison: include waiting between jobs so an isolated good order does not stand in for the entire day.
Free weekly shift tracker
Download the free weekly shift tracker (Excel, 7 KB). It has space for 14 shifts and calculates received pay per mile, pay after tracked costs per hour, and weekly totals. Enter your own figures in the amber cells. Pending pay stays separate from received earnings.
Use one row for a shared multi-app shift so its hours and miles count once. Enter tracked costs explicitly, including 0 when intended. Missing required inputs leave results blank. Save a fresh copy each week; the workbook has no macros and does not submit your entries to Gigs Driver.
For each shift, record the app, work area, start and end times, completed jobs, total mileage, final payouts, tips when finalized, parking or toll expenses and unusual delays. Add a short note such as “long store checkout” or “last stop far from pickup area.” After several shifts, compare similar days and hours. A single busy evening or unusually large tip is useful experience, but it is a small sample.
Keep customer names, addresses and order details private when sharing results. An earnings screenshot is easier for readers to interpret when it has a date, hours, mileage and an explanation of what the amount includes.
The payout, cash left and tax deduction are different numbers
Keep three things separate when you review a shift: what the apps paid, what you spent, and the records you will need for taxes. Subtracting today’s gas purchase from today’s payout does not account for every vehicle cost. A mileage deduction is also not money deposited into your account. Read which miles need a separate tax review before treating all shift mileage as deductible.
For example, my reported $426 Spark day includes a screenshot showing 202 work miles. The article explains why the displayed trip estimates do not reconcile with the reported payout and order count. Use the driver tax and mileage guide for IRS-sourced information on recordkeeping and vehicle deductions.
When checking fuel prices, you can look at offers through my Upside referral link. Compare the final price and any extra driving before choosing a station. I may earn a reward if you sign up and qualify through my link.
Find the right Gigs Driver guide
- Shipt shopper training and first-order checklist: prepare for shopping, substitutions, checkout and delivery.
- What do Veho drivers deliver?: understand package types, route work and vehicle space before accepting a route.
- Compare delivery apps: explore the main types of delivery work.
- Become a Shipt shopper: requirements, onboarding and first orders.
- DoorDash acceptance rate at 0%: understand how acceptance rate differs from other account measures.
- A driver’s VEHO experience: read a personal account of pickup and route challenges.
- My reported $426 Spark day: original trip and mileage screenshots, with the payout discrepancy explained.
- My $381.40 Dlivrd catering week: seven deliveries across five days, with the reported daily totals and limits of the comparison.
- My Uber Eats earnings and order selection: individual delivery screenshots and why order time is different from full-shift time.
Do gig drivers have to use several apps?
No. Starting with one app makes its workflow easier to learn. If you later use more than one, allow enough time to finish each commitment and follow each platform’s rules. Comparing available work and accepting overlapping deliveries are different decisions.
Which app will pay the most near me?
This guide cannot establish that for your market. Compare actual offers and completed shifts using the same measures of total time and distance. App availability, shopping time, waiting and tips can change the result even within the same city.
Official platform sources checked September 9, 2026. The calculations above are illustrative; linked personal accounts describe their authors’ experiences.
Featured photo: Rowan Freeman / Unsplash. Illustrative courier photo.