You probably have a good relationship with your barista, your hair stylist and the bartender at your local pub. So it makes sense that you tip them frequently and well. But that rideshare driver who just showed up? You’ll never see them after this jaunt, so it’s easy to think your tip matters less.
Perhaps that’s one reason why, when you get a reminder to tip, during the ride and after, you might choose to ignore it. It may seem like a small thing to you, but according to drivers, not tipping makes it harder than ever for them to make a decent living behind the wheel.
Yes, money is tight and rides can be pricey, especially during surge periods. But do you know how much of a costly trip to the airport — say, $50 — ends up in the driver’s pocket? Often, it might be as little as $10, or 20%. And remember that while your barista doesn’t need to source their own beans and your mixologist doesn’t have to supply beers to the bar, rideshare drivers must provide their own vehicles, pay for insurance and fill up the tank, all on their own dime.
How many people tip?
Nicole Moore is the president of Rideshare Drivers United, which she described as “an organization of drivers, fighting for drivers, led by drivers.” She said that tipping is important for everyone in the industry.
“Sometimes we drivers get as little as 20% of the total fare,” she said. In her home state, California, she said, “after expenses and because of the lack of benefits, drivers are making less than minimum wage.”
You may skip a tip from time to time, assuring yourself that everyone else is tipping regularly. That’s not the case at all, said Sergio Avedian, senior contributor at The Rideshare Guy, an online resource for rideshare drivers. “I average higher than most among my peers here in Los Angeles, and I usually only have about 15% of my passengers tip me,” he said.
Recent data backs up his observations. A recent study by Gridwise, a data analytics company and app that helps drivers track their earnings, showed that 28% of Uber and Lyft ride-hailing trips result in a tip, as reported by Business Insider. That’s much lower than other services, with 90% of food-delivery trips getting a customer tip, compared with 75% of grocery-delivery trips. In another survey of over 500 gig drivers, Gridwise reported that 78% of gig drivers said tips mattered significantly to their overall incomes.
Is anonymity making it easier to be a cheapskate? After all, even if you’ve stiffed someone, odds are you’ll never see that driver again. “I’ve driven more than 10,000 trips in Los Angeles, and I’ve never seen the same person twice,” Avedian said.
How did we get here?
Avedian offered a bit of background on the history of rideshares and tipping.
“Uber, which was the first on the scene, set up their system without an easy way to tip,” he explained. “People often didn’t even realize it was possible to tip their driver. Back then, though, drivers were making from 60% to 80% of the value of a ride, which is now much, much lower. At best, we get half the cost of a trip, or less. Then Lyft came along five years later in 2017, and they made a provision for tipping from day one, so then Uber jumped in and had a tipping function, too.”
But with just over one in five passengers choosing a tip of any size, times are tougher for rideshare drivers.
Of course, there are times when service is awful and a tip shouldn’t be given. “I agree that not every driver should be tipped,” Avedian said. But if the ride was a good one, he said, remember that “tipping is an important revenue source for the driver.”
Do drivers even know if you’ve tipped them?
Uber drivers don’t know what kind of tipper you are until the ride is complete, based on how the Uber app functions.
Levi Spires is an Uber driver who creates content about rideshare culture. He explained it this way: “Unlike food delivery, your Uber driver doesn’t know if they’ll get a tip until about five minutes after you’re out of the car. Drivers don’t know who tips us until after you exit the car and we rate you.”
Avedian said that there’s a similar delay with Lyft. He also noted that with both services, drivers’ tips can have extreme delays. “Sometimes tips show up days, if not weeks, later,” he said.
Since riders are not verified like drivers, your driver can’t see anything other than the name that you’ve provided (which might not even be your real name). Avedian said that Uber had been testing out the inclusion of notice on the request screen designating what they called a “Top Tipper Rider.”
“Unfortunately, they got rid of it after a few months of piloting it,” he said.
Spires said he often receives requests to wait for passengers, and often those requests come with the promise of a tip. “But we drivers know that people who promise tips sometimes don’t tip,” he said. He once received eight cents from a passenger who asked him to wait and promised to tip $8, but he had no way to contact the person or ask if it was a mistake. In the last four years of driving, he said, “Eleven percent of my total income is from tips.”
Being asked to wait, as Spires mentioned above, makes life even tougher for rideshare drivers, for whom time is truly money. If every person asks their driver to wait 10 minutes, that driver has less available time to work. So even if you can’t tip big, at least show up where you need to be.
“It’s rude to make your driver wait, said Uber driver Matthew Reid. “Being ready at pickup is almost — almost — better than a tip.”
Who are the best tippers?
Jeff Hoenig is a part-time Uber driver who works in Myrtle Beach and Charleston, South Carolina. He’s the author of “Driving On the Sunny Side With 10,000 Strangers: Celebrating The Lives of My Uber/Lyft Riders.”
With a current passenger count now exceeding 13,000 rides, he has some thoughts on what’s considered to be a good tip. “If it’s a very short ride, any tip should be appreciated. I’ve gotten $5 tips on $3 to $4 rides, and I’m very thankful for those. But then there are long rides of an hour or more for which we receive no tip. In those cases, that tip would have made all the difference in the world.”
Still, even though he tends to get a higher percentage of tipping passengers than drivers in other cities, most people don’t tip him at all. “As great a job as I do, and as much fun my passengers have, about 55% of my last 5,000 rides have not tipped.” He wishes that riders knew more about the drivers’ share of costs: “If they could see clearly what the driver was getting, I think some of them would be mad, and maybe they’d be more generous.”
Over the years, he’s kept an informal tally of those most likely to tip. At the top of his list: tourists. Other folks who are usually more likely to tip include locals who are traveling in the area, people going to the airport, other rideshare drivers, bartenders and older couples heading out for dinner. His list seems like the perfect mix of people who are in good moods, might recognize him from around town and/or those who understand the necessity to tip in a service culture.
But in the end, service matters more than demographics, he believes. “I give the best ride I can, no matter who’s in the car,” he said. “Good karma and good tips will come.”
What’s enough? And what more can you do?
“I think a large number of riders don’t realize what a huge difference even a dollar or two makes,” Reid said. “Drivers bear all the risk and expense of being on the road. Costs are up, safety risks are increasing and fares from the rideshare companies are down. Tips make a large part of our weekly earnings, and every tip is appreciated.”
Moore, the drivers’ union president, said she considers 20% of a ride’s cost to be a fair tip. But she said you also can do more if you’d like: “Tip your driver, but also tell your officials that drivers need the protections that other workers have. We think this industry needs stronger regulation to ensure fair wages for driver pay and also to protect passengers from being charged exorbitant amounts.”