Key Takeaways
- Acceptance rate reflects percentage of accepted delivery requests out of the last 100.
- No minimum requirement, but high acceptance can lead to more opportunities and benefits.
- Falling below 50% triggers a notification; consistent declines can pause account for 10 minutes.
- Tips for increasing: accept more orders, understand rolling average, and possibly reset rate.
The DoorDash Acceptance Rate Explained
Your DoorDash acceptance rate is one of a handful of Dasher ratings the delivery app looks at when you start driving for DoorDash.
It’s represented as a percentage of your 100 most recent delivery opportunities. Thus, if you accept 10 delivery requests out of the 100 sent by the DoorDash platform, your DoorDash acceptance rate will be 10%.
It’s worth mentioning the other ratings that make up your Dasher ratings, as they differ from your acceptance rate in one key way. These metrics include:
- Customer Rating: This is a score between one and five. DoorDash calculates it using your 100 most recent customer reviews. It’s a rolling average, which means DoorDash constantly replaces older reviews with newer ones. You’ll need to aim for a high customer rating to get better delivery opportunities.
- Completion Rate: Your DoorDash completion rate is a percentage of the completed deliveries out of the most recent 100 delivery opportunities you accepted.
- On-Time/Early Rate: This metric is another percentage that’s calculated based on the number of deliveries you completed successfully. You must either complete the delivery by the estimated delivery time or five minutes later for it to be factored into your On-time/Early Rate.
Unlike customer rating and completion rate, your acceptance rate doesn’t have to meet a minimum requirement on the DoorDash platform. In contrast, the minimum requirements for the other two are as follows:
| Rating | Minimum Requirement |
| Customer Rating | 4.2 |
| Completion Rate | 80% |
Meanwhile, your On-time/Early Rate can result in the deactivation of your DoorDash account (if you’re repeatedly late).
Related: What the DoorDash waitlist means
What is a Good DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
A good DoorDash acceptance rate depends on your personal preferences and goals.
While DoorDash does not require a specific acceptance rate to remain active, maintaining a higher rate, such as around 50%, can potentially lead to more consistent orders and possibly better offers.
However, accepting lower-paying orders to increase your acceptance rate may not always be financially beneficial. Ultimately, the choice of which orders to accept is up to the individual dasher, balancing between acceptance rate and order profitability.
What is Considered a Bad DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
A bad DoorDash acceptance rate isn’t explicitly defined, as DoorDash does not enforce a minimum acceptance rate for its drivers. However, consistently declining deliveries can negatively impact other dashers by shortening their delivery times and possibly leading to late deliveries or poor food quality.
While acceptance rate alone doesn’t directly lead to deactivation, a driver’s account can be deactivated for consistently poor ratings, frequent lateness, or a high cancellation rate.
A completion rate below 80% or a customer rating below 4.2 are more critical factors for deactivation. Therefore, it’s advisable to accept orders you are confident you can complete to maintain a healthy completion rate.
Does Your DoorDash Acceptance Rate Matter?
Your DoorDash acceptance rate isn’t critical for maintaining your account, as there’s no minimum threshold required, and a low rate won’t risk deactivation. However, consistently refusing orders can impact service efficiency.
In DoorDash’s words:
“There is no minimum requirement for an acceptance rate, but consistently declining delivery opportunities negatively impact the experience for other Dashers (who will have less time to complete the delivery), the customer (who is more likely to get a late delivery), and even the merchant (whose food will sit for longer).”
Therefore, you have the right to decline as many requests as you like, and DoorDash will continue to send them your way when they become available. It makes sense, considering that DoorDash views its drivers as independent contractors, not employees.
With that said, your acceptance rate matters because a higher acceptance rate provides a number of benefits.
Benefits of a Higher Acceptance Rate
It pays to have a high acceptance rate for a couple of reasons:
- More Reviews: This benefit is straightforward. Accepting orders increases the likelihood of you receiving positive reviews, which spills into the next benefit.
- Access to High-Paying Orders: Your acceptance rate determines your eligibility for select DoorDash features. For example, a 4.5 rating combined with a 50% acceptance rate gives you priority access to higher-paying orders. The said orders are an excellent way to boost your base pay other than DoorDash’s sign-up bonuses.
- Everyone Wins: You win by getting good reviews. Other Dashers win by not having to pick up your slack on short notice. And the customer wins by getting their order on time.
Your acceptance rate also determines your eligibility for Top Dasher status each month. As a top DoorDash driver, you can Dash any time, which may mean more money.
One of the criteria for Top Dasher status is a 70% acceptance rate. The others are a 95% completion rate, a 4.7 customer rating, 100 completed deliveries for the month, and 200 lifetime deliveries.
Are There Any Consequences for a Low DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
There are. The main consequence of repeatedly not accepting orders is an account pause. If you decline 10 orders in a row, DoorDash will pause your account for 10 minutes.
The platform takes this action to give other DoorDash drivers a chance to see and pick up the orders you’re declining. However, since the main reason for declining orders is because they’re low-paying, you don’t have to worry about missing out on a high-paying order during the pause period.
Once the 10-minute period elapses, your account will become active again, and you’re free to accept or decline subsequent orders.
What DoorDash Considers as Being a Low Acceptance Rate
DoorDash considers any percentage below 50% to be a low acceptance rate. When you fall below this number, the app will send you a notification.
Tips for Increasing Your DoorDash Acceptance Rate
If you have an acceptance rate you’re not happy with, try one or more of the following tips to raise it:
Tip 1: Accept Requests More Often
Try accepting more orders to raise your acceptance rate. As much as this tip is a no-brainer, it’s the quickest and easiest way to get a higher acceptance rate. The more deliveries you take on, the more declined orders you can bump out of your acceptance score.
Some measures you can take to accept more orders include keeping your phone charged at all times and having a reliable internet connection. Both help you Dash more often, which will go a long way to raising your accepted delivery rate.
Tip 2: Consider DoorDash’s Rolling Average
You’ll need to be aware of how DoorDash’s rolling average works because it can affect the speed at which your rate goes up.
To summarize, your acceptance rate is unlikely to change if the oldest opportunity you accepted is still being counted as part of your recent 100 opportunities. This measure works solely for bumping out declined orders, not accepted ones.
Tip 3: Reset Your Acceptance Rate
You can also try resetting your acceptance rate on the DoorDash app via the Priority Access program.
DoorDash’s priority program lets you reset your current acceptance rate. The prerequisite for your ability to do that is having a qualifying customer rating (4.5) and at least a 50% acceptance rate.
If you meet the above criteria, DoorDash will either send you an email or a notification informing you of the ability to reset your rate.
You’ll need to click on the email link or tap the notification and fill out the form before the provided deadline elapses. Take the above steps, and DoorDash will send you an email confirming the reset.
You’ll be able to see the reset come into effect when you start a new Dash and after a new declined or accepted order.
How to Check Your DoorDash Acceptance Rate
DoorDash is easy to use, which means that checking your acceptance rate through the app is straightforward. Here’s how in two steps:
- Launch the DoorDash Driver App
- Tap the Ratings Tab (second icon from the right), and it’ll transport you to the rating screen.
Your acceptance rate is the second metric from the top that you’ll see.
Frequently Asked Questions
To help you keep up your rating system working in your favor and reaching top dasher requirements, here are some frequently asked questions:
Is it bad to not accept DoorDash orders?
Choosing not to accept DoorDash orders means missing potential earnings. Regularly accepting orders can significantly boost your income, especially for those relying on DoorDash as their primary source of earnings.
How do you increase your acceptance rate on DoorDash?
To boost your DoorDash acceptance rate, accept more orders. This will quickly offset any previously declined orders. Using the DoorDash driver app can help you manage and accept orders more effectively.
Wrapping Up
Even if having a low acceptance rate won’t negatively impact your account, it’s a metric worth keeping an eye on. That’s because it can provide benefits like the possibility of earning more positive reviews and getting higher-paying orders.
If you need to raise your acceptance rate, consider accepting more requests or resetting your rate through DoorDash’s priority program.
