DoorDash has statistics on its drivers based on customer satisfaction, just as Uber Eats, a Lyft driver, Postmates, and other delivery and food delivery services do.
These depend on whether deliveries are on time along with the acceptance rate of the driver.
As a new DoorDash driver, you may be wondering if your acceptance rate matters.
Table Of Contents
- What is Your DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
- What is a Good DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
- What is Considered a Bad DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
- Does DoorDash Acceptance Rate Matter for Drivers?
- Are Drivers Penalized for Having a Low DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
- How Acceptance Rate Impacts Top Dasher Status
- Tips for Increasing DoorDash Acceptance Rate
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The Bottom Line
What is Your DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
Your DoorDash acceptance rate is based on the percentage of deliveries that you have accepted out of the most recent 100.
Accepting more deliveries that come through for you will raise your acceptance rate.
Your average acceptance rate will vary because it is a rolling average.
The oldest delivery opportunity disappears after the most recent record.
If you passed on several orders early on, you need to boost your acceptance rate to roll those earlier ratings out of the way.
It may take some time to see your acceptance rate go up since the older ones will roll off first.
The acceptance rate is out of 100 so be patient; the rate will bump up the more deliveries you accept.
If you had a low acceptance rate last month, you can work at making it stellar this month.
What is a Good DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
According to DoorDash, there is no acceptance rate that you need to have to remain an active dash driver.
DoorDash may remove customer ratings from a driver’s profile that fall below five stars in certain situations.
They will take into account the following when determining if a review stays on your customer rating:
- If the wait time at the restaurant is more than 10 minutes
- Complaints about incorrect or missing items since this is the responsibility of the restaurants to add to the bag before they seal it
- If dasher’s remove themselves from the delivery, causing it to be more than 15 minutes late before you accept the order
- When the delivery is late due to extreme weather
- When it is a batched order of 3 or more that causes the delivery to be late
- System-wide outages
- Challenging delivery situations
The removal of these lower ratings will come off your account, so there is no need to check up on it.
Your DoorDash ratings depend on feedback that the company deems fair. A customer that uses food delivery apps wants a good dining experience.
What is Considered a Bad DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
There is not a minimum acceptance rate requirement for a DoorDash delivery person.
Declining deliveries regularly will put your fellow dashers in a bind.
The driver taking your order will not have as long to make the delivery that you passed on.
What’s worse than other dasher’s having to rush delivery or take it to the customer late is the chance that the food may be cold or melted.
Drivers may face a DoorDash deactivation if they get poor ratings consistently, are often late, or tend to cancel orders.
What can cause the deactivation of an account is if the driver’s completion rate drops below 80% or 4.2.
Accept orders that you are sure you can fulfill.
Completing orders ensures your completion rate does not dip below acceptable levels.
Does DoorDash Acceptance Rate Matter for Drivers?
Like any job, you want to offer good service and maintain a high accepted order rate to gain the full benefits and DoorDash is no exception.
What matters to DoorDash and what matters to drivers may be two completely different things.
According to DoorDash
The Acceptance Rate is known as the percentage of deliveries a driver has accepted out of the latest opportunities to deliver food.
If you have a low acceptance rate, you can raise the rate by accepting the deliveries that are offered to you.
The acceptance rate policy will affect your ability to become a DoorDash Top Dasher, but it will not affect the number of deliveries you are offered.
Visit the DoorDash platform to see your current rating and how to bring it up.
The best dashers maintain a high acceptance rate and have good stats.
Top Dashers will have access to peak pay with exclusive delivery zones, letting them serve more DoorDash customers.
This can lead to larger tipping bonuses that will help offset their expenses.
According to the Drivers
The acceptance rate is viewed differently by some drivers.
Some dashers will argue that it does not affect them at all.
DoorDash will not let a driver go because they don’t complete a minimum amount of orders.
The driver can accept as many orders as they like, or they have the opportunity to decline them.
Some drivers point out that DoorDash has said a low acceptance rate will lead to suspicion of fraud.
This suspicion may result in the deactivation of the driver’s account.
Are Drivers Penalized for Having a Low DoorDash Acceptance Rate?
Driver’s are not penalized for having a low DoorDash acceptance rate, but they will miss out on extra income.
A driver will not get fewer requests if they have a low acceptance rate.
Not completing the orders you accept is the only way to be in danger of account deactivation.
How Acceptance Rate Impacts Top Dasher Status
One of the incentives for drivers from DoorDash is the Top Dasher Program.
To become a top dasher, you will want to keep an eye on your acceptance rate.
The lowest acceptance rate for DoorDash is 70% if you want to become a top dasher.
Accepting 70% of your delivery requests or more will help you become eligible for the Top Dasher program.
More Dasher Requirements
- Customer rating of 4.7 stars minimum
- Completing 200 deliveries since the beginning of your DoorDash career
- Finishing 100 jobs minimum during the month prior
- The completion rate must be a minimum of 95%
What do you do as a top dasher?
You will access the “Dash Now” feature and be able to complete deliveries in all zones.
Having access to this feature means you do not need to schedule yourself, including deliveries in the grey zone (not busy).
Priority access to orders of higher values goes to Top Dashers.
A higher value means higher tips. If deliveries are few and far between, the Top Dasher will get the first pick of the orders, which will bring in more deliveries per hour.
The priority orders are tempting, as is the number of orders.
But it means that you need to maintain an acceptance rate of at least 70%.
Tips for Increasing DoorDash Acceptance Rate
There are several ways you can increase your DoorDash acceptance rate and they are a lot easier than you might think.
1. Take on More Orders
Your rating will not go up if you do not take more orders.
Since the rating is on a rolling average, with the oldest rating disappearing first, you need to accept more orders to roll the old ones out.
You can erase a rating of 3 stars or fewer once you get past the initial 100 ratings.
Over time your acceptance rate will rise.
2. Communicate With the Customer
No one likes to be in the dark.
A good dasher will let the customer know when an order is running late.
Traffic, accidents or a busy restaurant is not your fault.
Let the customer know their food will be there ASAP and they will thank you for it.
Customers are more likely to rate high if their courier gives them updates on their order.
Even saying a simple ‘thank you’ after drop-off can make a difference.
Fewer things are worse than being hungry and not knowing when your order will arrive, especially if the original delivery time has lapsed.
Reassuring yourself that it is okay to make mistakes sometimes as long as you communicate properly will lead you to accepting more orders.
3. Have Reliable Wi-Fi or Access to Wi-Fi
Not everyone has a data plan; if that sounds like you, you need to make sure you park close to a reliable Wi-Fi location.
Parking near a mall or coffee shop to ensure you can seek orders.
4. Keep Your Phone Charged
The lifeline of a DoorDash delivery driver is the device they use to accept orders.
Make sure to charge your phone so that you do not miss out on an opportunity to make a delivery.
Having a charged phone will also make it possible for you to have contact with the customer or restaurant if things are running behind.
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?
If you do not accept DoorDash orders, you will miss out on extra income.
Many drivers make their living solely on being a DoorDash driver because it works into their schedule.
If you want to make more money, accepting orders more often will add to your driver pay.
How do you increase your acceptance rate on DoorDash?
You can increase your DoorDash acceptance rate by taking on more orders.
The more orders you take on the quicker the orders you declined will be eliminated.
Make sure you download the DoorDash driver app to access orders more efficiently.
The Bottom Line
A high DoorDash Acceptance Rating may not affect your delivery opportunities.
But it is crucial to keep the number 70% if you want to be a Top Dasher and reap the rewards of having exclusive dibs on higher-cost orders.
To be a successful driver and make a good living, you need to complete the orders you take, be on time, and have a smile that goes a long way.
There are opportunities and money to be made as a DoorDash driver if you make an effort and unload your best customer service skills to get a high rating in customer service.
One thing not addressed in the article is why dashers don’t accept offers. I can tell most of the time when there is no tip included. This is how we make money. If the offer is for $2.00 or even $3.00 that may only cover the cost of your vehicle and will not be worth your time. If the offer is $8.00 but you have to drive 10 miles there and then up to 10 miles back it’s not worth it. I don’t turn down offers to be mean but I am trying to make money.
Correct. My acceptance rate is 18%. I work 12 hour days & get SO MANY orders under $5.00 to drive more then 5 MILES. I LOVE MY DOORDASH JOB, but I think there should be a minimum of $1 per mile.
Agreed. I do the same. It is reasonable to get close to $1 a mile. Sometimes I take orders that are $5 for 5-9miles because it puts me in a different hotspot that I wanted to check out so it is worth it to go for the ride. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
exactly like who delivers for free
Not accepting an order doesn’t decrease the time the next Dasher has to make the delivery. Doordash always gives ample time to make a delivery after accepting it. It changes the ETA for the customer after another driver accepts it. If you are late delivering an order for any reason other than you were just taking your time or driving extremely slow doordash removes the rating. 2500 deliveries under my belt and a 97% “on time” rating proves this. My “acceptance rate” is only 19%. If doordash was punishing other drivers for someone else not accepting orders then they wouldn’t have many drivers.
I totally agree. Many customers have complained that door dash charges a delivery fee and maintenance fee on top of their order. They assume the drivers get paid a wage plus part of the delivery fee so some dont feel obligated to tip. Orders that are a lot of miles but not much money is definately not worth accepting. We are out to make money and with gas prices and car maintenance so high people need to tip us maybe at least 20% or higher like restauranrs. We have to deal with bad weather, road construction, addresses not clear or missing on housing ect. Be considerate of your driver. We are doing our best to give you a good delivery experience so please be considerate and be generous with your tip just like you would at a restaurant.
You are so right! I have taken orders with pay outs less than $1 per mile, get there & can’t get in the driveway have to walk up hills, in the dark, ask to bring bags of groceries inside there home & have even drove .3 miles to get to the home that there
gravel driveway was literally threw a forests.when i called the customer they stated that they knew it look like a bad movie but there us a house. I felt so degraded after the delivery because the customer knew the condition of there property & should have compensated the driver.
I would love to be able to know why someone gives you a 3 rating so I can improve. I have over 100 deliveries, 16- 5 rating and 1-3 rating. At this rate I will have to have 500 additional deliveries to reach 100 ratings to lose that 3.
An average delivery time is 25 minutes, and yet DoorDash send the request to the dasher with $3.00-$3.50 pay! So Dashers ends up making $7.20-$8.40 an hour, or $5.00 order for 10 miles and you have to drive 10 miles back because the delivery in the middle of no where, the Daher will make $6.66 an hour ! My acceptance rate right now is 51% because I make sure I only accept $1.00 or more for each mile I drive because driving for DoorDash buts a lot of expenses on you, such as Fuel, car maintenance, insurance, and the car depreciation in price due to high daily mileage driving. Your cost per mile based on 2000 miles a month and 30 MPG ( miles per gallon) is 12 cent Fuel, 6 cents insurance, 8 cents maintenance, 5 cents insurance, the total 31 cents per mile, bare in mind I didn’t not include your car value depreciation! so if you accept any orders for $2.00-$3.75 and order you many want to re-think again before you dash.
Cost of service should be calculated by Federal mileage allowance plus your time.
The only way im going to accept a 3.00 order is if they are just around the corner
It is not my responsibility or that of any INDEPENDENT contractor to make sure all orders are fulfilled. It’s the responsibility of DOORDASH and THEIR EMPLOYEES. You seem to forget that we are not employees. If Doordash wants the delivery completed in a timely manner they can make it more attractive for a Dasher to take. OR they can hire employees who they can then direct.
Doordash spells it out very clearly in the contract that we have no obligation beyond what we agree to do. In fact, they even spell out that we are free to set our own price and that in fact we do so by accepting or rejecting offers.
I have almost 4,657 deliveries completed. My CR is 4.94, my AR is 98-100%, my CR is 100%, my on time rate is 94%. I average $1-$3 per mile and I average 60-100 per day. I am doing doordash full time. I found that that when I take every order ( well 98 to 100%, is taking almost every order) doordash rewards me. If I did not like the order and believe me, I don’t like every order, I consistently let doordash know what I didn’t like. For instance, “far delivery, low base pay or difficult delivery .” I have also found that when I really like an order, if I select “short distance, fast merchant, easy drop off, well organized delivery, “ I receive many more deliveries I like during peak times because my ratings are so high. Doordash is really trying to grow where I live and I know as more Dashers get on the road I have to keep my ratings exceptionally high so that I get the best orders. Just my thoughts since everybody else is giving their’s. I know mine are quite the opposite.
I only get 25 miles per gallon in city driving with my Impala. Gas at $3.69 / gallon, gives me a gas cost per mile of 14.8 cents per mile. Vehicle replacement cost devided by expected lifetime miles, gives me a wear and tear cost of 10 cents per mile. Maintenance and insurance vary depending on how much you dash, but 5 cents per mile is a good average. So total vehicle cost is just under 30 cents per mile.
Average pick up time for me is 5 minutes, drop off time 5 minutes. Minimum acceptable hourly rate of $15/hr. Means $2.50 before any miles figured in.
I can’t accept any orders under $5. Unless it is a convenient add on. Then the minimum for me is $3. plus 30 cents 50 cents per added mile.
No dasher driving a car should ever accept orders under $3.50. Obviously different on a bike or scooter.
A drivers perspective: I have 3,839 deliveries with 21% acceptance rate. I could give a rats azz about any other driver statistic. Thats 1 in 5 jobs offered I take. So 4 out of 5 customers, 80%, are getting their food late and cold, if ever, because a less experienced noob driver is going to have to drive an even longer distance to get your food for you so he’ll learn quickly what’s worth doing or not. (How is doordash not out of business I don’t understand.) It’s because the pay is not worth the time/cost, and cost is only skyrocketing with gas prices making everything more expensive. And when it is pouring rain, snowing and the roads suck, I’m going to be even more picky. If people don’t start tipping better or if doordash doesn’t start paying better I’m gonna be done with this circus soon. DD pays between $2-$3 per delivery. I can do 3-5 deliveries per hr. That’s $10-15 per hr minus expenses (fuel, oil, tires, insurance,etc) equals Jack Schmitt not worth doing!!! I drove someone else’s wheelchair van for $16 hr before this crap job, they paid all expenses. I WILL NEVER take a deliver that doesn’t obviously include a tip. $3.25 payout? I’m sorry a .25 cent tip? That’s an insult! Go F yourself I hope you never get your food you disrespecting selfish pretentious pompus Azz! (And for those of you who think DD steals drivers tips, so you’ll tip in cash, NO THEY DONT. They lost that court case. I’ve been burned way to many times hoping for a cash tip.) This is a service. If you can’t, or don’t want to get your food yourself, then you PAAAAAY for a service. DD has their expenses to operate the system and drivers have their expenses to operate their vehicle plus make an hourly wage. When you order food and it says “this will cost you $4 in fees”, that’s all the money going to doordash and the driver. There is no other hourly pay from some magical entity that pays the driver. If you think there is some other source of income for the driver then you are delusional! Doordash gets $2, the driver gets $2. If a driver isn’t making $30 an hour operating their own car, they are getting ripped off. If you aren’t tipping a minimum $10 for your order, you are helping to destroy the system, and causing YOUR food to be late and cold, or if you ever even get it. If a driver accepted your insult no tip order HOPING for a cash tip upon delivery and you don’t intend to tip, you better select “hand it to me” or he might stomp and piss on your food bag after he realizes there’s no tip and he just drove 15 miles 20 minutes and will need to drive 15 miles 20 minutes back to his active zone area where he can get another order. 30 miles and 40 minutes for a $3 payout, you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t come back with a Molotov cocktail for your front window. If you expect a driver to go more than 5 miles, you are drastically ruining your chances of getting your food. Don’t forget, you’ll only know the distance from the restaurant to your house, so add a mile or 2 for the driver to get to the restaurant. I’ve seen a dozen plus bags of food waiting on shelves at chipotle, all DD orders, between 5 and 1 hour old. Insane DD may say “yep we’ll do that 25 mile order for you”, but that doesn’t mean the sane driver will. If you expect me to deliver your burger and fries and drive 50 miles, you better have a $60 tip for me for your $8 meal. But considering there is no way for you to tell me that before I accept your offer, pft, good luck with settling your hungry monster. I’ve seriously thought about taking crap orders just so I could text a video to you of me laughing my soccer balls off at you and then canceling your order. Tip 20% like you would a waitress at a restaurant and no less than $10. Tip more for anything over 3 miles. If not, good luck getting your grub. And if a driver doesn’t thank you for your tip, it’s because he isn’t sure what it is yet because DD will hide the total actual amount until he finishes the job, long after you close the door. So if you got a ring doorbell and I appreciate your generous appropriate tip, you will find a video of me raising my phone and mouthing “thank you for the tip”. If I think you’re a cheap azz and you wasted my time, your doorbell may see me shaking my head no and mouthing “I hope you choke on your French fries”. I’ve had jobs that say it is paying $10, but after the drop it’s $40. This irritates me. How many orders have I declined that would have been worth accepting, have I not accepted, because DD didn’t show me the actual payout? I wish DD would un-F this. It would make the Drivers/customers more happy. Drivers learn to identify which types of jobs are worth doing based on number of items, type restaurant, catering bag order, distance, neighborhood, destination, etc. Sometimes you guess wrong and it just ruins your day and you feel like you’re getting ripped off. I can’t imagine there are many happy drivers. We get paid by the job, not by the hour. So if you get a happy friendly update text complete with cute emojis from your delivery driver saying he’s been waiting 40 minutes at the restaurant for your food to finish cooking, he ain’t happy and friendly, he’s pissed that he’s losing money on your order and subliminally asking you to increase the tip or add cash tip on delivery. And by the way, this applies to all phone app based services like bitesquad, Uber, Lyft, Instacart, Takl, I’ve done them all. None of them pay anywhere near enough to sustain the providers happiness. Every last one of them depends on your tip to make it worth doing. So if you want a chauffeur wearing a suit to drive you in a limo to the opera, you better not try to tip like you are riding the stinky city bus. Yes, I’ve been a chauffeur too, and trust me the 18% included gratuity you pay for him still isn’t worth it on top of his $9 hr pay he spent driving you around for 3 hrs that he is vested 4-5 hrs into. Always tip your driver! Just sayin.
Ha! Truth.
Preach ! Truth truth truth tip ur drivers or else u might get a rat turd hiding inside ur soggy cheese burger
I learned if you’re on a delivery that is not paying well and you’re going to a neighborhood that you know that these rich people do not tip well you complain to them about how hard it is to find their house and that door – isn’t giving you the direct location of their house so you’re getting really frustrated and you show up a little bit late and you’ll see that you end up with a bigger tip
Make it look like you had to go further out of your way then you really had to and I have also noticed when I go to the neighborhoods that seem to be not as well maintained and lower-income they give higher tips Sometimes some very nice tips but these rich people with these nice mansions and long driveways it’s rare to even see a $2 tip from them and that really pisses me off cuz just like you guys have said you drive 20 miles there and have to drive 20 miles back for a payment from doordash of 675 it’s just not worth it so some of you tried the little complainant messed it method and see how that works
I’ve only done 727 deliveries. I had 100% on all for several months. Now my acceptance rate is 27%. At 50% I noticed my pay started decreasing. I refuse to drive 14 miles over the interstate bridge, ( drawbridge) for 2.75. I actually got several of those. DD can up their base pay. We have no control over tips but base pay can be raised. I was used to 6.75 and up. Now I have to eat it and take crap orders or get down to 0%. DD keeps putting on sloppy dressers, people you can tell havnt showered for days. They take low pay shifting all of us. There’s another point. Get some kind of dress code. It doesn’t have to be suit and tie but come on you people. Wash your hair, don’t wear slippers. Now to you DD. Raise pay, money is there and you save the time and money by keeping experienced dashers. Get the drivers opinion why their late or passed on an order other then your multiple choice reasons. Time and time again I’ve seen companies grow and shift the people who are making you rich. DD has dropped the ball. It’s to bad as I really enjoy driving.
Another BIG reason is safety. I don’t usually play the “female” card but I live in a city that where I dash by my house it is close to the inner city and there are areas that I know to stay out of. Hard to get acceptance rate up when my 70% of my orders go in that direction. Which I knew signing up. I have done a few and it’s scary because I’m by myself. I can move to a better location but I love where I live and want to bring income into my community and make money while doing that. With that said – I still have to think about my safety as well, hence my 22% acceptance rate. Something has to give, me moving to a different location or my safety.
I have my acceptance rate hovering just above 70%. My general guideline is minimum $1 per mile up to 5 miles, around 10 miles it needs to be closer to $1.50-$2.00 per mile. I rarely get any orders farther than that. I just ran the numbers for my current week. After 30% deductions for my expenses. I made 13.30 per dashing hour, or $20 per active hour. I do as little driving as possible, and drive slower when I’m not on active runs. Which saves me fuel costs during that time. So I can’t complain too much about my earnings, I’m fortunate that this is just extra income for me, but I know for some people who really try to make a living on this job, it’s really not enough. Over all I agree with the rest of you about better pay and tips. One way or another, whether it’s a mandatory tip, or higher charges to pay the dasher better, we shouldn’t be expected to accept an order that is drastically underpaid. I’ve had several order offers that expect me to drive long distances for the same or less amount I’d be putting into my fuel.
Could you imagine if this is what it was like in other companies and professions? If a plumber or mechanic only made a profit on 70% of there jobs, and just broke even or lost money on the other 30%.
Then as some of you have mentioned, because of the region, or other factors, you have legitimate reasons to decline far more orders.
I am a top dasher and make $2000 a week and regularly go to different cities and pull in and crush it without. knowing the parking, traffic or hotspots. A few months ago DD started a new policy prioritizing top dashers the larger orders. It won’t make a difference in larger cities or Friday nights when there is an abundance of offers but smaller cities or when its slow, Top dashers get prioritized and top bashers get scraps or nothing. You get 3-4x as many offers as non-top dashers so you have much more to cherry pick from. Top Dasher high offer priority is actually a well kept secret that online forums sell novice dashers the idea its bad just so they can gate/keep the secret. Creating the top basher phenomenon is actually a conspiracy to gatekeeping the secret. They say you need 70% acceptance rate. Not true. Top dashers operate with 5% AR all month cherry picking first priority high offers and only at the last 3 days of the month do they ramp up stats to secure the privilege. I admin Gig Ballerz FB group and will gladly roll into any top Bashers city and crush their weekly earnings.
I do full time, 7 days a week for DD. I had Top Dasher since the start of my 2nd month with them. I’ve been dashing for a year and 9 months. I’ve done 7403 deliveries. This is the first month I did not make top dasher. The last week of July, they slammed me with $2, $3, and $4 orders. So, I declined them. My acceptance rate plummeted between July 28th and July29th. They have tried to do this to me before. I didn’t catch it in time. So, I just realized today, that I had lost my top dasher status. This sucks, because this is my living, and because of the cheap orders, I will be making less and working even more. It’s very stressful, and exhausting. I don’t have much time of a life, because I am always dashing. I’m tired and worn out. And now I have to push myself even harder to make it. The sad thing is all my other ratings are very high. DD had even approved me for large orders, said they wouldn’t drop my AR, for turning down small orders, then, that’s all they sent me. I’m really disgusted with DD. I really did enjoy dashing, but not so much anymore.
When I first started doing this I accepted all orders. Now I pick and choose and I don’t drive as many miles so my profits are much more. If it isn’t at least a dollar a mile, even if I go out of area and I need to drive back, I decline.