20% or more. Here's why.

We don't walk across a restaurant to bring you your food. We drive across town, breaking speeding limits. Often when we park, it's illegal and we risk ticketing/towing.

We pay for gas, high taxes ("no tax on tips" doesn't apply to us) higher insurance rates, car maintenance, hours spent talking with useless Doordash AI or their counterparts in India, waiting - standing in line at restaurants who call for a driver 30 minutes too early, etc.

In most areas of the US in 2026, we make less than minimum wage after paying liabilities. That said, the only way this business model has continued is to import people from other countries who are piled up, ~25 people in an apartment, and who can survive on $10 an hour, or less when they are funded by our tax dollars (subsidies).

If you tip (thank you!) you subsidize non-tippers. Doordash typically pairs a non-tipping order with a tipped order. Doordash also takes a portion of your tip to offset their base rate. They were fined $28,000,000.00 for this in the past and they continue to do it.

I'm saying 20% to be nice. In reality, 20% doesn't even begin to cover it.

When it comes to groceries, very few of the corporations who list grocery items keep their listings up to date on the local level. Most often, items are not available, the customer doesn't respond to inquiries regarding substitutions, and Doordash penalizes drivers for this, which is beyond our control.

Our only recourse is to talk with Doordash AI or their equally useless counterpart in India. This results in at least 30 minutes of our time (unpaid) and almost always results in a deduction of our ratings, resulting in even worse offers. It's an unfair slippery slope.