Delivery Apps to Make Money in 2026: Real Hourly Pay for 6 Apps

The main delivery apps to make money with in the US are DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Instacart, Amazon Flex, and Walmart's Spark Driver. Driver data from Gridwise for 2025 puts median gross pay at roughly $11 to $21 an hour, depending on the app, before gas and car costs. Amazon Flex came out highest and DoorDash lowest. Below is what each app pays, what it asks of you, and how to tell whether a food delivery side hustle is worth it where you live.

Delivery apps to make money: median pay compared

These figures come from Gridwise, a mileage and earnings app that tracks what its users make. They're medians from 2025, gross, and before expenses. Gridwise only sees drivers who use its app, so treat them as a rough guide, not a promise.

Sources: Gridwise pages on Amazon Flex (April 2026), Grubhub (April 2026), and Uber Eats (September 2026), which also gives the DoorDash median. "Trip pay" is base pay plus tips. "Gross" adds bonuses and promotions.

Two things stand out. Tips are a big share of the money: Gridwise puts the median Uber Eats driver at $6.26 an hour in tips, close to half of trip pay. And the ranking can flip in your city, since every app's pay depends on local demand.

The apps one by one

DoorDash

DoorDash pays per offer. Its Dasher pay page says base pay "ranges from $2–10+" per offer, based on estimated time, distance, and how desirable the order is. You keep 100% of tips, and promotions like Peak Pay and Challenges add more in some areas. There's also an Earn by Time mode with a guaranteed minimum hourly rate for active time, but DoorDash doesn't publish the dollar figure; it varies by place and time. You need to be 18 or older (higher in some states), with a driver's license and a background check. DoorDash's requirements article says bikes, e-bikes, and scooters are allowed in some locations.

Uber Eats

Uber Eats shows your expected earnings before you accept an order. Pay is base fare plus promotions plus tips, and you keep all of the tips, per the Uber delivery page. Uber is the most flexible on how you get around: you can deliver by bike or on foot at 18, by scooter at 19, and by car at 19 (21 in California and New York State). For people without a car, that makes Uber Eats the easiest food delivery side hustle to start.

Grubhub

Grubhub pays per order, with base pay built from "mileage, delivery type, and time spent delivering," plus tips and mission bonuses, according to its driver page. You must be 18 (21 in Las Vegas). Car, motorcycle, bike, or scooter are allowed depending on the market. Earnings show up 15 minutes after a delivery. Grubhub had the highest food delivery median in the table above, but that only helps if there are enough orders near you, so check before you count on it.

Amazon Flex

Flex is package delivery, not food. You sign up for delivery blocks in the Flex app instead of taking orders one at a time. Gridwise's data shows it with the highest median hourly pay of the group, and you need a car that can hold a full route of packages. Check current requirements on Amazon Flex itself.

Instacart

Instacart shoppers pick and deliver groceries, so each order takes longer and involves more work in the store. We couldn't find a published median pay figure for Instacart from a source we trust, so we left it out of the table. Pay and cash-out terms are covered in our post on side hustles that pay daily.

Spark Driver (Walmart)

Spark delivers Walmart orders. The Spark Driver site asks that you be 18 or older, have a valid license, proof of auto insurance for the car you use, and pass possible background screening. It doesn't publish a pay rate and says the earnings examples on the site are only estimates.

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Is DoorDash a good side hustle?

DoorDash is a good side hustle if you want to start fast and work whenever you like, and a weak one if you need high hourly pay. Its median in the Gridwise data ($11.26 an hour in trip pay) was the lowest of the four apps above, and that's before gas. If you're driving to cover one urgent bill, our guide to making $1,000 fast shows how delivery shifts fit with selling things and odd jobs.

Where a DoorDash side hustle does well:

• You can log on for an hour after work with no schedule.
• You see the guaranteed pay for an offer before accepting it, so you can turn down bad ones.

Where it falls short: base pay can be as low as $2 an offer, so tips decide a lot of your night, and a slow, low-tip evening can be rough. You can also run DoorDash and Uber Eats at the same time and take whichever offer pays better.

What delivery really costs you

The hourly numbers above are gross. Your car costs money every mile. The IRS standard mileage rate for business driving is 76 cents a mile for July 1 to December 31, 2026 (72.5 cents for the first half of the year). That rate is meant to cover gas, wear, and depreciation, which gives you a sense of how fast driving costs add up. If you drive 15 miles an hour while delivering, 76 cents a mile works out to over $11 an hour in car costs on paper.

Your real costs depend on your car, but the takeaway is the same: short trips, a fuel-efficient car, or a bike change the math a lot. Track every mile from your first shift. You'll want the numbers at tax time.

Taxes

Delivery apps treat you as an independent contractor, so nothing is withheld. The IRS says you owe 15.3% self-employment tax once your net self-employment earnings reach $400 in a year, on top of income tax. This isn't tax advice for your situation, so talk to a tax professional if you're unsure.

Watch for delivery job scams

Real delivery apps don't charge you to sign up. The FTC's February 2026 alert on side hustle scams lists three warning signs: promises of fast cash for little work, pressure to accept right away, and any request to pay for training, equipment, or expenses to get the job. Download apps only from the official app stores, and ignore texts offering "delivery jobs" from companies you didn't apply to. The FTC's job scams guide covers more patterns.

Delivery now, something slower on the side

Delivery pays this week, but only while you're driving. Some people pair it with a side hustle that pays nothing at first and keeps earning later, like a faceless YouTube channel. It can take months to reach monetization, so it doesn't replace delivery income early on. Tools like VidPuff turn a title into a long-form narrated video you review before uploading, which keeps the work to a few evenings a week. Our YouTube side hustle guide explains the timeline.

For other options, see our list of side hustle jobs or, if your time is mostly Saturday and Sunday, weekend side hustles.

FAQ

Which delivery app pays the most?

In Gridwise's 2025 driver data, Amazon Flex had the highest median at $20.89 an hour in trip pay, followed by Grubhub ($15.38), Uber Eats ($14.07), and DoorDash ($11.26). These are gross figures before gas and car costs, and pay varies a lot by city.

Is Uber Eats a good side hustle?

An Uber Eats side hustle is one of the easiest to start, because Uber lets you deliver by bike or on foot at 18 where those options are offered. Its median pay in Gridwise's data ($14.07 an hour in trip pay) was higher than DoorDash's, and tips made up about $6.26 of that.

Can you use more than one delivery app at once?

Yes. You can run two apps, such as DoorDash and Uber Eats, and accept whichever offer pays better. Check each app's terms, and don't accept two orders you can't deliver on time.

Do you need a car to make money with delivery apps?

Not always. Uber Eats allows bike and walking deliveries where those options are offered, and DoorDash and Grubhub allow bikes or scooters in some markets. Amazon Flex and Spark need a car.