in the days following the backlash, but DoorDash stood by its model and promised to listen to its driver community to see if changes needed to be made. Four months later, after a flurry of focus groups and surveys, DoorDash says it’s wrapped up its review and will stick to the core of its pay model, but make earnings more transparent and increase pay in some areas.
The confusion is understandable given how complex DoorDash’s pay model is. For each delivery, the company calculates a guaranteed pay rate, which takes into account factors like the time and effort it would take to complete the delivery. DoorDash pays out a base fee of $1 per order and then counts a customer’s tip, if they left one, towards the guaranteed pay minimum to make sure the driver is earning what it thinks the driver should be making.
"It makes it more confusing and harder to calculate. We don’t know if we’re owed anything or not," says Arden Peacock-Gutierrez, a gig economy worker who drives for companies like DoorDash, Postmates and Caviar in Portland, Oregon. Peacock-Gutierrez signed up for awhich advocates for digital delivery companies to pay a minimum of $15 an hour and count tips as bonuses, not part of pay.