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Do You Tip Postmates Drivers? (Yes, Here’s How Much)

When ordering from food delivery services like Postmates, it’s important that you tip drivers if and when you’re able to. Similar to how you would tip at a restaurant or café, those driving for Postmates are in the service industry and should receive a tip when the order goes smoothly.

On the Postmates app, you can choose a default tip or set your own. If you choose the default tip, the minimum you can give is 10%. However, it is recommended to tip at least 15% when getting food delivered through Postmates. This is the standard amount used for most service-based workers.

With food delivery services, trying to decide on a tip amount or even figure out how to add a tip to the order can be challenging.

If this sounds like you, this article will cover all of your questions about how to tip on Postmates, how much to tip, and who the tip is really going to.

How Much Should You Tip Postmates Drivers?

On average, you should leave at least a 15% tip for your Postmates drivers. With that said, the Postmates app automatically suggests and calculates the amount for a 20% tip. This can manually be changed but will be applied if you do not change it. When possible, this is the ideal tip amount.

A 20% tip is the automatic amount added because delivery drivers get paid a low hourly rate and rely on tips to make the most of their income from driving.

Without added tips on each delivery, the amount made in an hour is not a livable or sustainable hourly wage; therefore, Postmates pushes higher tip amounts from their customers.

Can Postmates Drivers See Your Tips?

Postmates drivers can see how much each customer tips them after the order is complete and delivered. After the drop-off is complete, the driver will get notified of the amount they made on the order, which includes a report about how much tip they received from the delivery.

Each driver on the Postmates app has an employee portal within their Postmates app where they can keep track of their hourly income per day and tips.

This employee portal gives drivers full transparency about their income and keeps the customers’ tips private until the delivery is complete to avoid any issues.

What Happens if You Don’t Tip on Postmates?

Postmates has thought through a process to get more customers to leave tips for their drivers. With that said, you can be assured that you will never be forced to leave a tip, and nothing on the app or service will change on your end if you do not provide tips to the drivers.

Postmates automatically adds a 20% tip to orders that customers must manually take off if they prefer to change the amount or remove it. They also have a few other methods to encourage tipping.

First, if the order is completed without a tip, the customer will get a notification from Postmates asking if they’d like to leave a tip.

This is often a very effective second reminder that tipping is not required, but it is strongly encouraged on the service.

If you ignore this notification and do not take any action by either adding a tip or dismissing the alert, you will find that you cannot put in your next order.

Postmates is not doing that to stop customers from ordering again but rather requires all customers to react to the alert.

Postmates can then give customers every opportunity to provide their employees with a tip before moving on to the next order.

It is great that the company is actively working to bring in more income for their employees and get higher tip rates.

Do Postmates Drivers Get 100% of the Tip?

It can be unsettling to give tips on delivery apps when you’re not sure if the money is going to the delivery service or going to the actual person who is dropping off your order. Luckily, with Postmates, 100% of the tip goes to the driver who delivered your order.

So next time you’re looking to send the tip through to a delivery driver, you can be sure that they are getting the full amount and that Postmates is not taking a percentage for themselves.

This is a great way to push more customers to tip while also encouraging prompt deliveries from drivers to get larger tips.

Do Postmates Drivers Rate Customers?

With Postmates, customers can rate drivers, but drivers cannot rate customers. Postmates recently changed their rating system to avoid bad ratings, which are based on factors out of the driver’s control, such as cold food or orders that have been made incorrectly.

Therefore, rather than using a star system, Postmates uses a general thumbs up or down for orders and asks for additional feedback.

This helps the system to determine if the problem occurred with the restaurant or with their driver.

It also avoids the situation of drivers getting bad ratings for something out of their control. With Postmates’ rating system, no driver will be penalized by a bad rating for something that was potentially an issue with the restaurant.

How to Tip on Postmates

When ordering on Postmates, the process of adding a tip is very straightforward to ensure customers do not have to work too hard to tip their drivers.

After you add your food items to your cart, you can go to “View Cart,” and you’ll be able to start the tip process.

First, take a look at the “Postmate Tip,” under which you will be able to select the percentage you’d like to leave for your driver.

You can either choose one of the preset tip percentages or choose your own tip in the custom tip field. Once you tap “Continue,” your tip will be applied, and you can finish placing your order.

If you do not add a tip in this step, Postmates will notify you and give you another opportunity to add a tip after the delivery is completed!

Therefore, if you have had a great experience with a driver and simply do not add a tip by mistake, you can always go back into your app and add a tip to the order.

Postmates gives you up to 10 hours after delivery to adjust the tip amount. To add or change a tip after delivery is completed, tap the “Change Tip Amount” and either select a percentage or enter a custom amount.

If you don’t want to leave a tip, you can tap “Other” and enter $0.

Conclusion

Whenever using a service like Postmates, although not required, it is expected that customers tip their delivery drivers. Because of this, Postmates gives customers every opportunity to go back and add tips to their orders to ensure their drivers are making as much as possible every hour that they work.

Since delivery drivers do not have a high hourly wage, they rely heavily on generous and consistent tips from the customers they serve. Luckily, with 100% of the tips going straight to them, drivers can average a decent hourly wage when customers tip between 15% and 20% on their orders.

Be sure to double-check the value in the tip field on your checkout screen before you speed through the checkout process on Postmates. If you do not change the amount, the app will automatically put a 20% tip, but you can adjust it however you see fit if that percentage does not suit your experience!

If you’re interested in finding out more about Postmates, check out the related articles below.

Related Articles:

Postmates Gift Cards: What to Know About Buying and Using Them

DoorDash vs. Postmates: Which is Better?

Postmates Refund: Here’s What You Need to Know

Does Postmates Deliver Alcohol? (Yes, Here’s What to Know)

Can You Order Postmates for Someone Else? (Yes, Here’s How)

About the Author

Eril Eti is the founder of Shopfood.com. He has over a decade of experience in consumer goods and launched many products sold at retailers like Walmart, Costco, Amazon, Target, Kroger, Publix, and more.

Eril loves food, traveling, and trying out new restaurants. Outside of work, you can find him on a hiking trail in New England or playing soccer with his kids.

By Eril Eti

November 10, 2022