So I drive part time for Uber/Lyft

[pfarber]

So I figured I'd burn off some of my free time making some pocket money driving for Uber/Lyft. I've been at it about a month now but in reality I have worked less than 7 days total (I drive maybe 2-3 times a week plus I had a holiday in late Aug).

I'll post some final numbers once I get the month all figured out.. but I made about $200 gross.. maybe $150 net. Probably less than that.

My thoughts on 'ride sharing':

Your vehicles MPG is THE KEY FACTOR. My Equinox sucks on gas.. 19 city (its an AWD). Compared to most cars and hybrids I am losing WAY TO MUCH of my profits to gas. A car at 25-27mpg city would make almost double I do.
Your MARKET is the next biggest factor. If you hear about ppl making $1-2k PER WEEK don't think those are normal numbers. There are about 5-10 markets where you can do that amount of cash, but I live in PA and the 3 closest cities to me all number in population between 25k and 250k. Harrisburg is the largest and even at 250k there are so many drivers that the market is saturated. On average in H-burg I get 1-2 rides per hour.. at mostly $3-$5 per ride.. before expenses.
You need to figure out your market. Every city is different. Some places use Lyft more than Uber, others Uber is king, still others are 50/50... so you need to run both apps to maximize rides and profits. Some cities the AM rules, other the PM... then you need to figure out what days are best.
People are fucking shit. Really. Fuck the average fat stupid American. My car can carry 1200lbs. So when 4 buckets of 300+lb lard want to pile in I gotta tell them the math (well, my fat ass takes up quite a bit). Then listen to them complain about how everyone else allows them to get in/eat/drink/smoke. My car, my rules.
People are fucking shit pt 2. They expect me to wait while they go into BK or McD for food. LOL NO. I get paid $0.06 per minute to wait. When I tell them that Uber/Lyft only allows for two minutes per stop the whining commences... 'other drivers let me do it'.. fuck off. Either give me a cash tip of $5-$10 or I'm driving off after two minutes and getting my $3.76 cancel fee.
The Uber app is PURE TRASH. Right now there is a global Uber issue with settling rides. I was not paid for 2 rides last night. People all over the world have said the same thing. Ubers GPS navigation sucks and the new app doesn't switch to google maps properly. The Lyft app is better, but doing things like cancelling rides is much harder to do. Both Lyft and Uber proclaim that they are 'technology companies'. Bullshit. Their tech is garbage. Ubers call center is a low cost Indian shithole and they reps are basically useless. Lyft seems to have US call centers but their reps are just as bad. One call they kept asking me for the destination address... well, drivers NEVER GET THE DESTINATION ADDRESS until you arrive and then its only on screen for a few seconds. Both support reps never seem to have used the app.

About the app.. drivers are never given the destination address until after you accept. If you accept a ride, then cancel, it affects your 'numbers'. So you have to blindly accept every ride and hope its long enough to make you some profit but not to long/out of the way that you eat up your profit to get back. Also in my area its not uncommon to have to drive 5-10 miles (UNPAID) to get a passenger. The app will tell you how far they are from you, and in the beginning I was accepting EVERYTHING. But now my rule is more than 5 miles away... PASS. The math doesn't add up: drive 5 miles (unpaid) to pick up, drive maybe 2 miles to drop off, then drive 7 miles back if the ending location is not in a busy area. That's 14 miles for $3.65. Of which I lost $1.50 to gas costs (again, my car really sucks for Uber/Lyft).... but the numbers only get slightly better for a car getting 25MPG in the city. So now I have to turn down rides, that lowers my acceptance rate. Not sure if that affects passenger request, but to low an acceptance rate and they can kick you off the service.

Unless I can net $500-750 per month I am not going to continue to drive. Its just not worth it. Since this is my first month and I am still learning each cities routine this month will be purely testing and learning. Short of getting into a large market like Philly (my care is to old and Philly is to far away) I have to figure out the few bigger cities that are close to me.

[pfarber]

Since all the Uber trips have updated I finally have my first grand total for the past 3 weeks. I really only drove for 7 days (both Lyft and Uber) but I am actually surprised that I made $253.

Although my mileage tracking is not as accurate as I want it to be (working on it) I have about $120 NET profit.

When I start next week I'll really get the logging down so I can get better numbers. From what I can tell I drove 587 miles so I made about $0.43 a mile. The IRS standard deduction for per mile vehicle use is $0.545 so that means didn't make enough per mile to cover the expense of the car (well, not really.. the IRS deduction includes a lot of things that I pay less for.. like I don't have commercial insurance nor do I have a loan/payments. My car is already just about fully depreciated).

But an extra $120 is a nice bonus.

[pfarber]

Had my first really good day/night driving for Uber/Lyft. Of course I had to do a lot of what I said I never wanted to do to get that money.

I started off in Danville, then got a trip to Bloomsburg, then Hazelton, then Wilkes-Barre. Those cities are 10-20 miles apart, breaking my 'no more than 5 miles for a pickup' rule. But I just wasn't getting rides closer than that. I did get 2 really long trips (10+ miles) and those two trips really added up.

At the end of the night (1am, I started at 7pm) I had 13 rides (9 Uber, 4 Lyft) and made $102 in about 7 hours. BUT I had to do bar runs. I said I would never take drunks and well, after 11:30pm that's kinda all you see. My driver rating is 4.7 (I have less than 50 rides.. so that's kind really bad) and I hear that at 4.6 Uber will consider dropping you.

About ratings: fuck them. I haven't looked at my feedback in depth, and honestly other than shitty GPS locations and bad routes there really isn't much I think is to complain about. My car is clean. I don't give out water or candy or other dumb shit... so getting booted off Uber/Lyft may be in my future simply because some asshole pass gives low ratings because we didn't offer to massage their feet or some such. Uber/Lyft doesn't care if drivers get dropped.. they have a 94% churn rate.

[pfarber]

I have been CRUSHING it on Uber/Lyft.

The week before Thanksgiving cleared $150

The week of Thanksgiving I cleared $175

Not sure what the deal is... but I think I have figured out what are the best times/to drive and what area to hang out in. That helps A LOT. Sitting in an area that has no rider requests, or WORSE, having to drive 5-10 miles for a pick is a sure way to lose money.

Maybe its just the holiday combined with the cold weather. Don't care. This month I am well over $400 in earning (about $300 net, my car SUCKS on gas).

Would I still recommend it as a PART TIME job. I've paid for so many trips to the store by running the app and getting a random pickup. So I don't view it (as some do) as an ACTUAL job, just, like the word says, RIDE SHARE. Although I do put in some dedicated hours when I know there is cash to be made.