Lyft Driver Salary Changes with Prime Time Tips!
Lyft Series of Posts:
- Lyft Registration
- Lyft Mentor Ride
- Lyft Dashboard and Hours and Prime Time Tips
- Lyft Daily and Weekly Summaries and Payment
- Lyft Facebook Lounge and Groupme Chat
Lyft in new cities start off by paying drivers an hourly minimum to get them out on the road. These cities are considered in beta. When this happens, there are no Prime Time Tips or surge pricing like Uber. Even during the busiest times, you can be sure that the price won’t go up in Boston.
Well this will all change in Boston, and Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. starting today as these cities will come out of beta. Lyft drivers in the above cities will no longer be paid an hourly minimum salary to drive and we get paid based solely on donations. Prime Time Tips will go into effect and we get to keep 100% of the Prime Time Tips, unlike Uber who takes 20% of the entire fare. [Update: Lyft will now take their normal commission off of Prime Time Tips as well. See this post for more information.] Also a major change is an expansion of the Lyft coverage zone and also now up 24/7 so you can drive or request a lyft at any time.
This is a major change for Lyft drivers and customers alike. I have started warning my Lyft clients about this change and to be careful about the Prime Time Tips.
Here is a screenshot of the drivers portal and you can see the change between Tuesday and Wednesday:
The loss of the minimum hourly wage will radically shift how I lyft. Many drivers behaviors will need to change as well. I will cover this in a bit more detail in m upcoming series on Lyft and UberX.
The numbers starting Wednesday and after show what drivers should be making an hour. I would expect these estimates to go up as driver’s pattern changes and hopefully updates to the application to show us where the hotspots are.
I am unsure how this will impact my earnings. Lyft works on suggested donation so customers can choose to donate less to account for the Prime Time Tips. From the articles I read online, most people pay close to the suggested donation and there are only a few who do not and very few who don’t donate at all. However, Lyft has banned some of these customers who donate too little in an effort to ensure drivers are properly compensated.
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