Did I Really Make $48 an Hour on Uber?
So I drove two weeks ago under their $60/hour guarantee in Boston. One trip per hour, stay within the coverage area and 90% acceptance. It didn’t seem that hard for $60 an hour. But $60 an hour includes their commission so it was really $48 per hour, but $48 per hour is still pretty good for driving a few people around. I know that many people in other cities would kill to get $48 per hour take home driving on Uber. This was the highest guarantee I’ve seen anywhere so I thought I give it a shot.
One trip per hour is much more attainable but I neglected to memorize their coverage map. I had a trip that went about 10 minutes outside the coverage area and unfortunately I got another trip back into the city but that too was outside the coverage area so I was missing about an hour of the guarantee. Live and Learn. It wasn’t a big deal as it only deduct my payment by $20 at most but I’ll make sure to be more careful next time.
Here are my detailed trip logs provided by Uber with some analysis thrown in. Note that I had two no-shows and they were $10 each in Boston. I have no clue why these people never responded or texted. I did the right thing and cancelled as soon as it hit 5 minutes so Uber couldn’t accuse me of rigging the system during the guarantee. I think that the time during this cancelled trip didn’t count in the guarantee though.
| Time | Distance | Non-Surge Fare | Total Fare | |
| February 28, 2015 8:22PM EST | 23.33 | 2.42 | $9.80 | $14.73 |
| February 28, 2015 8:03PM EST | 11.13 | 4.52 | $9.76 | $11.51 |
| February 28, 2015 7:44PM EST | 9.80 | 2.8 | $7.42 | $8.42 |
| February 28, 2015 7:15PM EST | 15.72 | 3.72 | $9.76 | $15.64 |
| February 28, 2015 6:55PM EST | 13.52 | 5.25 | $11.14 | $22.17 |
| February 28, 2015 6:46PM EST | 4.93 | 0.62 | $3.78 | $12.2 |
| February 28, 2015 6:31PM EST | 7.62 | 1.57 | $5.48 | $10.86 |
| February 28, 2015 6:03PM EST | 6.98 | 0.94 | $4.59 | $7.89 |
| February 28, 2015 5:51PM EST | 6.93 | 1.63 | $5.41 | $11.3 |
| February 28, 2015 5:29PM EST | 14.50 | 2.27 | $7.77 | $8.76 |
| February 28, 2015 5:02PM EST | 15.02 | 3.39 | $9.22 | $20.34 |
| February 28, 2015 2:37AM EST | #VALUE! | – | #VALUE! | $10 |
| February 28, 2015 2:25AM EST | 5.37 | 0.96 | $4.28 | $6.56 |
| February 28, 2015 2:01AM EST | 13.30 | 3.11 | $8.53 | $11.24 |
| February 28, 2015 1:41AM EST | 13.18 | 4.55 | $10.23 | $11.23 |
| February 28, 2015 1:21AM EST | 16.65 | 3.02 | $9.12 | $19.24 |
| February 28, 2015 1:06AM EST | 8.30 | 1.68 | $5.76 | $11.37 |
| February 28, 2015 12:35AM EST | 16.33 | 4.72 | $11.09 | $12.09 |
| February 28, 2015 12:16AM EST | 4.85 | 0.76 | $3.93 | $5 |
| February 27, 2015 11:48PM EST | 18.63 | 6.4 | $13.59 | $21.37 |
| February 27, 2015 11:39PM EST | 6.08 | 1.14 | $4.65 | $10.77 |
| February 27, 2015 11:12PM EST | 21.33 | 4.35 | $11.70 | $16.21 |
| February 27, 2015 11:04PM EST | 7.35 | 1.53 | $5.38 | $9.61 |
| February 27, 2015 10:52PM EST | 6.87 | 1.65 | $5.42 | $12.38 |
| February 27, 2015 10:36PM EST | 8.92 | 3.06 | $7.54 | $13.83 |
| February 27, 2015 10:11PM EST | 17.53 | 2.1 | $8.20 | $15.76 |
| February 27, 2015 9:56PM EST | 9.60 | 2.35 | $6.84 | $16.03 |
| February 27, 2015 9:39PM EST | 12.77 | 2.96 | $8.23 | $13.35 |
| February 27, 2015 9:11PM EST | 22.45 | 4.91 | $12.61 | $17.38 |
| February 27, 2015 8:58PM EST | #VALUE! | – | #VALUE! | $10 |
| February 27, 2015 8:40PM EST | 10.38 | 2.69 | $7.41 | $10.63 |
| February 27, 2015 8:26PM EST | 5.97 | 1.29 | $4.80 | $7.72 |
| February 27, 2015 8:14PM EST | 8.02 | 1.65 | $5.66 | $10.06 |
| February 27, 2015 7:43PM EST | 21.53 | 3.26 | $10.43 | $11.43 |
| February 27, 2015 7:20PM EST | 13.38 | 5.15 | $10.99 | $16.48 |
| February 27, 2015 6:50PM EST | 17.93 | 5.16 | $11.96 | $23.74 |
| February 27, 2015 6:29PM EST | 15.32 | 1.68 | $7.23 | $14.74 |
| February 27, 2015 6:13PM EST | 9.93 | 1.62 | $6.03 | $13.08 |
| February 27, 2015 6:01PM EST | 5.32 | 0.85 | $4.14 | $9.69 |
Here are some analysis I did with the data:
Friday:
- Hour Worked:6pm-3am, 9 hours, 301 trip minutes (55% total utilization)
- Trip miles: 72.6 miles vs 122 total miles
- Earnings per hour: $267 over 9 hours = $29.68 per hour take home (after commission and T&S Fee)
- Without Surge: $180 over 9 hours = $20 per hour take home
Saturday:
- Hours worked: 5pm-9pm, 4 hours, 129 trip minutes (53% total utilization)
- Trip miles: 29.13 miles vs 52 total miles
- Earnings per hour: $106 over 4 hours = $26.60 per hour take home (after commission and T&S Fee)
- Without Surge: $58.40 over 4 hours = $14.60 per hour take home
Totals:
I managed to get $45 per hour take home (out of the possible $48/hour) so I did very well in terms of keeping up with the guarantee. There was one hour I didn’t get the guarantee, but it didn’t affect my total take home pay that much.
- Total Pay: $374.53 + $139.85 (Friday Guarantee) + $73.74 (Saturday Guarantee) = $588.12
- 13 hours worked, so $45 per hour take home (compared to the full $48/hr take home)
- Miles Driven: 174 Miles
Other Analytics:
- Average Distance and Time: 2.75 miles at 12.08 minutes per trip. I had a few short trips that lowered my income for Saturday and affected these stats as well.
- Average Fare with and without Surge: $12.94 vs $7.95. My average fare lifetime is about $10 per trip.
- Trips per hour – 2.85. This was a bit higher than the 2.31 Lyft’s I had per hour. I was pretty busy during both times I drove. Many of the Uber trips were a bit shorter and also much closer in proximity, so I had less driving time to each passenger.
- Miles Driven per Dollar earned: $2.15 (higher than my normal average of $2 per mile driven). Not as good as the time with Lyft, mainly due to higher PT on Lyft than the surge on Uber.
- Trip miles vs total miles: 101 vs 174. So for every trip mile I drove, I had to drive about 1.7 miles total for one trip mile. My historic trend was 2 miles for every one trip mile so I didn’t have to drive as many miles to my passenger than in the past.
- Trip time vs total time: 430 minutes vs 780 minutes: so again, for every minute on a trip, I was online and working for about double that time. So figure for every 60 minutes you drive, 33 minutes of that time will be spent driving passengers.
- Average drive and wait time for a passenger: 9 minutes. I had to subtract off some time for the two no-shows I had, which wasted about 10 minutes per cancel. So for every hour, I spent 25 minutes waiting for a request, driving to a passenger or waiting for them to come out. Luckily, many passengers were already outside and waiting for me when I approached, with a few that had me wait for a few minutes (no more than 5 minutes luckily), so waiting for a ping and ETA was the largest contributor to my drive and wait time. At 2.85 trips an hour, the time it takes for me to drive to a passenger and wait for them is 9 minutes.
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