Every reputable sources including the DoorDash documentation will tell you that the best time to DoorDash is around lunchtime. They also recommend early mornings and during the dinner hours1. As a Dasher with over 15,000 deliveries. 600 of which were catering orders, I can assure you that the experts are wrong. The best time to DoorDash depends entirely on your area and the schedules of the other Dashers.
To determine the best time to DoorDash you have to know your area and be willing to try all hours of the day and night. There is no golden map showing the best areas to DoorDash. There is no golden clock with the best hours highlighted in red. Try mornings. Try lunchtime. Try dinner. Try weekends. Then try all of the hours in between.
I started DoorDash in 2019 in a tri-city area. It took less than a week to realize that one city absolutely sucked for DoorDash. There were just too many drivers sitting in restaurant parking lots waiting to grab anything and everything that popped up. I met a woman who only picked up from Chili’s. She told her husband was across the street. He only picked up from Five Guys. Another city was known for grid-locked traffic. In one area there were 13 traffic lights in one mile. Not worth it.
I knew from common sense that the only way to determine the best time for DoorDash was to work all day. For a week straight I scheduled one single shift from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. Some days I’d Dash from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Some weekends I’d Dash from 6 a.m,. to midnight. Did I figure out the best hours to Dash? Darned right I did. I made more during the “off” hours than during the allegedly busy times.
Here’s a tip I learned by simple observation. When there are a ton of Dashers logged into the app, nearly every area will show it’s not busy. You can’t Dash Now even if there are 100s of orders waiting to be picked up. There are just too many damned drivers logged on! One day I was kicked off when my shift ended at 2 p.m. but I still had the app open. Suddenly the entire area turned blood red. I immediately logged in and as soon as I did the zone turned grey. More than once I watched the area turn from red to grey as soon as I logged in. Took me about 2 weeks to realize what was going on. Stay-at-home mothers! They were Dashing during lunch then all logging off at the same time to pick up their kids from school, which got out at 2:15 p.m. Bingo! Wash, rinse, and repeat. Every day for months I waited until 2 p.m. when the area turned from grey to blood red and logged in without once ever having to schedule the mid-afternoon shift.
Another reason I say to know your area is that there can be hot spots within the zone even when the zone itself is dead. I grew up in a college town and hated college brats with a passion. Frat boys and sorority girls. It gave me chills just to think of them. That is, until I wanted to work nights. The safest area I knew was the college campus. They have campus police and cameras everywhere. One night I headed to campus around 7 p.m. and make more in 5 hours than I usually did in two days. The deliveries were pouring in back-to-back! Unfortunately this was before pandemic when DoorDash actually paid decent. $28 to drive 20 minutes round trip to and from Mickie D’s. $35 to drive 20 minutes round trip to and from Wendy’s. Back to McD’s, back to Wendy’s, back and forth, back and forth. The whole time I was running these non-stop deliveries, DoorDash showed the zone was dead.
I always found the best times to DoorDash are when the restaurants are dead. You can usually pick up the orders within minutes. Yes, this means Dashing during the late morning and mid afternoon when the zone is usually grey. The zone itself might be dead but you should be able to find an area within the zone that’s busy during the slow times. I can’t emphasize enough that you need to know your area. I’m a seasoned gig worker. I know my area from trial and error. Being a gig worker means you are self-employed. As the business owner, it’s entirely up to you to figure out the best areas and best times to DoorDash. Once you have it all figured out, don’t tell anyone!!!
I mentioned not telling anyone for a reason. After I discovered the hidden gold mine at the university, I was in a restaurant picking up an order and two other Dashers came in. One asked the other if he was having a good day and the kid outright told him that he’d been making bank at the college. Unbelievable. The POS told another Dasher about the university. Within weeks there were Dashers zipping all over campus and the money went to crap. Karma did have the last laugh. I saw the same kid parked on a university sidewalk, which I knew was against the law. I should’ve stopped and warned him not to park on the sidewalk. Nope. I pulled into a parking spot and waited for the campus police. I knew the area. The campus police patrolled that area every 10 minutes like clockwork. I highly doubt the kid was able to talk his way out of the $220 parking ticket. He might’ve been able to fight the ticket if he has his emergency flashers on but I wasn’t interfering with Karma.
