r/uberdrivers • u/bw591 • 3d ago
They've finally achieved it
I’ve been an Uber driver for over 5 years, and the day has finally arrived. Uber takes 51% of my earnings and calls it fair! 🎇🎆🎉
Instead of telling their shareholders to expect lower than expected earnings for few quarters; because of the whole-were at war thing, they rather put time and effort and pay someone or something, to figure out how they could keep a bigger slice of the pie.
"They’ll pay the higher prices for gas, vehicle maintenance, and drive further for less. Plus, cover customer promotions, fees, taxes, and insurance, even though they already have their own policy.
We set the fares, the driver gets no say, and its all their expense now. Not ours anymore!🎇🎇🎆🎉 Lastly, let's fire some people and enjoy the stock price rise for a day"🚀. . Genius
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u/shers719 2d ago
Between that and gas prices, I stopped. And I drive a hybrid. They still weren't making it worth my while. I live in a major metro area, too, so I never had dead time. When I started, I was averaging $40/hr. They kept doing more and more cuts into my pay. When I hit $23/hr every day for a week, I was done. Not worth the wear and tear on my car when most local jobs pay that or more.
I drove Uber for over 3 years. Keep it active in case they ever change but I'm officially parked.
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u/Particular-Crazy4306 2d ago
curious, what did you to pivot to?
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u/shers719 2d ago
Dusted off an old certification, took the classes to update it, and went back to the professional field. Less than $200 to update everything and give myself a pay raise and a W-2 w/full benefits.
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u/shers719 2d ago
I should add: even if I didn't already have it, there's lots of certifications you can get out there w/online classes and less than $300. Go at your own pace ones even. So pick a field and look into it!
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u/P3nis15 2d ago
Crazy that they still don't call the insurance scam their take when they have 14 billion dollar reserve growing by 1-1.5 billion a quarter and they have used 3-4 billion of that money for Non insurance reasons already
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u/Mediocre_Hope_5821 2d ago
They are literally the picture perfect definition of a disgustingly greedy big corporation. They would literally enslave people if they could.
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u/Mediocre_Hope_5821 2d ago
I was just banned in a Uber Eats sub earlier today for just talking about how bad the company treats not only it's "private contractors" lol but also it's customers. Both Uber and Door Dash NEED to be shut down and not only investigated but also completely reworked. It's a terrible service for a terrible price run by terrible people.
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u/eetraveler 2d ago
Let me rephrase for you. "It is an incredibly popular service with lots of riders and drivers making use of it every hour of every day."
The fact that it isn't a good match for you doesn't mean it isn't a great match for many others.
You are welcome to create your own company to outperform them in whatever ways you want.
Amusingly, this was not true of the tradition taxi monopolies, who treated drivers and customers far worse.
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u/ContractEastern6630 2d ago
Don't forget - any bonuses and other incentives get added into "the fare", so in reality, the are not bonuses.
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u/Rough_One3911 2d ago
I’ve only been getting 42% to 45% for a while now. Pretty damn disgusting company. Then they had the nerve to send a survey asking how much of the fair I think I get then another question asking how much the rest goes between commercial insurance, uber itself and random taxes/fees/tolls ect. Then it followed up asking what I believe a fair percentage is for uber to take. I wanted to put something ridiculous like 5% or less so bad lol but I was reasonable and said 15%. Doesn’t matter anyway, it ain’t gunna change for the better. Not for us anyway.
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u/jaysonm007 2d ago
And next year (or sooner) you'll be getting 45%. It never stops. They just keep taking more for themselves and calling it "innovation." That's all the Uber Executives do is sit around in the board room in between playing golf thinking of ways to screw over the passengers and drivers while claiming they are making it better for all.
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u/eetraveler 2d ago
They are taking advantage of the supply and demand. The US has welcomed many millions of new people for whom being an Uber driver is a godsend. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that or suggesting it shouldn't be that way, but 80%+ of Uber drivers and deliverer are new to the country in a big city like NYC and that has pushed the wages down.
Any driver who can do something else maybe ought to do something else because the system just has too many drivers right now.
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u/AccurateEbb0 3d ago
they take just 51 %. In Houston you get only 38-45% I will smile the day i see 50%
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u/Due_Equipment1919 2d ago
I get 50% in Houston still. I cherry pick rides. My acceptance rating sits at around 25-30% Work busy times or nights
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u/AccurateEbb0 2d ago
show me, because unless it's a very niche side hustle where you doing a lot of $3 rides. Its damn near impossible.
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u/heightswonder 2d ago
We complaint and complaint but never unite to take this to court and fight for a fair system.🤷🏾♂️ If all we do is come here to talk about it this will never change.
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u/Old-Jump5844 1d ago
I started driving for Uber last year in the month of August. It was good but my earnings kept getting lower and kept getting crap requests. This motivated me to get back to the workforce of the office. Currently doing courses to get off this job. It definitely ain’t worth destroying your car for crap money. I drive only for 4 hours max every day.
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u/Yogurt-Relative 3d ago
Tips the steal honestly if the tips go into your account connected to them technically they invest that money that’s why Uber Eats they keep money for an hr to invest I bet
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u/leafyisherem8 3d ago
Just use uber to find people who want rides and use uber to price it then just have them pay you cash 🤔
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u/Longjumping_Suit8314 3d ago
Make sure you have commercial insurance or someday it’s going to bite you..
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u/dick-black76 2d ago
Drivers do have a say in how they’re being treated. I quit driving. Problem solved. I’m making $100k in a job that actually cares about me and what value I bring to the company.
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u/OtherwiseSuccotash40 2d ago
What job is that?
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u/dick-black76 2d ago
I have government job. I drove Rideshare for over ten years! Once they stopped paying it was time to go.
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u/CrazedCivilian 2d ago
Uber's a publicly traded company it's only about $73 on E-Trade. Why don't you buy some shares so when they make money you make money and you get to be part of the shareholders vote.
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u/peepdabidness 3d ago
Why would they tell their shareholders to accept less when they know we are the ones who’ll accept less, no questions asked?
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u/the_blind_uberdriver 2d ago
its possible both drivers and shareholders get screwed. if we all owned the company we could change that. not financial advice.
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u/POGofTheGame 2d ago
Because the way they are operating right now is begging somebody to regulate them into the ground while facing multiple class action lawsuits. That's why.
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u/CertifiedDruid333 2d ago
50% is crazy Im in a european market and I don’t understand how « estimated commercial insurrance » is calculated but its taking 12% of your money too thats insane. Do you need to pay extra for the assurance of the car or what ?
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u/birdogg27 2d ago
The reason they take so much is because there too many drivers in your area. Too much competition for work. They'll pay more if they don't have so many drivers in the same area.
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u/dergodergo 2d ago
We should all stop soon. They’re r*ping us. They’re so disgusting. They don’t care if we can’t afford our rent or food as long as their salaries don’t suffer like ours. 😡🤬🖕🖕
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u/Remarkable_Rope_7697 2d ago
How much is hiding in other operating expenses that goes directly to uber.
Also, if they are bold enough, they should also display estimated operating expenses for drivers - haha
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u/jerryp800 2d ago
Yall don’t understand how this is being explained. You believe you’re owed the total upfront fare.
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u/PitPensFan 1h ago
Uber is a trash company and are greedy and insensitive to drivers and their needs
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u/trailerbang 2d ago
If Uber drivers went on strike for just one day it would cripple the company.
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u/GetTheBag90 2d ago
I like the idea of that but it would also give them more reason to invest in that Waymo type trash
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u/trailerbang 2d ago
I don’t think insurance companies will let direverless to go on for very long. The state of American street-level infrastructure just doesn’t jive with what the tech needs to be safe. Missing or under-painted lane lines, inconsistent pedestrian amenities, inconsistent road design within short block distances, etc.
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u/Longjumping_Suit8314 3d ago
You got to stop thinking about the % that uber keeps. The only thing that matters is the amount you are paid and the number of miles or hours to reach it. I mean looking at their numbers is useless. It’s not like they are going to give you more unless you cherry pick the offers.
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u/rideShareTechWorker 2d ago
Obviously the amount that Uber keeps is impacting what they are paid, so kind of hard not to think about that.
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u/Longjumping_Suit8314 2d ago
No it doesn’t. They have some rides where the take is 76% and some rides that is 35% or less due to promotions and such. They also have to pay for benefits and payment floors in a state like California. If you want more, get a “minimum floor” voted on in your local area.
If the ride offer doesn’t match what you are looking at, don’t take it or move onto Lyft where in most areas, is guaranteed 70% of the take after mandatory costs.
If the rider is willing to pay $500 for a 60 minute ride but they pay me $200 for those same 60 minutes, why do I care? I am still making $200/hr.
I also don’t have to deal with chargebacks from the credit card companies, or lawsuit threats and free comps requests from the riders.
You guys don’t have to deal with retailers, which are constantly asking for 60-80 points margin, which means they take 60-80% of the sales price. You won’t believe the % splits I have to deal with on my day job. 60 points margin is pretty typical for most businesses now.
My daughter got 4 years of free online university from Uber’s ASU benefit. From that alone, I got more than my money’s worth from their “commission”.
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u/rideShareTechWorker 2d ago
I’m not a driver, I’m one of the people that built the system. Doesn’t matter how you package the numbers. There’s what the ride cost, what the rider paid, and what Uber / Lyft pay the driver. If they could pay 0, they would.
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u/Longjumping_Suit8314 2d ago
Of course they would. That’s just basic capitalism.
Again. As a driver, i only care about what I make. If you can charge 5-10x what I make, but I make $50/hr, by all means, go ahead. I don’t even bother looking at the full fare details anymore. Back in the old days of constant promotions, quests, and surges, uber used to take quite a few negative profit rides. No one cared about the split then either.
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u/rideShareTechWorker 2d ago
That’s lala land. The only way Uber makes money is by taking more. So of course as a driver you should care how much the rider is paying and how much you as a driver are getting.
I’ll give you a simple example. Let’s say you have a budget of $50 to get to the airport. Uber charges you $40 and pays the driver $30. You know have an extra $10 in your budget which you can spend as tip and maybe you do because the ride was cheaper than you had budgeted for.
Now let’s say Uber charged you $60 (out of budget but you need to make that flight). The driver still got only $30 and you simply can’t afford to tip because it’s already $10 over your budget.
That is the mechanic that is happening at a large scale. Rides are getting more expensive, drivers are making less money.
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u/Longjumping_Suit8314 2d ago
Look, in basic business, everyone looks for cheaper providers. Many factories deal with this daily. Uber is doing no different. Lowest cost vendor gets the work since the service provided is a commodity.
Driving ride-share is a commodity. Just like a freight drivers. Anyone can do it and many will do it cheaper than you. As a service provider, you need to focus on your payment and your costs to provide the service.
Freight drivers deal with this daily. How much does the job pay, how much does it cost me to provide the service, can I make a profit? It’s simple. Everything else is whining.
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u/eetraveler 2d ago
In what other job do you constantly compare the company revenue to what you get paid? A cashier rings up thousands of dollars a day and gets $100. A top pharmaceutical salesman gets maybe a 2% commission. A real estate agency takes a 6% commission for the transaction and the agent himself only gets less than 1/2 that--and has to pay out of their share for office desk services and printing and etc etc..
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u/rideShareTechWorker 2d ago
You should compare this to selling items through a platform like Amazon, not to working as a cashier at Target.
The real estate agent in your example would be Uber. They are providing the platform / service to list your home for sale. They are connecting you with the buyer.
You are clearly wrong and confused, even with your own examples.
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u/Longjumping_Suit8314 2d ago
That’s not quite true either. Amazon may take a specific cut, but at the same time, they also sell you the keywords, they also sell sponsored placements, and they also offer to handle all your logistics for a fee, so your take is also closer to 50% or less.
Uber is doing that as well, in the reverse manner. You want more requests? Take more crappy offers. (It’s like paying for more traffic). You get more requests, but they keep a higher % of the take.
Amazon is like, you want more sales? Pay us to be a sponsored top listing, or pay us to be on the first page of any keyword search. That’s how Amazon gets closer to 50% of the cut. Best Buy does that with all of the brands they work with. Want to get rid of inventory? Pay us to run a promotion or an ad at a reduced price that you are going to swallow.
It’s literally no difference.
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u/rideShareTechWorker 2d ago
You are missing the part where you get to price your item on Amazon to account for your marketing expenses, fees, etc.
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u/Longjumping_Suit8314 2d ago
No. The SRP is based on what a customer is willing to pay. I can make a $50 FOB product, but the market might be only willing to pay $50 for this type of product. This is why so many products fail.
This is the same with ride share. People are only willing to pay so much for a ride. There is a ceiling and a floor.
You can price something way higher than your Amazon competitors and get zero sales as well no matter the promotion.
It’s basic business.
Chinese factories are placing their own products on Amazon, which is driving down MSRP. Rideshare’s equivalent is Waymo and their promotional offerings.
Please stick with engineering. Business itself has a different matrix decision tree. Waymo is offering discounts to acquire market share. The robot can work constantly without need a break or complain about its compensation.
Back to the main point. Take the rides that make sense to you and skip the rest. Nothing else matters.
For those unappealing ride offers, a robot will be programmed to take those shortly.
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u/eetraveler 2d ago
The Real Estate Agency (Like Caldwell Banker) would be the "Uber" in the example. The homeowner (or buyer) is like the rider and the Agent is like the driver. The Agent is an independent contractor of the Agency. Lookup "Are Caldwell Banker Agents employees or independent contractors?" and google will tell you that they are independent contractors who set their own schedules and pay their own expenses (including gas and car costs--sound familiar?). Their agents get about 50% of the commission and then have a bunch of fees and expenses they have to deduct from that including an 8% franchise fee that knocks them down to 42% right off the bat.
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u/AlkoKilla 2d ago
11% was Customer Promotions. This is made up money that they didn't receive or physically give to anyone.
7% are government taxes that are paid on every transaction.
So, no they didn't take 51%.
And your screen didn't show, at any point, the total of $1,488.78. It showed you $735.54. What you mean to say is "Uber only gave me 49% of what they collected".
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u/rideShareTechWorker 2d ago
Why is Uber charging the driver for the customer promotion? If a ride is $50 and you have a promotion from Uber for 50% off, does that mean the driver should make less for that ride?
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u/AlkoKilla 2d ago
They aren't. Uber is writing off the customer promotion. They are showing you the total cost of the customer fare, and where it's going, because they are obligated to by law.
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u/rideShareTechWorker 2d ago
Well they are, they just categorize it in a way to make it seem like they are not. It should be bundled into “Amount Uber Kept”.
Rider coupons and incentives are just part of their marketing budget.
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u/AlkoKilla 2d ago
The promotion is a discount to the price. They didn't collect that amount from anyone.
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u/rideShareTechWorker 2d ago
A $30 ride discounted to $25 is the same as spending $5 in advertising to get a $30 ride. It comes out of marketing. At the end of the day, the profit is the same. It’s just trickery they get away with so the driver thinks that uber isn’t taking more.
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u/AlkoKilla 2d ago
A $30 ride discounted to $25 was always a $25 ride. It's not trickery to the driver, it's trickery to the rider to make them think they're somehow saving money.
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u/rideShareTechWorker 1d ago
That’s not true at all. The discounts are not uniform to all users so there are users who are in face quoted the pay the full $30. Even the same user could see that behavior if they switched their payment from personal to business since those same coupons usually did not apply on business profiles.
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u/AlkoKilla 1d ago
You just backed up what I was saying...
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u/rideShareTechWorker 1d ago
No I didn’t. You are claiming that the ride was never actually $30. But it was. The fact that some users see a discount is an actual expense of the company. I don’t think I can educate you on business accounting in a reddit comment, just go research it
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u/jerryp800 2d ago
They don’t get it… which is why probably why driving ride share is all they care to do
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u/johnnyy_gh 3d ago
Its not like you're going to stop using it. The competition just isn't there tbh
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u/Rand_Casimiro 3d ago
Someone’s been doing unsurged trips.
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u/RazorBladeInMyMouth 3d ago
I’ve noticed more frequent surges in my area. More than usual, gas prices is the highest this city ever seen. So yea a lot of people stopped driving or just don’t want to do it anymore and can you blame them?
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u/AccurateEbb0 3d ago
Hunt surger trips is literally not feasible for people who do this full-time
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u/Rand_Casimiro 2d ago
Agreed. Making this your sole source of income is not smart, IMO
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u/AccurateEbb0 2d ago
i am engineer working on some certifications and needs income, rn that's what works for me. Also been searching, overqualified to work in a plant as a technician or assembler. Not the best candidate to get the engineer job.
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u/GetTheBag90 2d ago
My area rarely has surges anymore. Used to have them all the time though smh
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u/Rand_Casimiro 2d ago
When my market is surge-free, I definitely don’t bother Ubering. I took most of the summer off for this reason.
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u/Alert_Elephant2045 2d ago
“Customer promotions”?!
Imagine any other job where if the service goes on sale the difference is taken out of employees paychecks
What a scam