Deciding which orders to reject and which to accept is a big part of being a delivery driver.

We looked at the fees on Deliveroo orders to see if we could find any patterns that would be useful in choosing the best and the worst paying orders. And the results are interesting…

Orders paying £2.90 to £3.25 paid on average £16.48 per hour.

However, orders paying £3.25-£3.75 paid significantly less on average, just £15.55 per hour.

After that, the higher the fee, the higher the average hourly rate.

(note that this is the average hourly rate for time on order, it is not representative for drivers’ overall earnings)

Data based on millions of orders by Deliveroo riders since 2022

It is a similar picture when we look at the percentage of orders that pay below £12/hour:

18% of orders in he £3.25-£3.75 bracket pay below this floor, the highest of any group of orders.

Data based on millions of orders by Deliveroo riders since 2022

What’s our conclusion?

On average the worst type of orders are the one just above the minimum pay level (£2.90 for bicycles and £3.15 for mopeds/cars on Deliveroo). This doesn’t mean all orders in this category will be bad (it is, after all, an average) but it is worth being extra suspicious when you are offered an order in the £3.25-£3.75 range.