How To Make $500 A Week With DoorDash – The Ultimate Guide

As the leading food delivery app in North America, DoorDash is an incredibly popular side hustle. It’s also flexible, so you can Dash to make extra cash whenever you want.

However, new and experienced DoorDash drivers alike often wonder if you can make a living Dashing or make a certain amount per week.

So in this post, we’re covering how to make $500 a week with DoorDash, if this income goal is possible, and some tips to help you get there.

If you want to maximize your earnings with this side hustle, this is absolutely the post for you!

Looking for more money-making ideas? Checkout:

• Branded Surveys: Share your opinion and earn PayPal cash and gift cards!
• Uber Eats: Start making money by delivering with Uber Eats!

How To Make $500 A Week With DoorDash

According to DoorDash, drivers earn $23 per hour on average across the United States. This means to make $500 a week with DoorDash, the average driver needs to deliver almost 22 hours per week.

If you Dash a bit seven days a week, this works out to just over three hours of DoorDash per day. If you only make money with DoorDash after work and in the morning before work five days a week, you have to Dash for about 4 and a half hours a day.

This YouTube video from Dasher Moore Finance also shares how he makes $500 a week with DoorDash by hustling very hard on the weekends.

Of course, certain factors can greatly influence how much you earn. For example, getting lucky with tips or high-paying orders can help you make $500 a week with DoorDash much faster. In contrast, if DoorDash is slow for that week, you have to put in more hours.

Tips For How To Make $500 A Week Doing DoorDash

Based on the average pay and math, it’s certainly possible to earn $500 a week with DoorDash. However, following some DoorDash tips and tricks can ultimately help you make more money Dashing, accelerating your path to your $500.

1. Prioritize Weekends

One must-know strategy to make $500 a week with DoorDash is to drive at the best times. Typically, this means working most of Friday and the weekends since this is when customer demand is highest.

During the week, working from 11:00am to 1:00pm for the lunch rush and from around 5:00pm to 9:00pm for dinner also makes sense.

Tuesday and Wednesdays are slower days for DoorDash in most markets, so you really want to prioritize the start and end of the week plus weekends to make as much money as possible.

2. Look For Stacked Deliveries

Stacked DoorDash orders involve picking up two meals from the same restaurant and then making two different deliveries. You can also have large Walmart orders that involve dropping off products at a few locations.

These sorts of orders take more work and can be a bit more stressful. However, they often pay much more than regular orders, and you have the chance for more tips.

So, to make $500 dollars a week with DoorDash, don’t shy away from stacked orders! Test them out at least to see if the extra driving is worth it for the higher pay.

3. Wait Near Hotspots

While it sounds simple, another excellent DoorDash driver hack is to wait near hotspots. This means waiting near clusters of popular restaurants that your Dasher app highlights on your in-app map.

If you can schedule your Dash in a zone with several hotspots, it’s even better. But the general idea is to try and stay near hotspots and popular restaurants when out Dashing so you don’t have to drive as far to pick up food.

4. Look For Guaranteed Earning Incentives

One of the simplest ways to make $500 a week with DoorDash is to take advantage of any guaranteed earning incentives that are going on.

For example, DoorDash sometimes runs a guaranteed earnings offer that pays you a certain amount of money for completing a certain amount of deliveries. In the past, it even ran a bonus that said you would ““earn at least $500 in total earnings for 50 deliveries in the next week.”

DoorDash notifies you via email about these guaranteed earning opportunities, so keep an eye on your inbox!

Also note that this payout isn’t in addition to your base pay. Rather, it’s a guaranteed amount, so you can make $500 no matter what as long as you make 50 deliveries in this example. If you happen to make even more, you keep that amount of money.

5. Be Selective With Orders

One common mistake new Dashers make is that they accept every order. However, your DoorDash acceptance rate really doesn’t matter unless you’re going for the Top Dasher program.

As a rule of thumb, try accepting orders that pay at least $1 to $1.50 per mile or so. This makes deliveries more worthwhile and helps cover the cost of gas since DoorDash doesn’t cover gas.

You can gamble on lower-paying orders with the hopes of higher tips, but generally, be very selective with the orders you take if you want to earn $500 per week doing DoorDash.

6. Consider Multi-Apping

It might sound counter-intuitive, but sometimes, the best way to make $500 a week with DoorDash and the gig economy is to also use other gig apps.

DoorDash is the leading food delivery service, so it’s the main app many side hustlers use. However, it can be slow as well, which is why having a few backups is a good idea.

Some other popular delivery and side job apps you can use include:

• Steady: This free app helps you find local side hustles and even part-time jobs!
• Instacart: The leading grocery delivery service where you get paid to shop for people’s groceries.
• Uber Eats: Another leading food delivery job like DoorDash where you can deliver via bike, car, or scooter.
• Shipt: A popular grocery delivery gig like Instacart.
• Amazon Flex: This driving gig pays $18 to $25 per hour and you deliver packages for Amazon.
• ParaWorks: An excellent way to make money delivering packages to people and businesses in your area.

People often run Uber Eats and DoorDash at the same time since both gigs are flexible. But you can try other driving apps that pay like Amazon Flex and Instacart and schedule yourself during slower DoorDash times.

Extra Reading – Is DoorDash Worth It For Drivers?

7. Offer Great Customer Service

Tips can make or break your efforts to make money with DoorDash. So, to make $500 per week, you’re going to want to work on your customer service skills to try and land bigger tips.

Some examples of ways to improve customer service include:

• Messaging the customer if you’re late or with updates
• Grabbing extras from the restaurant like napkins and sauces
• Being friendly
• Being on-time

Some Dashers even try to add humor to the mix by sending DoorDash memes to their customers. The point is, don’t be afraid to get creative to try and get more tips!

8. Test Different Markets

Your market places a massive role in how much money you make with any gig app. So, one way to make $500 a week with DoorDash is to try Dashing in other locations that might be busier.

Some of the best places to DoorDash include major cities and downtown cores. So, if you live in a tiny town, consider testing out your next Dash in a slightly busier area.

Also note that you can DoorDash in different states, which might be handy if you live very close to state lines.

9. Track Your Income & Expenses

DoorDash drivers are independent contractors. This means you have to track your income and expenses so you’re properly prepaid for tax time.

This also helps you make more money with DoorDash since you can potentially claim deductions like:

• Gas
• Vehicle repairs
• Tolls and tickets
• Your smartphone data plan

This YouTube video from DoorDash Diaries shares some useful tips for how to claim potential deductions so you keep more money in your pocket overall.

Extra Reading – The Best Apps That Pay Real Money Instantly.

10. Try The Para App

One final tip for making $500 a week with DoorDash is to use the Para app. It’s a useful app that actually estimates tips for DoorDash, letting you know if an order is actually worth taking or not.

What’s cool about Para is that it’s very accurate with its tip predictions. This can help you accept more orders overall, so you make more money each week.

The app also helps with DoorDash mileage tracking and also works with other driving gigs like Grubhub and Uber Eats.

If you already have a high acceptance rate, it won’t make a massive difference for your earnings. But if you have a lower acceptance rate, Para could boost the number of orders you accept and make a meaningful difference to your overall earnings.

Is Making $500 A Week With DoorDash Realistic?

In our opinion, earning $500 per week with DoorDash is realistic if you work about 22 hours or more. This is based on the average hourly pay for Dashers. Of course, working in busy markets and landing tips or guaranteed pay can help you reach this goal more easily.

But if you look online for DoorDash pay reports, you find examples of Dashers making great money each week:

In the example above, one Dasher shares how they made almost $1,700 after Dashing for 56.4 hours in a week. This is a ton of work but also a lot of money for a week of work!

So in short, it’s totally possible to make $500 a week with DoorDash. But the hours you work, your strategies, and your market all play a massive role.

Our post on how much you can make a day with DoorDash also highlights some realistic daily earning figures you can reference to see how feasible the $500 goal is.

Extra Reading – The Best Ways To Make $500 By Tomorrow.

Final Thoughts

I hope this guide on how to make 500 dollars a week doing DoorDash gives you some ideas for how to maximize your delivery income.

You won’t make $500 a day or something crazy with jobs like DoorDash. But in terms of increasing your weekly income, it’s one of the best side hustles out there.

And if you combine DoorDash with other gigs like Instacart, Uber Eats, or Steady, you can keep yourself busy so you make as much money as possible.

Thanks so much for reading, and best of luck!

Looking for even more money-making hustles? Checkout:

• The Best Ways To Make $2,000 A Week.
• How To Make $300 Dollars A Day.

DoorDash Disclaimer: Actual earnings may differ and depend on factors like number of deliveries completed, time of day, location, and expenses. Hourly pay is calculated using average Dasher payouts while on a delivery (from the time you accept an order until the time you drop it off) over a 90 day period and includes compensation from peak pay, tips, and other incentives.