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So one of the things I constantly preach on this channel is to diversify your gig portfolio, and sign onto as many platforms as possible! One of the platforms that I have been on for a while is DeliverThat.
I made one video on it before for my YouTube Channel, but since I started getting used to how the system works, my opinion has drastically changed and I need to remake it.
So in this article, We are talking about:
EVERYTHING You Must Know about DeliverThat
What they tell you vs how it ACTUALLY is
Everything in between!
Disclaimer: The content of this article does not contain and is never intended to be legal, business, financial, tax, or health advice of any kind, This article is for entertainment purposes only. It is advised that you conduct your own research and consult with qualified professionals before applying anything you find online.
I also want to be clear that everything that we are going over is very market dependent and what applies to me and my market may not apply to you!
What is DeliverThat?
DeliverThat is changing the delivery industry. Professional drivers dedicated to customer service and professionalism. Join us to change the perception of delivery by providing exceptional customer service.
They are a catering platform that claims to be by drivers, for drivers.
Sign Up Requirements
While I am going to refer to them for the most part, I am going to make important notes along the way because this can be misleading to those who don’t know.
While we do not require any prior gig experience, it may help to understand how we operate.
I would argue that if you don’t have prior experience you will have a hard time with it and give up too soon.
Prior experience from Doordash, UberEats and Grubhub may be vital for you here. Maybe even Instacart as well.
The minimum requirements to become a driver:
Be comfortable using your smartphone & apps
Must be comfortable using your vehicle to deliver the orders
Be legally eligible to work in the United States or/and Canada
These 3 requirements alone are the main reason to consider having more experience as a gig worker first, people who are already familiar with our work will not think much of this.
Be 21 years of age or older
Have at least two insulated catering bags and a clear five-year MVR*
I would actually say with how big some of these orders can be, you might want to look into 5 UNBRANDS bags.
Engage with our support teams
This might be one of the most ironic points of this list, but that is for another article.
Take pride in your service & Appearance
These are catering orders, you will have to look the part by wearing business casual attire, set up the catering orders, and have some decent customer service skills.
If you are the kind of driver that barely cares about your work and can't even be bothered to not wear pajamas, then you really don’t need to be here.
Use our Driver App for problem-solving and maximizing your earnings
Trust me, there will be times when you have to figure out what the heck happened and even properly plan out a route for yourself.
In addition to the requirements above, candidates must pass the webinar and quiz stage in the registration. Failing to pass the quiz may indicate a lack of knowledge about crucial aspects of the job, such as navigation, customer service, or the platform's policies. Candidates are encouraged to watch the videos for each set of questions on the stage to improve their chances of success. If you receive a rejection text message, that means the questions were not answered correctly to become a driver.
But prior experience is not required right?
The Day-to-Day
So let’s get the main points out of the way first, almost no order you receive is the same day, really very few and far between are same day.
Usually, it is the day prior and you schedule yourself out. Sometimes it is a couple of hours and unless something went down with another order, it can SOMETIMES be the same hour, otherwise it is the next day.
Again this is catering delivery so in a lot of cases you are picking up either, before they open or just about when they are opening.
They are big on making sure orders are done on time, not too early and not too late. So you can’t be 20 minutes early and expect to leave right away. In fact, they penalize you for being too early at times.
Pro-Tip: if you are too early for any reason, just chill out in your car until it is 5-10 minutes out. Just enough time to finish their order, you to bag the stuff up and here is another important step, get a signature from the staff there.
Same general rules apply to the drop-off. But instead of a signature, you just take the pictures of the set-up and you leave.
Income Expectations
Now let me be clear, you are not paid for your time, you are paid for the work you do. Yet another reason experience is necessary for this gig.
Now what I like about this is that they definitely stand by their word.
On average, each delivery pays out between $25-$35. Our pay model is based on order size and the mileage of the delivery. Based on our average, the larger the order or father you drive, the more you are paid over that $25-$35 average.
The weird thing is that they never give you a total, they kind of give you the parts and expect you to put it together, which makes sense with their tip pooling system for ezCater orders.
The parts they give are:
Delivery Commission
Extra Mileage Commission
Surge Commission
Gratuity
Adjustment
Incentive
The parts of the business model you mostly need to worry about is Delivery Commission, Extra Mileage and Gratuity.
They pay out twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays.
ezCater Orders
Now some people only know ezCater for their orders on Doordash and their LOP, and because of that they have this predetermined dislike for any company that uses it. I do have to say one thing though. You may not dislike ezCater in the way you think.
Average Gig Worker: Ugh, ezCater orders are always these huge orders with no tip and they are just a waste of time.
See orders that are run by ezCater and go to Doordash or UberEats are done that way BECAUSE no one could or would do them.
You see, the orders on ezCater are sent to apps that have catering orders coming through all the time, and specialize in this kind of work, and for those orders that aren’t accepted, they will be forwarded to Doordash and UberEats, meaning they just get the crumbs.
The other point to be made on this, specifically with this app is their tip pooling system, but more on that later.
Challenging to Claim Orders
There are those who sign up with DeliverThat, including myself for a period of time, where they have a hard time getting orders because getting orders is a combined system of first come first served, and queue based.
Meaning by the time you get the notification, you can lose your shot at even getting the order in the first place. Which wtf? I feel like a cat trying to catch the little red dot and confused on why I can’t get it.
That said, there are some tricks that will help you get more orders such as pattern recognition, behavioral analysis, a better understanding of the system as a whole and programs within the company to give you an advantage.
That said, I will make more articles on this in the future.
Stack your own orders
The interesting thing about this company is that you never get stacked orders because of the nature of the system at the moment, but you can stack them yourself and they even encourage it (In some cases).
I have done back to back and double orders based on how some of the orders line up and that has made me sometimes over $60+ in a given hour, the other day in 3 hours of work I made over $120!
Equipment Necessary
For this company, you are mainly doing catering orders. Which means you will need more than what most people have as Doordash UberEats or Grubhub drivers.
I would recommend 5+ UNBRANDED Catering Bags, trust me it is when you get the big orders when you will realize why that is the case. I also say unbranded because you don’t want to use Doordash Bags when on this app, or any other brand other than theirs.
Think about a few things, if you don’t like orders on Doordash and you want more orders on other apps, why would you want to promote their company?
Also, how disrespectful would it be to take a DeliverThat order and promote someone else's company? Not to mention if you work with other catering companies as well, they wouldn't like that either. So I stick with Unbranded Catering Bags.
Also, I would recommend a Dolly and/or a Wagon, trust me when I say you will carry 4 heavy bags of food one time and then realize you need to work smarter and not harder.
Not to mention how struggling like that can make you perceived as unprofessional, and like you don’t know what you are doing.
Mostly Weekday Afternoons
The majority of the orders I receive are in the afternoons going into offices, being a Business to Business relationship.
Usually I find that orders mostly start between 10:30am - 11:15am on most days. Although that can be very different depending on the office, person or party.
Sometimes they start at 11:30 so they stack well, sometimes they start at 12, 1. Etc.
Sometimes you will get breakfast orders, btw my favorite orders! Rarely do I get evening orders but it isn’t impossible either.
Also, because these are going to offices a lot of the orders are M-F so keep that in mind for this company as well.
Mostly Offices
I said this in my last point, but that most of the orders I receive are from Offices, more specifically some kind of doctor or vet, sometimes to a Lawyer, if that is the case beware!
Also some doctors offices are kind of small and narrow, like I actually have had challenges maneuvering my body in some of them.
And that can also mean they have almost no surface area, but that isn’t the point of this.
The point is that if you are concerned with a lack of orders coming through, don’t be. Most orders are to businesses that order all the time and aren’t subject to the same ebbs and flows that food and grocery delivery would be in terms of order flow.
Tip Pooling
This is the point everyone knows and hates and that is the prospect of tip pooling. For ezCater orders specifically, you will see orders that say this line under gratuity:
This delivery qualifies for the ezCater Tip Pool. The tip pool typically ranges between $21-27 per delivery. All ezCater gratuities are passed 100% to the drivers who take them and are split evenly amongst only ezCater Deliveries.
Now they claim they haven’t fallen below $21 since summer 2022, and it seems like it is true. I breakdown the disbursement report on DeliverThat and for all the time frames where I only do ezCater orders. Almost every time it is more than $23, which doesn’t seem like much but with commission being the minimum of $7, you are looking at $30+ per order.
This introduces something I like to call the “Deliverthat Standard” to the catering market. Meaning if you are receiving an order from some company at less value than the “DeliverThat Standard” then you are losing money on opportunity cost.
We will definitely go into that another day.
Not Only ezCater
So more recently, I have noticed how some deliveries are not through ezCater at all and are through direct partnerships with DeliverThat, which is great for them and all of those people who are against the tip pooling system, but there is a catch that isn’t being noted here.
No tip customers order catering as well, and some of those customers don’t have a choice. Like I said earlier, some of those drop offs are offices, and because they are offices they have a policy in place about tipping using their food budget.
This is why they used a tip pooling system in the first place, it is not loved by everyone but some offices are just like that.
Either way, double check before finalizing a no-tip order.
Bot Invasion?
Some people believe for a queue system like this that there has to be some bot problem on the app right? Well there could be. But I wouldn’t say every time.
Sometimes it is just that it is harder to get some orders on the app so people end up thinking bots are a problem, or Ghost Orders, or "there is no way they can get the order before you right?".
Either way, if they have this problem, I really wouldn’t be surprised.
Works best with multi-apping
DeliverThat is an app that works best with multiple apps, sure you can get large orders for sure but the frequency is not sustainable to solo, I think it is great for sure but you still need a healthy portfolio of gig apps to work on.
In just the catering side of things:
FoodFetched
Dlivrd
Zifty
Skipcart
Jackrabbit Deliveries
Timetoeat SoFlo
The list goes on for days and that doesn’t even account for the Cartwheel companies, as I call them, or other verticals of work that also pay well for similar payouts.
Just don’t get too dependent on this one.
DeliverThat for Sale?
I heard this one through the grapevine but DeliverThat is a company that is for sale! Which means who knows how long this company will be around or who will buy it or if everything I say here will be accurate by the time you see this video.
Just make sure that the content you watch has current and accurate data.
Is it Worth it?
I mean, I like this app. I think right now as well, it represents the standard of how much drivers should expect to be paid for catering orders, it just seems like it is best for full-time gig workers than part timers.
Part timers would most likely have scheduling conflicts with their 9-5, rather than the full timer which probably does not have those issues as much at all.
That is just my opinion on that though.
If you would like to add some other perspective to how DeliverThat operates as a company, feel free to email me: drivenwyld@gmail.com and who knows? Maybe your email or perspective and be featured in a post as well!
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