# POLL: What percentage of your UberX customers tip?



## LastGenerationHumanDriver (Oct 18, 2014)

Just curious what other people's experience is like.


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## Superunknown (Nov 15, 2014)

Overall, it's around 15-20% for me, though it's very erratic. I'll have some days where more than half of my pax tip, and then there are other completely tipless days. The most tips I've received in one day so far is $38.


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## duggles (Aug 25, 2014)

Doing this part time, with over 600 rides in about 6 months, I have kept track of how many of these riders have tipped. It is less than 1%. It is a fraction of a percent. That's sad. 

Because of the early days and driver's fear about being honest with pax, they all think it's a really great gig and we make a decent wage.


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## LastGenerationHumanDriver (Oct 18, 2014)

I am guessing that there might be substantial regional variation in tipping practices, as I thought I was doing way better than average with a 9% tip rate in SF bay area, but we have a couple of poll responses in the 15-20% area.


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## winston (Jun 23, 2014)

Superunknown said:


> Overall, it's around 15-20% for me, though it's very erratic. I'll have some days where more than half of my pax tip, and then there are other completely tipless days. The most tips I've received in one day so far is $38.


I've gotten around $38 total in 6months.


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## AMBUDRIVER03 (Jul 1, 2014)

About one of out of ten , to one in fifteen. 

6-10% overall. 

Received about $900 in tips from 18000 gross, so about 5% tip:gross


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## AMBUDRIVER03 (Jul 1, 2014)

with the large majority being zero tip, and the minority throwing anywhere from 50 to 100% gratuity, best tip is ever got was $120 on a $50 ride, and best week was over $300 in tips (which was followed by 3 weeks of ZERO tips).


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## Fauxknight (Aug 12, 2014)

It's all over the place, too unreliable to really say. I get tips every week, but sometimes it's just a few dollars a week and other weeks a hundred and something.


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## mp775 (Jun 26, 2014)

Overall, 8%; last 30 days, 1%.


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## duggles (Aug 25, 2014)

Did my Lyft numbers last night. Tips have totaled 15% of fares over lifetime, from 45% of the rides that have tipped.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

duggles said:


> Did my Lyft numbers last night. Tips have totaled 15% of fares over lifetime, from 45% of the rides that have tipped.


The tip differential with Uber and Lyft is astronomical.


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## LastGenerationHumanDriver (Oct 18, 2014)

I have to report that tips have been lower since the music integration rollout. The backseat DJ thing (using my music library and an iPad) was my competitive advantage, and I don't have a statistically significant number of fares to compare yet, but so far I am 0 for 51 rides on tips post-rollout, instead of around 9% average before...


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## MIBNYC (Nov 18, 2014)

I tip when there are no surges.


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## AnewBUberXDriver (Nov 22, 2014)

I started UberX driving on Halloween. All really good pax, great friendly conversations, helped a stranded driver once, always get compliments - but BIG FAT ZERO tips.


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## Damnsammit (Nov 7, 2014)

I'd say about 5% but that might be a little too high.

Lyft is around 60-75%

Note: My first night driving with Uber, I had two people tip me $20. Maybe I should go back to telling everyone it's my first night?


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## johnywinslow (Oct 30, 2014)

100 rides completed as of sunday! I have had 3 5$ tips! all drunk at the time! LOL


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## Brandon1 (Sep 28, 2014)

I usually get about 1 in 7-8 people to tip (usually about 5$). One night i got 4 of 9 to tip which was pretty nice. I've definitely found the region you drive in matters.. some sections of LA i never get tipped but in ventura people are way more likely to do it.

I also always inform, when people ask, that tip is NOT included in the fairs. This seems to help


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## ElectroFuzz (Jun 10, 2014)

I would say at least 20% but I do long airport rides most of the time.


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## CarGuy (Oct 4, 2014)

Only 3 tipped on my last 100 trips


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## Legion Ump 22 (Dec 15, 2015)

265 trips, 2 tips $2 each!


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## sidewazzz (Jun 30, 2015)

I was sitting around 36% during summer but that has dropped to about 20% today. lyft... about 60% tip


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## bdriven (Jan 9, 2016)

Around 40 to 50% of passengers tip with Lyft


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## ThatUberGuy (Sep 8, 2015)

Most of the time I get no tip or 1 tip for the entire day. I'd say less than 10% tip maybe closer to 5%. The best night for tips was $55 with 2 rides giving $20 each. I was in shock. Must've been a lucky day. I've been driving for 7 months with over 800 rides on uber and lyft combined. I mostly drive OC/LA areas.


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## Greguzzi (Jan 9, 2016)

25 percent Lyft and, at best, 2 percent uber. Probably 1 percent Uber is more accurate.


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## IckyDoody (Sep 18, 2015)

I would say about 3 percent. Mostly it has nothing to do with me, my car or my service. With that said. I'm sure I earn my why out of the occasional tip. 

Interestingly, I work mostly the same market as sidewazzzzzzzz.


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

bdriven said:


> Around 40 to 50% of passengers tip with Lyft


From posts on tips here on UP it seems that Lyft pax tip about 50% of the time, Uber pax about 5%-10% of the time.

I thereby conclude with these personal opinions:

1. Lyft passengers have class.
2. Lyft passengers act like normal people.
3. Uber passengers, not so much.


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## Tequila Jake (Jan 28, 2016)

I'm glad to see this thread. As a new driver (less than 2 weeks), I thought my experience was really low with 4 tippers in 35 rides. There was one more who asked if he could add it to the fare as he didn't have any cash. He said that he would write Uber to suggest the option.

Most of the tippers are middle-aged & up and picked up from casinos.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

ClevelandUberRider said:


> From posts on tips here on UP it seems that Lyft pax tip about 50% of the time, Uber pax about 5%-10% of the time.
> 
> I thereby conclude with these personal opinions:
> 
> ...


Uber pax are notoriously missing in action for tips. And why not? Uber encourages driver abuse any way they can scam it.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

Another problem is that the more Uber pax manipulate/turn to Lyft when Uber surges, the less those pax tip as well. Just makes more bad of a bad situation overall for drivers. Uber infection.


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## bobby747 (Dec 29, 2015)

i got 5000 rides phila pa . uber x less then 1% almost everyone does not tip.
FAMOUS WORDS when a guy or girl with a friend ready to give you a tip. THEY SAY no dont its all included with uber ,,, 5 pass 1 mile $3.20 my cut. bus system if no uber $10


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

Tequila Jake said:


> I'm glad to see this thread. As a new driver (less than 2 weeks), I thought my experience was really low with 4 tippers in 35 rides. There was one more who asked if he could add it to the fare as he didn't have any cash. He said that he would write Uber to suggest the option.
> 
> Most of the tippers are middle-aged & up and picked up from casinos.


After a gambler has lost his or her shirt, does he/she low-rate you?

P/S: The casinos and the race tracks are very effective economic machines of wealth transfer, transferring money from those who need it to those who don't.


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

scrurbscrud said:


> Uber pax are notoriously missing in action for tips. And why not? Uber encourages driver abuse any way they can scam it.


Yes. UberX rides are claerly and firmly establishing its dinstictive market positioning...of the two cheapest ride options (Lyft and UberX), it is the cheaper of the two.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

ClevelandUberRider said:


> Yes. UberX rides are claerly and firmly establishing its dinstictive market positioning...of the two cheapest ride options (Lyft and UberX), it is the cheaper of the two.


and guaranteed to be even lower/cheaper in the near future


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

scrurbscrud said:


> and guaranteed to be even lower/cheaper in the near future


Yes, that's how the free market works. When there is a demand, the market delivers.

The mass market wants violence or sex in movies? The production companies will race to the bottom to see who can provide more violence and more sex in their products. The MPAA has to keep up with this consumer demand and market response (product offering) by continually lowering their standards of what constitute PG, R, etc.

To serve the mass market, the suppliers of the products have to identify what is the most basic, bottom-est common denominator, minimum threshold the consumers are willing to accept, and race to the bottom cutting out everything else to just meet that very minimum need, pushing prices lower and lower.

There is no doubt the cheapest ride option (by then it is probably called UberOne, UberMan, UberBasic, UberMean, or UberCheap, because there will be fierce competition to be more distinctive and descriptive of actual product offering too, to save unnecessary fat called rider advertising) will be cheaper than today, with more "unnecessary" stuff / features stripped out (nice car exterior and interior, and English-speaking skills not necessary, for example).

"Just want to get from point A to point B with the cheapest possible fare. Everything else I don't care!" Seems to be the mentality of the lowest, bottom-fishing UberX/Lyft passengers.

They are not that different from the mass market consumers in almost every other goods and services market.


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## Tequila Jake (Jan 28, 2016)

ClevelandUberRider said:


> After a gambler has lost his or her shirt, does he/she low-rate you?
> 
> P/S: The casinos and the race tracks are very effective economic machines of wealth transfer, transferring money from those who need it to those who don't need it.


Actually no, he doesn't low-rate you. I had one passenger down because he lost $4300 at blackjack. He gave me a $5 tip on a $20 fare and a 5-star. I'll take casino pick-ups all day. (Doesn't apply as much if the pickup is at the hotel attached to the casino).


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## Lone-Wolf (Jan 13, 2016)

"Because of the early days and driver's fear about being honest with pax, they all think it's a really great gig and we make a decent wage."

THIS. Two months driving, 445 trips, 8 tips = 1.8%. About 40% tips on Lyft. UberX pax are the worst especially drunk ones. They are much more rude than Lyft pax (although I've had a couple bad Lyft pax too). For that reason I'm trying not to drive Thurs, Fri and Sat nights after midnight.

I have charging cords for both Android/iPhone, aux cord and gum. I'm not providing free water or candy and drivers who do should stop. UberX pax (again esp drunks) will 4 star you for no reason at all or b/c they expect free water and god knows what else. Having a clean, safe ride and a friendly driver doesn't = 5 star in their book.


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## Tequila Jake (Jan 28, 2016)

Lone-Wolf said:


> "Because of the early days and driver's fear about being honest with pax, they all think it's a really great gig and we make a decent wage."
> 
> THIS. Two months driving, 445 trips, 8 tips = 1.8%. About 40% tips on Lyft. UberX pax are the worst especially drunk ones. They are much more rude than Lyft pax (although I've had a couple bad Lyft pax too). For that reason I'm trying not to drive Thurs, Fri and Sat nights after midnight.
> 
> I have charging cords for both Android/iPhone, aux cord and gum. I'm not providing free water or candy and drivers who do should stop. UberX pax (again esp drunks) will 4 star you for no reason at all or b/c they expect free water and god knows what else. Having a clean, safe ride and a friendly driver doesn't = 5 star in their book.


One of the problems with the rating system is passengers don't have any clue what it means. I've never seen a rating system in the world where 5/5 is considered normal and 4/5 is considered bad.


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## UberPasco (Oct 18, 2015)

Did my numbers this weekend and I was shocked as I never kept a running count.
*18% of Uber riders and 66% Lyft tip.* Pretty much what I had heard about before I started and my general feeling day to day.
Then I totaled my tips. Uber amounted to an average *$5.95 per tip (or approx $1.07 per ride), Lyft $1.87 ($1.23 per ride)!*
If this trend continues, I will not be stressing as much about the ungrateful pr*cks this year. The $0.18 per ride difference is more than made up for with my approx 4 to 1 Uber/Lyft ride ratio. I will still put more focus on Lyft to try and increase marketshare, but I won't feel so bad when I get caught in the Uber vortex.
If anyone has the records to do a similar calculation, please post!


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## REpsilonHughes (Feb 1, 2016)

I (a rider, not a driver) only recently started tipping as a result of hanging out here and learning more about the driver-side economics of Uber. I'm still not doing big tips, because tipping culture is bullshit, but I'm consistently tipping enough to negate the Safe Rides fee.


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## wk1102 (Dec 25, 2015)

winston said:


> I've gotten around $38 total in 6months.


I got 87 last Fri. 47 was actual tips and 40 was from a guy that needed a jump.


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## Aja (May 20, 2015)

9 out of 10. (cab driver)


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## dirtnaprightnow (Sep 24, 2015)

As a rule, the only PAX that tip regularly are people who work or have worked in a service industry. Bartenders & waitresses are the best. College pukes are the worst. LYFT riders about 30% tip. Have had one $60 tip from a guy trying to impress a couple girls.


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## negeorgia (Feb 1, 2015)

dirtnaprightnow said:


> As a rule, the only PAX that tip regularly are people who work or have worked in a service industry. Bartenders & waitresses are the best. College pukes are the worst. LYFT riders about 30% tip. Have had one $60 tip from a guy trying to impress a couple girls.


Not the case for me. I get the college age wait-staff = no tips. As a rule, over 40 tip, under 30 do not. 30-40, maybe.


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