Are you considering becoming one of the thousands of people who are driving their cars for ridesharing services like Uber or Lyft? If so, there are some differences to understand between the two before you make your decision to drive for one, the other, or both.
Where do you live?
Any time that you spend waiting for riders to order services is time unpaid. This doesn’t mean you can’t be productive while you’re waiting to get a rider. You can send emails, call your mom, or write that novel you’ve been mentioning for the last three years. Just know that wait time is time where you aren’t paid.
So, where you live can make a difference here. If you are in a larger city, it is probably that Uber may be a bit more popular that Lyft. If that’s the case where you live, Uber could be the better choice.
However, there are some cities where Lyft wins out in popularity. Ask around to the drivers in your area and see which services are hopping.
App Features
One feature of Uber’s app is the ability to have no wait times. The way this works is you can go ahead and add another request while you have a passenger already. These don’t happen that often as you need to be in a high demand area where two riders happen to be nearby, but when it does happen, it means more money for you per hour.
The other area where Uber ekes out over Lyft is with surge pricing. Surge pricing happens when there is very high demand for services, like after a concert or sporting event, or at 5:00 on a Friday. For Uber, the surge rates can be seven or eight times the normal prices. Lyft puts a maximum of 300% on their surge price which is still good, but not nearly as high as Uber’s. If you are driving for Uber during a good surge, you can make quite a bit of money.
Uber car requirements vs. Lyft car requirements
There are a few subtle differences between Uber and Lyft car requirements, onboarding, and inspections. They can be found in detail at http://lyftubernewsletter.com/lyft-car-requirements-vs-uber-car-requirements/. They are very similar but some of the small details could keep you from driving for one or the other. Be sure to check out the fine details of the details between the Uber and Lyft car requirements not only overall but for your specific city as well.
Tipping
One of the main benefits of driving for Lyft is tipping. Lyft has tipping built directly into the app and will ask the drivers at the end of their routes if they want to leave a tip. If you have provided great service with things like mints, water bottles, and hand sanitizer, your driver will probably leave you a decent tip.
Uber doesn’t accept tips through their apps, and a lot of Uber riders have gotten used to not feeling the need to tip for Uber. Some still do, but in those cases, they have to get cash out of their pockets or purses which is one more step. A lot of drivers don’t want to drive around with cash and will actually turn down a cash tip.
Once you learn all of the ins and out of each service, you will be able to make an informed decision as to the best service for your driving debut.
I like to drive for the one that is having the best promotions for drivers at the time. I switch back and forth