How to Get More Orders on Doordash

Driving for Doordash has become an extremely popular side hustle, or even full-time job, for many people in 2022. As with any side hustle or job, everyone wants to know ways to earn even more money with it. In the case of Doordash, this means getting more orders. 

The best ways to get more orders with Doordash are to drive during peak hours, choose the right orders, provide good customer service and stack multiple orders on top of each other. 

The rest of this article will go into detail on the different strategies used to get more orders on Doordash and earn even more money driving for the app. 

Popular Ways to Get More Orders on Doordash

The techniques used to get more Doordash orders are not a closely guarded secret. Most of these methods are common sense to a lot of drivers and many of them can be found by browsing the Doordash subreddit for threads like this. The difficult part is the execution of the ideas rather than knowing the ideas. 

That said, we will still outline some of the methods as a lot of new Doordash drivers remain clueless about the finer points of an efficient Doordash strategy. 

Pick and Choose Orders

One of the best ways to get more orders on Doordash is to pick and choose the right orders. This typically involves filtering for orders that meet the following criteria:

• From a Doordash partner restaurant.
  • This is so the order is already ready when you arrive at the restaurant.
• A close delivery.
• Non-alcohol order 
  • Checking ID takes time and these orders often have problems when the customer does not have an ID.
• From a fast restaurant.
  • Some restaurants take a lot longer to prepare meals than other restaurants. You will know the fast and slow restaurants after Dashing for a while. 

There may be other criteria that you find makes your orders faster, but the above criteria is a good place to start if you are new to Doordash and need a little help. The last thing you want to do on Doordash is accept every order that comes across your phone as this can lead to a lot of inefficiency.

Stack Orders

Did you know it’s possible to stack orders on Doordash? 

This means you can deliver multiple orders on the same route for instance. For instance, you can pick up food from Restaurant A and Restaurant B and complete the deliveries one after the other. It’s also possible to pick up multiple orders from the same restaurant and make the deliveries one after the other. 

Stacking orders is one of the best ways to quickly increase your average deliveries per hour. Just make sure to carefully examine the location of the deliveries before adding the deliveries to your route. Just because two orders are from the same restaurant does not mean the deliveries will take you to the same side of town.

Drive in Areas with Restaurants

Another excellent way to get more orders on Doordash is to drive in areas that have more restaurants. This tip is location dependent, but if the area you drive in has a certain part of town with a lot of restaurants, then you want to base yourself out of that area. 

This will make the initial drive to the restaurant much, much faster. You will also notice more orders pop up on your app as Doordash gives those near the restaurant the first opportunity to accept an order from it. 

Drive at Peak Hours

A relatively obvious way to get more orders on Doordash is to only drive during peak hours. You will have more competition, but the amount of orders that you receive combined with the higher pay at peak hours should make up for the extra competition. 

The other hidden benefit of driving during peak hours is that you can be a lot more picky with the orders that you accept. It’s a lot harder to be picky with orders when you may not get the chance to accept an order for 20 minutes. 

Peak hours for Doordash are 11AM to 2PM for the lunch rush and 5PM to 7:30PM for the dinner rush.  

Good Customer Service

Doordash likes when drivers provide good customer service as this makes customers far more likely to use the app again. People like frequenting businesses that treat them well and don’t frequent businesses that treat them poorly. 

Doordash wants its drivers to have such good customer service that they will funnel more orders to drivers with higher customer service marks than those with poor customer service marks. Some ways to provide good customer service while driving for Doordash include:

• Being respectful to the customer.
• Including all the extras with the order like condiments, napkins, utensils, etc.
• Ensuring all items are in the order before delivering it.
  • The customer will blame you even if it’s actually the fault of the restaurant.
• Delivering the food quickly.
• Making sure hot food stays hot by delivering it quickly and using a hot bag.

If you can follow the customer service tips listed above, then you will eventually find yourself in the good graces of Doordash and receiving more orders. 

Accept More Orders

Doordash does look at your acceptance rate. They will not disable you from the app if you have a low acceptance rate, but they will give you less orders if you do not accept enough. 

It’s for this reason that you should not be too picky when choosing what orders to accept. You can be a little picky and not take orders that will take 30 minutes or more to deliver. But if you sit around waiting for the perfect order you may find yourself receiving less and less orders as Doordash makes you a lower priority driver. 

Drive a Little Faster

An easy way to get more Doordash orders is to simply drive a little faster. This does not mean breaking the speed limit – it’s dangerous and one accident or speeding ticket will completely wipe out all the extra profit you make by driving fast. 

However, you should not be driving half the speed limit when making a Doordash delivery. Doordash estimates the delivery time based on the speed limits on the route you take, so you want to travel at around that speed. 

If you are familiar with the area, then you can even time the traffic lights to decrease your delivery time. Faster delivery times means completing more orders per hour. 

Call Customers in Advance

Finally, you can speed up your delivery time by calling customers when you are close to their location. This will greatly reduce the amount of time you have to spend waiting around for them to come down to pick up their food. 

Again, spending less time on delivery means you have more time to make more deliveries. An extra minute or two saved on each delivery adds up over time. 

Bonus Tip: Only Accept Tip Orders

This will not get you more orders on Doordash, but it will net you more money, which is what every Doordash driver wants from the app. 

Anyway, you should only accept orders that have tips. On rare occasions a no tip order will 

How Many Orders Per Hour Should I Get on Doordash

Our preliminary research shows that the average Doordash driver should get around 2-3 deliveries per hour. A lot of drivers prioritize orders that pay a little rather than going for maximizing their orders per hour. 

The top Doordash drivers in a good location can get anywhere from 6 to 10 deliveries per hour. This obviously is not possible in many locations as restaurants are either too far from the residential areas or the Doordash simply isn’t popular enough in the area. 

Anyway, you should strive for completing 3 to 4 orders per hour to put yourself in the best position possible to maximize earnings. 

Should You Focus on More Orders or Higher Paying Orders with Doordash?

The debate over whether to focus on making more deliveries or only accepting higher paying orders is one that Doordash drivers have argued about since the creation of the app. The general rule is that you want to focus on higher paying orders more than making more deliveries per hour. 

This does not mean you should take a 40 minute order because it pays a little more than a 10 minute order. Ideally, the 40 minute order should pay 4 times as much as the 10 minute order. 

Basically, you need to find a balance between high paying orders and fast orders. If you have too many fast orders, then you may find yourself making less money per hour as the inevitable delayed order can completely ruin your hourly rate. 

Final Thoughts

To summarize, the best way to get more orders would be to only accept orders that are close to you and working during peak hours. Other minor ways to increase your order volume include driving the speed limit and calling customers when you’re about to deliver the order. 

With that said, completing more orders will not necessarily increase your earnings. You must also take into account the increase in pay that slightly longers have to find a good mix between lots of orders and good money.