Greenville is one of the fastest-growing cities in the state of South Carolina. Its perfect positioning between Columbia, Charlotte, and Atlanta has made it a major center of commerce. The downtown area has been going up at a steady rate, and the once-quiet suburbs are now packed full of strip malls and business parks. Needless to say, there is a lot of opportunity for Uber drivers in Greenville, SC.

What are the best times to drive for Uber in Greenville, though? If you want to catch the work crowd, then 7am-9am and 4pm-7pm are some of the best peak times to drive for Uber in Greenville, SC. However, Greenville also has a booming nightlife scene, so driving for Uber on weekend nights between 10pm and 3am can be incredibly profitable if you don’t mind late nights.

In today’s post, I’m going to show you everything that you need to know about the most profitable times of day to drive for Uber in Greenville. Although I haven’t driven for Uber there personally, I do have a couple of friends who do. Thankfully, they were willing to share all of their secrets with me for this article, so I’m happy to pass them over to drivers like you! 

The Best Times To Drive For Uber In Greenville, SC

If you want to be a successful Uber driver, then you’ll need to develop a strategy. Since each city is different, you’ll need to employ a different strategy depending on where you’ll be Ubering. 

For instance, Las Vegas (where I drive for Uber) literally has a 24/7 nightlife scene, so I can clock in just about any timeand make a nice bit of change. However, in Greenville, the clubs close at 2am, meaning that there’s a smaller window of time to catch this crowd. 

Each city has its own unique vibe, industries, and crowd that will all play a part in when the “peak times” are. Thankfully, I’ve found the Uber app to be particularly helpful in this matter. They’ll send me weekly updates on when the peak times are so that I can make my schedule accordingly. 

Driving During Peak Hours

By driving during peak hours, you’re almost always guaranteed to make more money than you would during any other time of the day. However, peak driving also tends to be a bit more stressful and isn’t every driver’s cup of tea. I’m young and energetic, so I thrive under pressure. A few of the older drivers that I’m friends with prefer to avoid these times, though, in lieu of a steady, slow, and reliable shift. 

Whether or not you choose to drive during these peak hours is completely up to you, though. If you’re new to a city or you’re just starting out with Uber, then I suggest you take it slow for a few weeks to get your bearings before jumping into the fray of peak hour driving. Once you get a good layout of the city and understand the process a bit better, though, I definitely recommend taking advantage of peak hour driving! It will put more money in your pocket, provide you with a higher hourly rate, and the fast-paced shifts will go by quicker. 

The Best Times To Drive For Uber Based On Greenville’s Crowd

One of the best strategies that I employ while Ubering is deciding which “group” of people I want to focus on. By focusing on a specific group, I’m able to learn the best routes, pick up more passengers, and spend less time driving around in circles without a passenger. 

As I mentioned, each city has its own features, which determine when the best times to drive for Uber are. Here are some of the main groups that I’ve identified in Greenville, SC, and the peak times associated with them. 

Group #1: “The Work Crowd” (7am-9am, 4pm-7pm)

If you’re looking for steady passengers and routes, then you can’t go wrong by catering to the work crowd. Greenville currently has a population of just over 67,000 people, and there’s a relatively low unemployment rate of 8% (which is very low, especially post-COVID).

Greenville is also very connected and tight-knit. This means that by catering to the work crowd, you won’t have to waste all of your time driving back and forth from one end of the city to the other. Most of the housing and apartments where people will be requesting Ubers from are just a short 10 to 15-minute drive away from the major employment centers. 

The best times to take advantage of this group are early in the morning between 7am and 9am (when everybody is going to work), or between 4pm and 7pm (when everybody is coming home from work/getting dropped off night shifts). This group of people generally tends to tip decently and the passengers are generally friendly and reliable. 

Group #2: “The Party People” (10pm-12am, 1:30am-3am)

As a more modern city, Greenville has some of the best clubs and nightlife in the surrounding Greenville-Camden-Spartanburg area. This means that a lot of residents from surrounding towns commute to downtown Greenville for the weekend to party. As most of them will be drinking, there’s a huge need for Uber drivers! 

The best times to hit this group are from 10pm to midnight (when people arrive at the clubs), and 1am to 3am (when the partiers are going home or grabbing late-night food). 

Group #3: “The Airport Folks” (6am-10am)

If you don’t mind waking up early, there is usually a shortage of Uber drivers who are willing to go to and from the airport. The highest concentration of flights in Greenville is early to mid-morning. From 6am to 10am, lots of flights will be landing and departing.

The best part about hitting the airport crowd is that you won’t waste a lot of time. Usually, as soon as you drop off one passenger at the airport, somebody else (who just arrived) will hail you for a ride back into town. This creates a steady loop so you won’t spend much time without a passenger in your car. 

Final Tips

The main disadvantage of Ubering in Greenville is that rush-hour traffic can be really bad. However, these times may also be peak hours where you’ll make a higher hourly rate. So, that being said, as long as you don’t mind putting on some good tunes and sitting through some traffic, you shouldn’t have any problem making a livable wage as an Uber driver in Greenville!