DoorDash Earn by Time pays a base rate for the minutes you spend on accepted deliveries. Earn per Offer pays for the offers you complete. Both can include tips and promotions. If you often wait at restaurants after accepting, Earn by Time is worth testing. If you need to turn down several trips because of their distance or destination, Earn per Offer gives you more room to choose. Neither mode pays you an hourly base rate just for waiting for the next offer.
Before you start: check what your app is offering
Earn by Time is available in select US cities, and access is not guaranteed for every Dasher. Look for the option and the active hourly rate before starting your dash. The base rate normally stays fixed for that session; changing zones can change the rate on future offers. A temporary Peak Pay increase has its own terms. DoorDash also says repeated time-related contract violations can cost you access to the mode. See its US Earn by Time rules for availability and restrictions.
With Earn per Offer, you see a minimum payout before accepting. DoorDash considers estimated time, distance, and how desirable the offer is when setting base pay. Compare the amount on screen with the whole trip: a drop-off ten miles away may also leave you ten miles from the area where you want to work.
Which wait is on the clock?
Say you go online at 6:00, accept at 6:10, reach the restaurant at 6:15, and wait for the food until 6:25. You finish the delivery at 6:40. The first ten minutes were idle. The five minutes getting to the restaurant, ten minutes at the counter, and fifteen minutes delivering all count. On a batch, the active interval runs through the last drop-off; two orders in the car do not earn two simultaneous hourly rates.
At a fictional $18 per active hour, those 30 active minutes earn $9 in base pay. If you wait until 7:00 without another offer, you still have $9 in base pay for that full hour. Under Earn per Offer, the restaurant wait also uses your time, but you cannot multiply those minutes by an Earn by Time rate and add the result to the offer. See active time versus total work time for the difference between the two hourly measures.
Declining, timing out, unassigning, and switching
In Earn by Time, a decline and an unassignment draw from the same one-offer allowance per hour. For example, if you decline a long trip and later unassign a different accepted trip in that hour, you have used two, even though the actions were different. The second ends the Earn by Time session. You can stop or continue in Earn per Offer.
| What happens | What to expect |
|---|---|
| You decline an offer while idle | It counts toward the hourly limit. Even the first decline counts toward your acceptance rate. |
| You let an offer expire while idle | A time-out uses the allowance too. Pause the dash if you are unavailable. |
| You decline an add-on during a delivery | This decline is exempt from the hourly limit. That exception is about staying in the mode; it is not an acceptance-rate exemption. |
| You unassign after accepting | Under the ordinary rule it counts toward the limit, affects completion rate, and generally leaves you unpaid for time spent on that offer. |
| The customer or merchant cancels | You receive active-time pay through cancellation. Your completion rate is unaffected. |
If you switch from Earn by Time to Earn per Offer, you must wait at least an hour before starting another Earn by Time dash, and the option still has to be available. Factor that into a short dinner shift. DoorDash’s pay-mode explainer and its support rules distinguish ending the mode from losing access to dashing altogether.
Tips and Peak Pay: read the unit next to the dollars
DoorDash passes along 100% of the tips it receives for the delivery in either mode. It says tips can be less frequent in Earn by Time. Use the tips that actually settle; a guarantee on active base pay tells you nothing about what the next customer will tip.
Check the area, eligibility, and offer acceptance time in the Peak Pay terms. On Earn per Offer, a bonus per eligible completed delivery is a flat addition. On Earn by Time, the increase is per active hour on qualifying offers. Suppose the app showed an extra $2 per active hour: the half-hour delivery above would earn $1 extra, even though you were online for a full hour. A separate promotion of $2 per completed delivery would add $2 for one eligible delivery. These are fictional offers, not current incentives. If the app shows the boosted hourly rate or a final payout with the bonus included, count it only once.
Which mode is worth testing on your next shift?
Look back at your last slow shift. Were you waiting for food you had already agreed to deliver, or sitting available before any offer arrived? Earn by Time covers the former. If most of the lost time was between orders, changing modes alone does not put those minutes on the clock. If you prefer Earn per Offer so you can avoid long return trips, include the time you spend passing up offers when you judge that choice.
Hourly earnings after distance costs = (final earnings − estimated distance costs) ÷ total work hours
For example, take two fictional four-hour shifts on separate days. On time mode, 2½ active hours at $18 plus $15 in tips yield $60 gross. Forty miles at an illustrative $0.30 per mile leave $48, or $12 per work hour. On offer mode, $68 gross over 32 miles leaves $58.40, or $14.60 per work hour. At the same miles and hours, time mode would need $70.40 gross to tie. Our shift-by-shift pay-mode comparison shows the full breakdown. These amounts are before other expenses and taxes; they are not market rates or forecasts.
Test both modes across similar weekdays, meal periods, areas, and vehicles. In Drovm, keep DoorDash as the platform and label shifts by mode, such as “Lunch EBT” and “Lunch EPO.” Check screenshot imports against the actual start, work duration, active time, miles, and final pay. If you switched modes and cannot verify the split, label that session mixed and leave it out of the comparison.
For each mode, add up earnings after distance costs and divide by all its work hours. Note whether one large tip or temporary promotion changed the result. Drovm Analysis net rates subtract distance-based operating and maintenance estimates; they exclude separately logged expenses and tax reserves. Use the same cost method for both modes and avoid counting fuel twice. The guide to comparing delivery shifts explains how to read the totals.