When I did my taxes at the beginning of this year, I saw the breakdown of how much each gig I worked made me.
Seeing Uber high on the list was not surprising; what was surprising is that DeliverThat was higher than Uber and made nearly half my income for 2023.
This was without optimizing ways to make more with DeliverThat or working out better strategies.
So what is DeliverThat, what other apps are out there like it, and what changes did I make to earn even more in 2024?
What Is DeliverThat?
DeliverThat is a gig company that sends their drivers catering orders.
This isn’t simply running into a restaurant, grabbing a bag of food, then dropping it at someone’s door.
Instead, you’ll get several trays of food, sometimes requiring multiple trips to your car, both picking up and dropping off.
Once you arrive, you’ll set the food up in a way that makes it easy for the customer to get a plate and move through the buffet line you create.
DeliverThat states that the average per order a driver will make is over $30. My current average for this year is $36.37 per order, and as of the writing of this article, we have not hit any major holidays that increase tips and incentives.
Why Catering Over Uber Eats, DoorDash, or GrubHub?
The simple answer is that you make more money.
It’s true that it’s also more work, but to me, it’s not that much more work.
I originally purchased the DeliverThat kit, which came with a few catering bags. Since then, I have had more catering bags than I need and have a supply in both my cars. I also gave some to friends and family when they started driving for DeliverThat.
The second reason to do catering orders over Uber Eats, DoorDash, or GrubHub is that there are more and more drivers on those apps, people seem to be tipping less and less, and honestly, it’s harder to make as much money as I once did with them.
Having DeliverThat orders making $30+ per order at the start of my work day raises my income significantly and puts less stress on the rest of the day. That’s if I only get one catering order.
On the majority of days, I’ll get two orders back to back and have them done in an hour and a half or less. From the time I’m pulling out of my house to pulling back in after deliveries, I am making $60+ in less than two hours.
Ways I’ve Improved My Catering Delivery
When I find something that’s working and making more money than anything else, I stop or slow down other things to double down on the thing that is making the most money.
I did the same when it came to catering orders.
The first thing I did was find out ways to optimize getting orders from the DeliverThat app.
When an order comes in, it goes out to all drivers who are online in the area. This means you have to be fast to get an order. It also means that I have my phone opened and the app up all day long while waiting for orders for the next day.
This is a huge pain, and I still end up missing some orders. I use my laptop, computer, and tablet to text or check my email, all to keep my phone available. I’ve even gone as far as considering getting a second phone just for DeliverThat.
Though that may seem like a pain, and it is, doing so allowed me to go from getting 2 to 4 orders a week to getting 8 to 12. My best day so far is 5 deliveries in one day!
The other thing I did with DeliverThat was to get to a higher tier. DeliverThat has multiple-tier drivers. After you’ve been driving for 30 days, you automatically get moved up a tier, which gives you orders before the lower-tier drivers.
After driving for 90 days and making enough deliveries, you can request to go up another tier, at which point you will get orders even sooner.
There is another tier driver, which I would love to be and talk more about, but it’s invitation only, and alas, I’ve yet to be invited.
The final thing I did was try to find more catering apps to drive for. Just like when I started driving for Lyft, I wanted to also drive for Uber. I looked at what else is out there for catering orders.
DoorDash does offer a catering driver, but it’s invite-only, and my acceptance rate will never be high enough to be invited.
Another app I was able to sign up for is Zifty. Zifty is a bit easier to use the app and easier to get orders; however, you make less. Most of the orders come from ezCater, the same as DeliverThat, so I have a feeling Zifty is keeping much of the tips, but I don’t know that for sure.
Because of making less money and charging you if you send the order back out after an hour of having it, I drive for Zifty as little as possible. But it’s still a good alternative if I can’t get one from DeliverThat.
Dlivrd is another app for which I have heard nothing but good things from all who use it. I have been on the waitlist for almost a year and am not sure when or if I’ll be taken off. I called recently just to confirm that, yes, I’m still on there.
2024 So Far
We are officially halfway through 2024, and I have almost made the same in these 6 months as I did in all of 2023. DeliverThat has a huge impact on that.
DeliverThat is responsible for 57.82% of my income year to date.
If I spent the same amount of time trying to get good UberEats, DoorDash, or Grubhub orders, my income for the year would easily be 30% less than it currently is.
