What is Postmates? A guide to the app
While there is a lot of doom and gloom about how things are in the world today, for sheer convenience, we have never had it better. We can stream any movie, T.V. show, or music that we desire to watch or listen to. We can read any book on E-Readers such as Kindle and play spectacular video games on our game consoles. Another benefit the Internet has provided us with is that we can choose from hundreds of local restaurants and thousands of meals and have them delivered fresh to our homes.
Postmates is one of the popular options for ordering food delivered straight to your door. But while some delivery apps are limited just to restaurant deliveries, Postmates can deliver anything in less than an hour. Be it fast food from Taco Bell, ingredients that you forgot to buy for a special meal you are cooking, or a case of beer because you’ve run out during the SuperBowl. In this guide to the Postmates App, we will look at Postmates from both sides of the fence, as a new customer or a potential new delivery courier.
What is Postmates?
Founded in San Francisco in 2011 by Bastian Lehmann, Sam Street, and Sean Plaice, Postmates has led the way in delivery apps offering deliveries from over 600,000 restaurants and stores.
While Uber and Lyft offer ridesharing and Uber Eats, Grubhub and DoorDash offer food deliveries, Postmates is unique because it delivers ‘everything.’ Customers can not only order meals from restaurants, but other items such as groceries, alcohol, clothes, and household goods.
You are out of luck if you plan on ordering explosives, guns, live animals, gift cards, or controlled or illegal substances, though, as these are prohibited.
How Postmates works?
Postmates connects local restaurants and merchants with customers in their area through an app. When they order from the app, Postmates utilize freelance couriers to pick up the items ordered by the customer and drop them off. The app is primarily used for ordering from restaurants, but as discussed already, they offer much more than food.
Where is Postmates available?
Though Postmates hasn’t explored the international market as yet apart from Mexico City, it is widely available in the USA. Currently, the app is available in around 3,500 cities in all 50 U.S. states. The company at this time serves over 70% of households countrywide.
How do you use the Postmates app?
If you’ve used Uber, Grubhub, or one of the other delivery on-demand apps, you’ll find the Postmates app easy to operate. Even if you haven’t used a similar app, it is designed to be very user-friendly, and if you just follow the steps on the interface, you can’t go wrong. With a 4.8 rating score on the app store out of 1.2M reviews, they must be doing something right.
You can use Postmates with both iOS or Android, as well as through their website. It’s free to use, and as soon as you have signed up, you can start using it. Once you have the app on your device, it will ask you to access your location to find the restaurants and stores that are local to you. You can choose to sign up with email or Facebook. If you decide to use your Facebook account, you should understand that your data will be shared between Facebook and the Postmates App.
Once you are signed up and logged in, there are just a few steps to follow to place an order and have it speedily delivered to your door. You’ll need to add the address of where you want the order delivered and your payment information.
Now you are all set to use the app for the first time
Step 1: First of all, choose the restaurant or store that you wish to order from. You can search for a particular store or restaurant or food item or type of goods, for instance, ‘ pizza’ or ‘shoes.’ Let’s assume that you want a pizza; the app will list all the choices available and delivery times.
Step 2: You can now drill down in the specific store or restaurant and customize your order. For instance, you can look at the Burger King menu, and it will give you information about the price and ingredients of each burger, and you can customize the order to your own preferences and change the amount you are ordering. You can then add the item chosen to your cart. You then have the option to add more items to the cart or start the checkout process.
Step 3: Before you confirm your order, you’ll see all of the information, including the total amount and the delivery fee. If it all looks correct, tap the review order followed by ‘Get It Now.’
Step 4: Next, your courier will confirm the order, and you can track their real-time location, progress, and estimated delivery time through the app. If there are any issues with your order, your Postmates courier will contact you. Once your delivery driver arrives, you will get a text message, and you can collect your order from them. All payment is handled through the app, including tips.
You have successfully used the Postmates App!
Once you have had your order delivered, you’ll be asked to give feedback on the courier. You’ll also be asked if you wish to tip them. The app will provide you with some recommendations for what you should tip. It doesn’t give you an option not to tip, but if this is your preference, then just quit the app to exit.
How much does Postmates cost?
The Postmates app is free to sign up, but there are fees attached for each order delivered.
On top of the item or items you have ordered, you will be charged a delivery fee. For Postmates’ Partner Merchants, the delivery fee is between $0.99 and $3.99. For all other merchants, the delivery fee is $5.99 to $9.99. A service charge will also be applied, which is a variable percentage-based fee. Before you checkout, both fees are shown to you for review, and you can decide if you want to go ahead with the order.
There are some other fees that could impact the cost of your order. If your order doesn’t meet the minimum order total of $12 ($10 for Los Angeles), you’ll be charged a $1.99 small cart fee.
If you’ve used UberEats before and have experienced Surge Pricing, then Postmates have something similar known as Blitz Pricing. When orders exceed the number of delivery drivers available during peak times, this results in higher delivery prices for customers. The drivers are paid more for delivery to incentivize them to work in these busier times, which is reflected in the cost to the customer. The customer will be shown the increased price on the checkout screen before they place the order.
While tipping isn’t mandatory, it is customary to tip the courier at least 15%. While we can’t dictate if you tip or not, the delivery couriers for Postmates rely on their tips, so if your driver has got your delivery to you on time with no issues, it would be polite to do so.
Postmates have daily deals and promotions on the app every day, so there are plenty of opportunities for some great savings. Also, if you refer a new user to the platform, Postmates gives you $25 for each referral.
If you plan on ordering two orders or more a month, signing up to Postmates Unlimited is a cost-effective solution. This subscription program costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. For that, you get free delivery on orders over $12, No Blitz Pricing fees applied to your order, and special promotions exclusive to Postmates Unlimited subscribers.
How much can you earn as a Postmates driver?
How much you can make driving for Postmates will vary depending on where you are located. It will also depend on when you can work; at certain peak hours, you’ll be likely to earn much more than at other times of the day. You’ll see plenty of different sums mentioned online, but the broad figure is somewhere between $10-$25 per hour. Bastian Lehman, CEO of Postmates, says that couriers earn a median pay of $19 per hour if they drive during peak hours.
A Postmates courier’s payout is calculated by pickup, drop-off, minute rates, and rate per mile. This base pay will vary by market.
Postmates do provide payout information by market so to give you an example: Newark, New Jersey pays a rate of $1.55 for pickup; this is a flat amount earned for collecting the order from the restaurant or store. The drop-off rate is $0.70, a flat rate for delivering the order to the customer’s location. The rate per minute is calculated at $0.07; this is if the courier has to wait for your order at the pickup. Finally, the rate per mile is what they earn for each mile traveled.
On top of this, couriers get to keep 100% of any tips they make during deliveries.
Delivering during peak hours, lunchtime, dinnertime, and weekends can also boost your earnings. When the demand for drivers is high, Postmates will pay you extra to work during this busy time called Blitz Pricing. So if you are flexible with the hours you can work, then aim to deliver when Blitz Pricing is being enforced.
Conclusion
If you want ‘anything’ delivered to your door within one hour and are prepared to pay a small fee for the convenience, Postmates won’t disappoint. For some of us, the opportunity of having cuisine from all over the world, a few taps of a phone away, can’t be beaten. When the football game on T.V. is neck and neck, and you are down to your last beer, who are you gonna call.
If it’s not the benefits of the Postmates customer app that interests you but a flexible and guaranteed way of earning extra cash, then becoming a Postmates courier could be a great decision.
The world is changing, and we believe companies like Postmates are altering the way we live and work for the better.
Disclaimer
Actual earnings may differ and depend on factors like number of deliveries completed, time of day, location, and expenses. Hourly pay is calculated using average Dasher payouts while on a delivery (from the time you accept an order until the time you drop it off) over a 90 day period and includes compensation from peak pay, tips, and other incentives.
