DoorDash and GrubHub are currently the two most popular food delivery apps. As a DoorDash driver, I’ve come across many other DoorDash, PostMates, GrubHub, and UberEats drivers during my deliveries. I started to notice that many of them work for multiple delivery apps so I started asking questions on what service they think is best. From my sample population, the majority preferred the user interface of DoorDash with GrubHub being a close second. I recognized that DoorDash wasn’t perfect so I decided to try working for GrubHub. Below is my comparison of the two.
Your Territory and Maps
DoorDash has smaller area maps, resulting in shorter distance delivery routes. With GrubHub’s large maps, you may drive longer distances.
In relation to your assigned area maps, you may deliver outside your area in DoorDash. This is both a positive and a negative. The negative is that you can end up 1 hour away from home by the time you feel like ending your shift. If you leave your assigned area in GrubHub, you need to drive back to your area to get more deliveries assigned to you.
The DoorDash map is more practical and does a better job of showing your delivery route before you start your drive.
The Pay
In terms of pay, both apps are very competitive. I did not notice any significant difference between the two. Both apps give peak bonuses, but I felt that DoorDash offers more bonuses.
In DoorDash, you have to complete a delivery before being offered a new delivery. This results in waiting time. You could wait anywhere from 1 second to 1 hour depending on the time, day, and location. With Grubhub, you may get a delivery offer while you are on another delivery. This minimizes wait time and gives you the opportunity to complete more deliveries.
The User Experience
DoorDash’s interface is more user friendly with a much better map and live chat boxes for driver support. In comparison, GrubHub’s less powerful and basic app is more stable. I experienced a few DoorDash outages during peak times, leaving me with no work for up to 2 hours while waiting for the servers to reset.
Both DoorDash and Grubhub will spam you with notifications encouraging you to drive. However I felt that GrubHub gave more annoying notifications.
DoorDash offers a floating widget, allowing you to easily switch between the DoorDash app, your GPS app, and your text messages. All three of these features are needed to make deliveries. The floating widget makes viewing DoorDash notifications very easy. Because GrubHub may offer you a delivery while you are on another delivery, it is very easy to miss an opportunity in Grubhub. They don’t make it obvious when you have a new delivery offer. You need to constantly look over at your phone and keep it in your hand when you hand the food over to the customer.
Finally, the food delivery hot bag provided by GrubHub was larger and of much better quality compared to what you get from DoorDash.
Conclusion
The amount of push notifications I received from GrubHub forced me to temporarily delete the app. It was the only way to disable all of the notifications. The app itself is more robust than DoorDash, but for now I will stick to driving for DoorDash. However, if they have another outage while I am driving, I won’t hesitate to reinstall GrubHub and start driving for them until DoorDash is back online. Grubhub is a great alternative to DoorDash, but the additional features and information offered by DoorDash makes them the best delivery-based app for drivers.
