I’m talking about DoorDash, GrubHub, UberEats, etc.
My first job as an adult, c. 2015, was delivering food for an Italian diner (mostly pizza). I was an employee of the establishment, as far as I know - filled out a W-4 and did some dishwashing shifts. I assume they took the taxes out of the latter shifts but there’s a good chance it was all under the table. The delivery deal was, $4.00 delivery fee guaranteed plus any cash tips at the doorstep are mine. I had no discretion in which orders to take, although we only delivered within the same zip-code. My car, my gas, and I had to be ready to pick up within 5 minutes.
In practice, most people tipped a dollar or two. If I had to travel across town people would tip more generously ($5+). I had a couple large deliveries, we’re talking the duffel bags food for 10+ people, I’d get a big tip ($20+). I remember wondering at the time whether they tipped the restaurant separately but decided not to ask. Short deliveries, within two miles, frequently went without tips (unless the turnaround time was really fast). Didn’t bother me at all, I had my guaranteed $4.00. I don’t think any long distance deliveries went without tipping at all. I may have been salty if I had to go through a lot more than $4.00 worth of my time and effort, while only being paid $4.00.
Nowadays, most of my local restaurants don’t offer delivery anymore. They “partner” with a delivery service such as DoorDash, GrubHub, or UberEats. Over the past two pandemic years I’ve used some of these services. At checkout they list the price of your food, a delivery charge, a service charge, a tax charge, and a tip. This is when you order the food now, that you pay the tip. 
The delivery charge is usually reasonable, $4 to $7 dollars or so depending on where you order from. I assume this goes to the driver but really who knows.
The service charge is more shady. DoorDash lumps it in with the taxes and charges a full 13%, or at least $3. From that I assume $0 goes to the people who actually deliver my food, and all of it goes to DoorDash. I think GrubHub and UberEats have service charges of 15%.
They also pre-fill the tip with a recommended amount that is, in my experience, 20% or more of the total without tip. I might order two subs + two drinks (~$18) from a sandwich shop three miles away, and the default tip is $6 or $7.50. And the grand total is over $30 
- Actual food: $18
- Delivery charge: $4
- Service charge: $3
- Tax: $1.75
- Tip: $6
- Total = $32.75
And I’m just thinking to myself, I could drive there and back in well under ten minutes, with lunch hour traffic. Is ten minutes of my time, and six miles worth of gas, really worth $13.50? I don’t think the service of delivering food is worth more than about $5 to $7. But sometimes I really can’t leave.
I could cut out the tip entirely and the cost of having food delivered would just about match its worth. I mean, it’s not nice to drivers but it’s also not my fault that the business model is what it is. If they do a really good job I still tip a couple dollars sometimes, in cash. But what happens more and more often is that drivers call me, before picking up the food I guess, and ask if I plan on tipping them in cash. I guess the convention now is that the tip is completely severed from the quality of service, i.e. the turnaround time from me placing an order and me receiving my food. It’s never the same driver twice, and I don’t live in a big city, which makes me wonder if there is high turnover as a deliveryman/deliverywoman for these services, or if they just recognize my name on the order and swipe left. (I haven’t noticed an appreciable delay in delivery time over the past couple years.)
And from what I’ve been told in these conversations, apparently a tip I give when placing the order isn’t added to a guaranteed delivery charge. I’ve been told that the deliveryman/deliverywoman gets the maximum of either my tip or the delivery charge. 
So from the above example, the driver would get $6 total. And if I tipped $4 or under, the driver would get $4 total.
And then of course, just today I asked the above mentioned sandwich shop what’s up with the delivery fees. It turns out the restaurant is also paying a 30% commission on each order to the food service. WTF?
So again with the above example, two subs and two drinks, if I had gone through with the order,
- Actual food: $18
- Delivery charge: $4
- Service charge: $3
- Tax: $1.75
- Tip: $6
- Total paid by me = $32.75
- to deliveryman: $6
- to restaurant: $12.60
- to state: $1.75
- to food delivery service: $12.40
- to be fair, something like $1 is used to process my card
If you’re a delivery driver and want to know why I’m stingy with the tips, 
that’s why.
What are your thoughts and experiences with tips for food delivery services?
~Max
) I had my guaranteed $4.00 per delivery. I’m told they get their guaranteed delivery fee too, and if I tip below that, they don’t even see the tip!