Do you enjoy driving your car and would like to make some money doing it? You’re lucky. There are dozens of side hustles for drivers and some of them pay handsomely.
Side hustles for drivers range from taking out and delivering food, to driving children, adults and animals. In addition, you can earn money for doing your normal driving while displaying some ads on your car.
Side hustles for drivers
The most well-known side effects for drivers include signing up for Uber and Lyft. These two ride-sharing companies enlist freelancers to drive their own cars, taking people to bars and restaurants, airports, and various other destinations.
Driver pay is based on time, distance, market area, demand and sometimes bonuses. The average pay for Uber and Lyft drivers ranges from $15 to $30 per hour in the US, however, drivers pay their own expenses such as gas, maintenance, upkeep and depreciation.
The upside of driving for Uber and Lyft is that you can set your own schedule — and plan on the go. You don’t have to commit to a specific time. You can simply rollback your application whenever you have time.
The downside is that you don’t get paid for waiting for passengers or driving to pick them up. These apps only pay for the time a rider is in your car. When there is no passenger, there is no fee.
Scheduled rides for children
However, if you can pass a background check and are available to drive in the mornings and afternoons, a better option may be to drive for one of the many services that specialize in transporting children.
Kango, HopSkipDrive, RubiRides and KidCar generally pay drivers $35 or more per hour for safe, local transportation. With the first three — Kango, HopSkipDrive and RubiRides — most of the rides take kids to and from school and after-school activities.
As a result, drivers must be available early in the morning — around 7am. to 9 a.m. — and early afternoon, starting around 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. delivery drivers, so adding a platform for kids to drive can be a nice complement to other street hustlers.
Thanks to rapid growth, HopSkipDrive is actively seeking new drivers in all states where it operates. These states include California, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
KidCar, meanwhile, only operates in New York. And, there, it mostly transports parents home from the hospital and to airports. Focusing on being a premium option for parents who want to make sure their ride share driver has the right car seat, this site pays drivers between $27 and $67 per ride — one of the best ride share prices around. But you also need a TLC license to pass the site audit.
Animal driving
People making cross-country moves — or buying a pet from a long-distance breeder — sometimes need a freelancer to get their animal from point A to point B. If you love animals and want to help move them , you can advertise this service on two websites — Citizen Shipper and uShip.
The sites are similar in that both allow independent drivers/movers to register and post profiles for free. You can then access a list of jobs posted by customers who need help with some type of move. If you see a job you’d like, bid on it — stating your price and when you could do the job.
The sites only differ in how they handle payments and fees. Citizen Shipper asks freelancers to pay a small monthly fee and asks the freelancer to collect payment directly from clients. UShip collects payment for you and charges a commission for each job.
Separately, if you want to drive animals to and from doggie daycare, the best place to sign up is Rover. With Rover, you can offer almost any animal-related service, from grooming to walks, boarding to check-ins. Freelancers sign up and create a profile for free. You get paid a commission if you get a gig.
Deliveries en route
Do you regularly drive to faraway destinations? Two sites — Roadie and Hitch — will pay you for roadside deliveries. Roadie deals largely with packages and lost luggage, while Hitch focuses on transporting people long distances, mostly between a handful of cities in Texas and Florida.
When used as originally intended — by people who are already driving in that direction — both sites offer good opportunities. However, Roadie has been transformed to include pickups and deliveries that are definitely not en route. These aren’t that attractive, rarely paying enough to make a round trip worthwhile.
Meanwhile, the Hitch has become an extremely attractive option for long-distance commuters. If you’re riding from Dallas to Austin, for example, another rider can ride with you and pay $100. They’re taking a chance because that three-hour drive would probably cost two or three times as much to Uber (or to fly). And the drivers are able to cover all the travel expenses, which they did anyway.
Food distribution
Another drive/delivery option is to pick up food and groceries for one of the many delivery apps, including Uber Eats, GrubHub and DoorDash. All three of these locations charge a modest delivery fee, plus the customer’s tip. However, especially on nights when people order dinner, tips can make these deliveries useful.
However, the way these apps work best is when used in conjunction with another ride option like Uber, Lyft, Kango, HopSkipDrive, or RubiRides. Of course, you can’t pick up food for delivery while you have a paying passenger in the car. However, using delivery apps to cover downtime between other pickups is ideal.
Car ad
Finally, if you do other driving and delivery work, it’s smart to sign up with one of the three trusted car advertising companies. Carvertise, Wrapify and Nickelytics all pay drivers to wrap their cars in ads and drive normally. For this, you can earn anywhere between $100 and $450 per month, depending on the advertiser, the campaign, the driving you do, and how much of your car is covered by ads.
Generally speaking, all of these companies have more potential leads than advertisers. So you won’t get an instant campaign — even if you sign up with all three, which is what we recommend. But, when you get a campaign, it’s extra money for almost no extra work.
29/1/2024
