How Much Do Pizza Delivery Drivers Make: Pizza Driver Salary USA

Q: Do pizza delivery drivers get a lot of tips?

Yes, a pizza delivery driver gets good tips from customers impressed by the driver or the pizza store. But do not expect to get a tip with every delivery you make. It is not mandatory for customers to tip the drivers. The customers who give a tip are always generous. They tip the drivers with at least a couple of dollars and more. There is a general online rule for customers to pay tips to pizza delivery drivers. It says that customers should pay 10% to 20% of the total bill’s value. When your customers are generous with tips, you can make good money from the tips you get.

More than 26,014 pizza delivery drivers are currently working in the United States. Most of them are working from Houston and New York, whereas the highest demand is in Richmond, VA.

Do you intend to be part of this job trade and deliver pizzas to customers? If so, your most important consideration will be the money you earn in this job.

How much do pizza delivery drivers make? Is it good enough to ride through the cities all day and return home without financial stress? Let’s find out more in this article.

Table of Content

How Much Will You Earn as a Pizza Delivery Driver?
Highest Paying Cities for Pizza Delivery Drivers
What Are the Operational Expenses of Pizza Delivery Drivers?
How Does Upper Route Planner Help Pizza Delivery Drivers In Speeding Up Their Deliveries?
FAQs
Summing Up

How Much Will You Earn as a Pizza Delivery Driver?

How much does a Pizza Delivery Driver make? The average monthly payment for a Pizza Delivery Driver in the United States is $2,550 a month.

Pizza delivery drivers mostly work with private pizza shops and are part of their salaried pay scale. But, there are still many companies that are still offering hourly charges to pizza delivery drivers.

Women in this pizza delivery sector have earned around 90% of what men earned in 2021. Hence, this shows that pizza delivery drivers earnings are almost gender-neutral in the United States.

How much does a Pizza Delivery Driver make in the United States? The average hourly wage for a Pizza Delivery Driver in the United States is $16.08 and ranges typically between $13 to $18 per hour. So, for an 8-hour shift, the pizza delivery driver can earn around $30,720 in a year.

Here are a few verified statistics for it:

1. Average annual salary

The national average annual salary of pizza delivery drivers is $30,600, a good range on the pay scale offered by most pizza shops in the country.

2. Average hourly salary

The average hourly salary for pizza delivery drivers is around $16.08. The more you work for the pizza outlet, the higher your earnings will be. So, make sure you count on this opportunity.

3. Average starting salary

The average starting salary for a new hire as a pizza delivery driver is $22,000 annually. For a beginner’s level salary, this is not that bad at all.

4. Highest salary for pizza delivery drivers

10% of the highest-paid pizza delivery drivers earn around $41,000 per year or more. They have mostly experienced delivery drivers who have worked with big brands such as Pizza Hut or Domino’s.

Highest Paying Cities for Pizza Delivery Drivers

The average pay for pizza delivery drivers in different states and cities in the United States varies due to demand factors. If you are just starting with your search for pizza delivery driver jobs, look for the same in top-paying cities. It will help you earn good on a per hour or per month basis.

To help you decide on the city where you can try to get your pizza delivery driver job, here is the table of 15 cities in descending order of their average payout:

City	Average Hourly Rate	Average Annual Salary
Kirkland, WA	$18.77	$39,036
San Francisco, CA	$16.27	$33,847
Lafayette, LA	$16.27	$33,844
Bessemer, LA	$16.15	$33,587
Council Bluffs, IA	$15.97	$33,213
Pensacola, FL	$15.95	$33,171
Springfield, VA	$15.57	$32,388
Carrollton, GA	$15.32	$31,872
Houston, TX	$15.26	$31,715
Springfield, IL	$15.25	$31,715
Gary, IN	$15.11	$31,420
Pleasant Grove, UT	$15.02	$31,244
Smyrna, TN	$14.19	$29,515
Omaha, NE	$14.14	$29,403
Springfield, MO	$14.01	$29,149

Try pursuing jobs for pizza delivery drivers in the top cities of the United States, where you will earn a good livelihood. Some of the top states in the US that have the highest average payout for pizza delivery drivers are:

New York, with an average salary of $41,968 per year, or $20.18 per hour.
Massachusetts, with an average income of $40,633 per year, or $19.54 per hour.
Rhode Island, with an average salary of $40,034 per year, or $19.25 per hour.
Vermont, with an average salary of $39,658 per year, or $19.07 per hour.
Washington, with an average salary of $38,748 per year, or $18.63 per hour.
Maine, with an average salary of $38,730 per year, or $18.62 per hour.
New Jersey, with an average salary of $38,089 per year, or $18.31 per hour.

These are the top-paying states in the US for pizza delivery drivers. All other states have an average payout of between $21,000 and $38,000 per year and $10.00 to $18.00 per hour.

If your state or city is not on the list above, consider switching to a different location to make your career fruitful as a pizza delivery driver.

What are the Operational Expenses of Pizza Delivery Drivers?

You can work as a pizza boxes delivery driver from a pizza shop or through a delivery application. When you work for a pizza chain, you get the vehicle, uniform, fuel expenses, and all the other essentials you need to complete your delivery operations on time.

But when you are an independent food delivery driver and look for pizza orders delivery gigs through dedicated applications, you need to carry your vehicle and food storage equipment.

The companies might have a requirement list where you must have a hot case to deliver pizzas to customers. So, this is the expense you will have to bear if you take pizza delivery gigs as an independent food driver.

Apart from that, you will be responsible for paying the fuel expenses if you are not a salaried employee at any pizza outlet.

But, at the same time, independent pizza delivery drivers can charge a better hourly rate from the companies, as they are not provided with the extra facilities or perks.

How Does Upper Route Planner Help Pizza Delivery Drivers in Speeding up their Deliveries?

Upper Route Planner is an automated route planning software that allows pizza delivery businesses to map multiple addresses on a single route. Following that, they dispatch it to the assigned delivery driver, who follows the map and delivers the pizzas on time.

We have designed this software to determine the shortest possible route to your multiple delivery locations. Businesses are leveraging our software’s maximum potential and saving on fuel expenses, mileage driven, and vehicle maintenance costs. Along with that, they are also earning customer satisfaction through faster deliveries.

Some pizza stores might not offer the Upper Route Planner access to the independent pizza delivery drivers. It results in delayed deliveries by the individual, and eventually, they don’t get paid fairly.

The software is not just for pizza companies but also offering features to independent drivers. Irrespective of whether the pizza company is offering you an automated route for delivering the next bunch of pizzas or not, you can use our software to create an organized route of your own.

If you are convinced that this software will help you improve your service proficiency, then take a 7 days FREE trial of our software. Following that, you will realize how different features contribute to streamlining the job of a pizza delivery driver.

FAQs

Do pizza delivery drivers get a lot of tips?

Yes, pizza delivery drivers get good tips from customers impressed by the driver or the pizza store.

The customers who give a tip are always generous. They tip the drivers with at least a couple of dollars and more. There is a general online rule for customers to pay tips to pizza delivery drivers. It says that customers should pay 10% to 20% of the total bill’s value.

When your customers are generous with tips, you can make good money from the tips you get.

Is it better to work for Pizza Hut or Domino’s?

The average salary for a pizza delivery driver working for Domino’s is $15.80 per hour, whereas for Pizza Hut it is $15.53 per hour. The interviewing and hiring process takes around two weeks at Domino’s and only a week at Pizza Hut.

Work difficulty and experience have been rated good for both the pizza store brands. In terms of salary, Domino’s is better, whereas Pizza Hut gets an extra point for ease of getting hired.

It depends on you to consider your preferences and decide where you should work.

Summing Up

The Americans are now die-hard fans of pizza. And the top outlets are now customizing the taste elements to ensure customer satisfaction and retain them in their pizzas. Delivery drivers play a major role in helping these outlets maintain their reputation and food quality.

Late deliveries will cool down the pizza base, and the taste will deteriorate. Therefore, pizza delivery drivers need to be very punctual in their job. In a survey, 63% of consumers answered that it is better to get delivery of food than to dine at a restaurant with family.

So, the demand for pizza delivery professionals has increased tremendously. Pizza outlets pay good compensation to the drivers for delivering faster to the customers’ convenience. And to assist them in their pursuit, companies can use the Upper Route Planner to plan out the multiple stops along the shortest path possible.

The Upper Route Planner helps meet the delivery time window promised to the customers for completing the delivery. So, the Upper Route Planner can be the perfect assistant for you to get better earning opportunities.