How Much Do Shipt Shoppers Make? | Shipt Driver Pay Explained (2025)

Author:

Dimitri Gedevanishvili

Shipt has grown into one of the most popular apps in the gig economy. Like other apps, people appreciate its flexibility, allowing you to work on your own schedule.

With Shipt, you shop in stores such as Target, Kroger, CVS, and others, and pick up groceries and other items for Shipt customers. You then deliver the items directly to the customer.

However, one question many prospective Shipt drivers have is how much you can earn doing Shipt, and whether it’s worth it to try the service at all. Here’s everything you need to know about driving for Shipt.

How Much Do Shipt Shoppers Make in 2025?

Shipt shoppers typically earn between $16 and $30 per hour. If you’re starting out and finding your groove, you may earn on the lower end of that spectrum.

More experienced drivers can easily and consistently reach the higher end of that range. In the end, your earnings will depend on several factors, including your location, how efficient you are, your overall customer service skills, and your strategy.

Shipt guarantees a minimum of $16 per hour through their earnings standard, but this is just the baseline. You could easily earn upwards of $25-$30 per hour when factoring tips and promotional bonuses.

According to their official website, Shipt claims that shoppers earned between $25 and $35 an hour in 2021 when factoring in offer pay, bonuses, and tips. Like with all of these gig economy apps, your mileage will vary.

Factors That Can Affect Your Shipt Earnings

Your Shipt shopper pay can vary greatly depending on several factors. Some of these include order size, complexity, distance traveled, as well as tips and other bonuses.

Tips can often account for significant amounts of what your total earnings will be. Customers tip through their Shipt app, and shoppers keep 100% of all tips received.

With that in mind, one of the best things you can do as a Shipt shopper is maximize your potential tips. Providing great service via good communication, good product selection, and on-time delivery will directly impact your tip amounts.

Promotional bonuses can add another layer to your earnings potential. Shipt regularly offers bonuses for shoppers during peak hours, completing orders on time, or working with specific retailer partnerships. These bonuses can add $2 to $5 per order during busy periods.

You should learn how to batch orders effectively. Experienced shoppers often combine multiple orders from the same store with similar delivery windows, essentially doubling their hourly rate by completing two orders in the time it would normally take to do one.

Shipt’s Pay Structure

Shipt calculates offer pay based on several factors, including shopping time, delivery distance, and order complexity. In the last few years, the company moved away from showing pay ranges and now displays a single estimated amount that represents the minimum you’ll earn for completing that specific order.

The $16 per hour earnings standard applies across all markets, though many high-demand areas see standards of $20 to $25+ per hour. This guarantee is built into the offer pay calculation, ensuring that even smaller orders meet the minimum hourly threshold based on Shipt’s time estimates.

Payment arrives every Friday via direct deposit for the previous week’s work (Monday through Sunday). If you need to access your earnings faster, Shipt offers instant pay up to 5 times per day for a small fee of about 50 cents per transaction.

How to Maximize Your Shipt Shopper Earnings

Maximizing your Shipt shopper earnings requires more than just putting in more hours. Working smarter and understanding what factors drive higher pay are crucial.

Market dynamics, timing, and customer relationships all will play significant roles in determining your weekly income from Shipt. Here’s what you need to know.

Peak shopping hours typically occur during evenings and weekends when most people are off work and are planning their weekly grocery runs. Working during these higher-demand periods gives you access to more available orders as well as promotional bonuses that can boost your per-order earnings.

Order selection can also make a big difference. With time, you’ll learn to quickly evaluate orders based on item count, store layout familiarity, delivery distance, and customer tipping history.

Basically, learn how to choose the most profitable opportunities while avoiding time wasters. Additionally, as we discussed previously, good customer service can also impact your earning potential.

Shoppers who communicate well about things like substitutions, arrive on time, and handle groceries carefully often develop a base of regular customers who will add you to their preferred shopper list. You should also try to position yourself near popular stores during peak business hours to reduce the time between your orders, and give yourself the chance to batch orders together.

Why You Should Treat Shipt Shopping Like a Business

If you’re truly serious about making money as a Shipt shopper, the first thing you need to do is to properly align yourself mentally. You should treat your work with Shipt as you running a small business, not just a casual way to make extra money.

As an independent contractor, tracking your business expenses is one of the biggest things you can do to maximize your take-home pay. Probably your biggest expense as a Shipt shopper is going to be your mileage.

Every mile you drive for Shipt deliveries is tax-deductible at 70 cents per mile in 2025. That means if you drive 1000 miles for Shipt, you can deduct $700 on your taxes!

Mileage tracking in the past used to be a massive hassle - needing to wrangle pen-and-paper logs that take away hours each month you could be spending working. Today, automatic mileage tracker apps like TripLog automatically start tracking your tax-deductible trips when you start driving and stop when you stop, greatly simplifying the process!

Other deductible expenses can include things like your phone bill (specifically your business usage), things like insulated bags or other tools, car maintenance, and even a percentage of your car insurance. TripLog makes it easy to track these deductible expenses as well with OCR receipt capture easily creating expense entries for you.

Compared to other gig economy platforms, Shipt generally offers higher per-order earnings, but tends to require more time investment per order due to the shopping component. While DoorDash or Uber Eats drivers might complete more deliveries per hour, Shipt’s higher per-order pay can result in better hourly earnings.

Shipt Shopper Pay FAQ

Q: How much can I realistically expect to earn as a new Shipt shopper?

A: New shoppers typically start in the $16 to $22 hour range before accounting for expenses. More experienced drivers can earn significantly more.

Q: Do I get to keep all tips customers give me?

A: Yes, Shipt shoppers keep 100% of all customer tips. Tips are included in your weekly Friday payment and can represent a big chunk of your total earnings.

Q: Can I work for Shipt and other delivery/gig economy apps at the same time?

A: Yes, many Shipt shoppers work multiple platforms simultaneously. Since Shipt orders can take longer to complete, some drivers use faster delivery apps like DoorDash during slower Shipt periods to maximize their overall earnings.

Q: What expenses should I track for tax purposes?

A: First and foremost, track all business-related mileage (this will be your biggest deduction). Also track your phone bills, car maintenance, insurance, and any other expenses related to your Shipt work. Using a mileage tracker app like TripLog ensures you don’t miss any valuable deductions that can save you hundreds or thousands in taxes.

Shipt Shopper Pay - Conclusion

Shipt offers very solid earning potential for those willing to treat their work as a business rather than casual side work. With the platform’s $16 per hour minimum standard pay and experienced shoppers reaching up to $25-30+ per hour, it definitely can provide meaningful income for both part-time and full-time workers.

A big factor in regard to your success is treating your work as a business. Tracking your mileage and expenses diligently will net you thousands of dollars in tax savings.

You can maximize your tax savings by using a free unlimited automatic mileage tracker like TripLog! Download on iOS or Android today.

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