Shipt pay per order: a $16.64 median before gas and tax

Shipt doesn’t pay a fixed amount per order. The median in Gridwise’s 2025 data is $16.64 per order including tips. The median shopper finishes about one order an hour, so that works out to roughly $15 an hour after running costs and about $11 after a cautious tax set-aside.

The numbers

Gross is Gridwise’s 2025 median (base pay plus tips, 3,316 shoppers). Net is the midpoint of Gridwise’s own after-expenses estimate of $14 to $16 an hour, and costs are the gap between gross and net. Tax is the IRS’s 15.3% self-employment rate plus an assumed 10% federal income tax set-aside, both applied to the full net with no mileage deduction. All figures are rounded to the cent.

What one Shipt order pays

Every order comes with an “Offer Pay” amount set by Shipt’s algorithm. According to Shipt’s shopper pay FAQ, pay has three parts: offer pay, bonuses and tips. Shoppers keep 100% of customer tips, which are paid on top of the offer.

The most recent independent per-order figures come from Gridwise:

Medians can’t be subtracted from each other, but averages can:

Average per order (base plus tips)   $17.34
Minus average tip                   − $6.15
Average offer pay from Shipt         $11.19

Tip share: $6.15 ÷ $17.34 = 35.5%

On the average order, about a third of the money comes from the customer and two thirds from Shipt’s algorithm.

Gridwise’s figures are before vehicle costs and taxes, and the post doesn’t say how the sample was chosen. Glassdoor lists about $22 an hour for “Shipt Shopper”, but that rests on six self-reported salaries, which is too thin to rely on.

How Shipt prices an offer

Offer pay follows Shipt’s estimate of the time and effort an order will take. The factors Shipt lists are store size, drive time, time of day, holiday season, apartment versus single-family home, and how likely and complicated substitutions are.

The floor is the Shipt Earnings Standard: “every shopper across all cities will earn at least $16 per hour for each offer.” That is measured against Shipt’s own time estimate, not your clock. Shipt says the floor is higher in some higher-cost markets, “to more than $27 in select markets.” The offer card shows one amount, which is the minimum you’ll be paid for completing the order.

The gap between Shipt’s clock and yours shows up in the data:

Average offer pay per order          $11.19
Median orders per hour               × 1.02
Offer pay per real hour (rough)      $11.41

This multiplies an average by a median, so treat it as rough. Even so, the median shopper’s real hours earn well under $16 of offer pay, because real hours include waiting for offers and orders that run long, and the estimate pays for neither.

The formula behind the estimate isn’t published. Before 2020, shoppers were paid $5 plus 7.5% of the order. When Shipt moved to effort-based pay, an MIT Media Lab analysis of screenshots sent in by shoppers found that 41% earned less, by 11% per trip on average. Shipt said average base pay stayed consistent overall.

Checking an offer before you accept

Shipt gives shoppers this formula:

Offer amount × 60 ÷ estimated minutes = pay per hour

Take a hypothetical $13.50 offer that Shipt estimates at 45 minutes:

$13.50 × 60 = $810
$810 ÷ 45   = $18.00 an hour (on Shipt's clock)

Now the same order takes 60 minutes because of a slow checkout and three substitutions:

$810 ÷ 60   = $13.50 an hour

Shipt states that “if a shopper takes longer to complete a shop we do not add additional pay.” Finishing early doesn’t reduce your pay either.

Next, the driving. We assume a 12-mile round trip at $0.15 a mile, the midpoint of Gridwise’s running-cost estimates. For the 60-minute version:

12 miles × $0.15     = $1.80
$13.50 − $1.80       = $11.70 for the hour, before tax
Plus a median tip    + $5.83
                     = $17.53 for that hour

An offer that reads as $18 an hour turns into $11.70 before the tip once it runs long and the miles are counted. An offer right at the $16 floor has no slack for either.

What Shipt doesn’t pay for

From Shipt’s pay FAQ:

• Extra time: pay stays the same however long the order takes.
• Cancellations before shopping starts pay $0.
• Cancellations during or after shopping pay “a percentage of the original offer payment.” Shipt doesn’t publish the percentage.
• If an order is removed from a bundle after shopping starts, pay is adjusted down.
• On-time delivery pay, which is added to some at-risk orders, is lost if you’re late. Up to 30 minutes late, you get late forgiveness but not the on-time pay.
• Promo pay is added only to unclaimed orders at risk of being late. You can’t request it, and it varies by day and metro.

Some costs are entirely yours: time spent waiting for offers, your phone and data plan, parking, and the auto insurance Shipt requires. Ask your insurer how your policy treats delivery driving before you start, not after a claim.

Pay does move up in one case. If the customer adds items after you accept, pay rises with the extra effort (not the cost of the items). Pay on a single order doesn’t drop after you accept it unless the customer cancels.

Worked example: a four-hour shift

Assumptions (swap in your own):

1. 4 logged-in hours.
2. 1.02 orders an hour (Gridwise median).
3. $17.34 per order, base plus tips (Gridwise average, since averages are what add up over many orders).
4. 15 miles driven per hour. This is our assumption. Gridwise says only that distances are “typically short.”
5. Running costs of $0.15 a mile: the midpoint of Gridwise’s estimates of $0.08 to $0.12 for gas plus $0.03 to $0.07 for maintenance.
6. Tax of 15.3% self-employment tax plus an assumed 10% federal income tax set-aside. Your actual rate depends on your household and your state.
7. No bonuses, promos or cancellations.

Cash for the shift:

Orders:          4 × 1.02 = 4.08, call it 4
Gross:           4 × $17.34 = $69.36
Miles:           4 × 15 = 60
Running costs:   60 × $0.15 = $9.00
Net before tax:  $69.36 − $9.00 = $60.36
Per hour:        $60.36 ÷ 4 = $15.09

Tax, cautious version (no mileage deduction):

Self-employment tax:  $60.36 × 15.3% = $9.24
Income tax set-aside: $60.36 × 10%   = $6.04
After tax:            $60.36 − $9.24 − $6.04 = $45.08
Per hour:             $11.27

Tax with the IRS standard mileage deduction (76¢ a mile for July to December 2026):

Deduction:        60 × $0.76 = $45.60
Taxable profit:   $69.36 − $45.60 = $23.76
Tax at 25.3%:     $23.76 × 25.3% = $6.01
Cash after tax:   $60.36 − $6.01 = $54.35
Per hour:         $13.59

Full-cost view. Here the IRS rate stands in for the whole cost of owning and running the car, not just the pump and the garage:

$69.36 − $45.60 − $6.01 = $17.75
Per hour:                 $4.44

The same four hours read as $15.09, $13.59 or $4.44 an hour, depending on the car. An old, paid-off car where gas and maintenance are the real costs sits near the top. A newer car losing value with every mile sits closer to the bottom.

What changes the answer

All rows use the median $17.44 gross per hour and $0.15 a mile for running costs unless noted.

Miles move the answer most. At full vehicle cost, cutting from 15 to 8 miles an hour adds $5.32 an hour, against $1.13 for the median bonus effect ($18.57 − $17.44). Orders per hour come second. Location also counts: the floor is higher in some markets, and California and New York City have their own rules.

California and New York City

Shipt says pay in both places “may operate differently.”

California (Prop 22). Shipt guarantees at least 120% of the local minimum wage for engaged time, plus $0.37 per engaged mile in 2026 (up from $0.36 in 2025). Tips don’t count toward the guarantee. Pay is checked in 14-day periods. Any top-up shows in the app on the second Monday after the period ends and is paid the following Friday. To estimate your guarantee per engaged hour, multiply your city’s minimum wage by 1.2 and add $0.37 for each engaged mile in that hour.

The 2026 health care stipend pays $867 a quarter to shoppers averaging 15 to 25 engaged hours a week, and $1,737 to those above 25 hours. Spread over a 13-week quarter:

15 hrs/week × 13 = 195 hours → $867 ÷ 195 = $4.45 per engaged hour
25 hrs/week × 13 = 325 hours → $867 ÷ 325 = $2.67 per engaged hour

New York City. Since January 26, 2026, the city’s delivery-worker minimum pay applies to grocery apps. It started at $21.44 an hour and rose to $22.13 an hour, tips excluded, from the first pay period on or after April 1, 2026. It goes up every April 1. Shipt checks each NYC shopper’s pay against $22.13 per hour of active trip time every week and pays any shortfall as an “NYC minimum pay adjustment.”

Separate “NYC Supplemental Pay” isn’t guaranteed. To qualify you need all four of these:

• 98% or better on-time rate over your last 50 orders
• An average rating of 4.9 or higher
• 30 or more orders in the pay period
• No warnings for manipulating time or distance

Compared with the floors and benchmarks

The Shipt rows are gross. A W-2 job at minimum wage costs you no miles and withholds tax for you, so set it against Shipt’s $11.21 after-tax estimate, or the $4.44 full-cost figure if your car is newer. For a like-for-like look at other apps, the same cost method is applied to Instacart shoppers, to Instacart pay by chain and to DoorDash per delivery.

Getting paid, and what fast cash-out costs

The pay week runs Monday to Sunday, ending at 11:59 p.m. CT on Sunday, and direct deposit arrives the following Friday. Instant Payout costs $0.49 per transfer. You can make up to three transfers a day (counted 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. CT), up to $500 a day. To qualify, you need one successful weekly direct deposit first, a debit card on file, and acceptance of Stripe Connect’s terms. Tips of $50 or more and manually applied bonuses wait for the weekly payout.

Cash out after every average order: $0.49 ÷ $17.34 = 2.8% of the order
Three transfers a day, 5 days:      3 × 5 × $0.49 = $7.35 a week
One transfer a day, 5 days a week:  5 × $0.49 × 52 = $127.40 a year

Approved reimbursement requests submitted Thursday to Sunday are paid by the end of Wednesday. Those submitted Monday to Wednesday are paid by the end of Friday, as a separate deposit.

Taxes on Shipt pay

Shipt doesn’t withhold tax. It files Form 1099-NEC through Stripe, and you download it from Stripe Express. According to Stripe’s guide for Shipt shoppers, the threshold was $600 for 2025 earnings and is $2,000 for 2026 earnings, with forms issued by January 31, 2027. The 1099 total includes tips, order pay, incentives and instant pay. All income has to be reported even if you don’t get a form.

The End of Year Statement in the app’s Payment history shows tips separately from other pay. That split matters for the new tips deduction: up to $25,000 a year for tax years 2025 to 2028, limited for self-employed people to their net income from the business. The IRS’s final rules list “app/platform based delivery person” under occupation code 804. Neither the IRS nor Shipt confirms that Shipt shoppers qualify, so your tips may qualify, and a tax professional can tell you whether they do.

Self-employment tax is 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare), owed once net self-employment earnings reach $400. The IRS standard mileage rate for 2026 is 72.5 cents from January 1 to June 30 and 76 cents from July 1 to December 31. In the worked example, a mileage log is the difference between $11.27 and $13.59 an hour after tax.

This is arithmetic, not tax advice. Check your own situation with a tax professional.

Risks the hourly figure doesn’t show

In 2021, scammers called shoppers from spoofed Shipt numbers, got their passwords or two-factor codes, and redirected their payouts, with instant payout making the theft faster. Shipt says it will never ask for your bank details or password by phone, and it reimbursed the shoppers affected at the time.

The attorneys general of Washington, D.C. and Minnesota sued Shipt in 2022, alleging shoppers are misclassified as independent contractors. Shipt disputes the claims.

To sign up you must be 18 or older, with a U.S. driver’s license, a Social Security Number, auto insurance, a reliable vehicle, a smartphone, and the ability to lift 50 pounds. New shoppers may need to complete extra steps before offers appear. Alcohol orders need a separate certification and aren’t available in every metro. Shipt says availability and pay vary by location, so check what your area offers before counting on it.

Verdict in one number

$15.00 an hour

That is what the median Shipt hour leaves after gas and maintenance but before tax and depreciation: workable gap-filling money in a cheap-to-run car, and thin in an expensive one.