I drive grab on a part-time basis and I’m a student.
Here is the breakdown:
Monday – Friday: 7-8am (sporadically as it depends on how tired I am), 6-11pm
Saturday – Sunday: 2pm-3am
Total gross fares per week: $1100-1200
Commision to Grab: – $240
Incentive from Grab: $230
Car Rental, Season Parking (school & home), Petrol: $320 + $50 + $200
Total take home after accounting for everything: $620
Counting the hours put in, I’m effectively taking home $11-$15 per hour.
Currently studying in uni and doing this to feed my daily needs.
It can get really tiring at times when you have to drive after school and sacrifice your social plans. Usually your weekends with family are also burned. Renting a car also means that you feel guilty on days that you don’t drive. Its a $40-60 deficit for everyday you don’t drive. And every time your car is idling, that’s money down the drain. Well, you do get the car for personal use but honestly for me, theres no need for that as public transport suffice. I’m just doing this for the money.
They say that the main perks of doing private hiring is the flexibility, but that’s hardly true anymore because of how you get incentives to drive during peak hours. Grab has been cutting down on it’s incentive, the rate is almost half of what it was last month. We’re talking about $200+ lesser every week. But you just gotta live with it and make do with whatever you can get until the drivers reach their limit and do something collectively as a community.
All in all, there’s still money to be made. Even more so if you’re a full timer. If you go full out, 8k a month is not out of reach. But how sustainable is it to drive 12-14 hours every single day? Realistically, a disciplined full-timer who dedicates 8-10 hours with 1 rest day can aim for about 3-5k every month.