What did you order, anyway?
Did you just order a single medium cheese pizza with nothing else? An easy run. Or, did you place one of those $80 party orders with five pizzas, drinks, sides, dipping sauces, and weird half-and-half topping instructions? Yes, that is more work.
Then it means: more time at the restaurant. More bags to carry. Possibly more stairs to walk up.
Big or complicated orders deserve big tips. Even if the percentage seems scary high—like tipping $15 on a $75 bill.
If the driver has to transport a feast to your door, that’s basically the deal. Especially if it arrives in one piece.
Is there a ‘minimum tip’?
Most would say yes, and I would agree. Like, if you ordered one small thing and live a mile down the street, giving less than $2 or $3 just feels… wrong. Delivery jobs are not the highest paid, and tips comprise part of your delivery person’s income. Not that you need to feel guilty about this—it is how delivery economy works.
So, unless the driver offended your cat, or ran over your mailbox somehow, a couple bucks minimum is probably the decent floor. If you can pay cash and round it to the next five awkward, even better. It’s not about being precise. In general, fair is the goal.
One last thing: this is not Uber Eats.
It’s easy to forget that pizza delivery does not need to be ‘in the same lane’ as Uber Eats. Most pizzerias are not taking their chances on app drivers—usually, these are people who are directly employed by the restaurant. Their income does not rely on bonus fees or suggested tips on an app screen, and that little bit extra you finance does ultimately get to them while pizza is just one industry that has a tipping based economy.
So, if you are minding how much to tip, think about all of it. How far, how hard, how messy of day it is. Think about what you would like to hope someone might have thought of if you were traversing potholes in a ramshackle truck, bringing hot food to a stranger’s door. Then throw in a buck. That would be the average amount.
By the way, once you have tipped your pizza delivery driver, maybe take a moment to consider hotel housekeeping too. That’s an entire other way of tipping… and it’s just as complicated.
