You can expect extreme highs and lows when you deliver for a gig economy app like Spark.
When it’s at its best, you can get orders on Spark that pay $40, $50, or even more. Some orders offer high pay from Spark and occasionally, a generous customer will leave you a huge tip.
The $50 order below is an excellent example of a high-paying order. With only 2 stops and 4.6 miles of driving, this is a dream order for Spark drivers.
$50 is an excellent order on Spark
Don’t let the highest-paying orders deceive you: Overall pay on Spark is around $10–$20 per hour. You may occasionally get an incredible order, and you might even get lucky to have a $1000+ week, but those results aren’t typical.
(Want to see how low Spark pay can get? See 5 examples of the lowest payouts on Spark.)
But if you want to see how high the pay can climb on Spark, read on to see some truly outstanding examples.
5 more examples of the highest-paying orders on Spark
Here’s the biggest one we found! $112—with a massive $100 tip—to do a 2-stop order. That’s an incredibly high tip.
A $100 tip! That’s a once in a career opportunity for most
The order below is an $85 shopping & delivery order with only 2 stops. $85 for only 2 orders is among the highest pay we’ve ever seen.
One of the highest-paying orders we’ve seen
Below, this $90 order features incredible pay, but there are other things to notice that make it more challenging than others. It has 18 stops, 19 miles of driving, and notes that it has 40–50lb items.
18 stops is a long delivery, but $90 is worth it!
With that many stops, it’s similar to a high-paying Amazon Flex delivery order. Not all drivers can lift heavy items and some won’t want to do 18 stops, but nearly all drivers agree that this is an amazon order.
The $78 order below took the driver an hour and fifty-five minutes to complete, and it had over 123 items! That’s a big order, but most would agree that nearly $40/hour is great for a delivery gig.
$78 to shop for 123 items
Here’s another big one for $68. The shopper said that the order was a shop & deliver that only took around 30 minutes.
$68 for a 1.7-mile order is great!
Below, this $42 order, is an example of a great order that you are likelier to see than some of the truly rare ones above.
Generous tips are a big part of the highest-paying orders
It’s also a great demonstration of the power of tips. Pay from Spark was only $19.98, and tips were $22.15. Without the tips, many drivers would skip this order.
The highest weekly pay on Spark: Over $1800 per week
The highest weekly pay that we’ve seen on Spark is over $1800 in a week. The driver below shared their incredible earnings from a 3-month period where they never earned less than $1100 per week.
The highest Spark earnings we’ve seen. $1800 in a week!
To get over $1000 in a week, you would need to do 50 $20 orders or 33 $30 orders. Assuming you work 6 days per week, that’s around 6–9 high-paying orders per day.
Those results are not typical. With base pay close to $8 and many drivers now struggling to get frequent orders, a $1000 week is unlikely. But it is possible!
How the earnings system works on Spark
Spark drivers are paid for each completed delivery. The payment for each delivery includes base pay from Spark, tips from customers, occasionally a bonus incentive or a pay boost from wait time.
Before you accept an order, you can see an estimated payout that includes delivery pay from Spark any tip left by the customer at checkout.
The minimum pay for an order is around $6.50–$8. Base pay depends on your area and Spark occasionally changes the amount.
Earnings will accumulate in your account as you complete deliveries. You can choose to receive your earnings in the Branch bank account, the One bank account, or a direct deposit to your personal bank account.
For the Branch account, your earnings are deposited each week on Tuesday. For the One bank account, earnings are transferred to the account after each delivery, making it a great option to get paid daily.
Why do some orders pay more than others?
The order pricing system on Spark is mostly a mystery because Spark doesn’t say exactly how it works, and frequent changes make it hard to pinpoint all of the variables.
Spark only says, “Earnings are calculated based on a variety of factors, such as distance traveled, order size, order weight, traffic conditions, and other factors.”
But from our observations and the observations of other Spark drivers, there are several factors that can make some orders pay more than others.
Urgent orders may offer higher delivery pay, and orders that were rejected by other drivers are likely to get a pay bump. Long-distance orders and orders involving several stops also usually pay more too.
Shopping and delivery orders with a large unit will get a higher delivery pay, and customers for large orders are more likely to tip. So it’s not a surprise that some of the highest-paying examples in this article are shopping orders.
Simple orders with a short delivery distance and few items usually only offer base pay. And if customers don’t tip, base pay is all you’ll get!
What can you expect from delivering part-time or full-time on Spark?
Most part-time Spark drivers working 25 hours per week can expect to make around $250–$500 per week.
It is technically possible to work full-time for Spark, but most will find it difficult to get enough orders to stay busy on a full-time basis.
If you want to go full-time in the gig economy, you’ll need to work for other apps that can fill out your time when Spark is slow.
It’s rare to go full-time on one app, but it’s possible to bounce between apps and make enough to match some full-time W2 jobs.
More help for Spark drivers
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