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Home » Delivery Apps » Beginner’s guide to Uber Eats: How to order, cancel, tip, and more!

Beginner’s guide to Uber Eats: How to order, cancel, tip, and more!

Updated August 30, 2023 By Doug HLeave a Comment

Uber Eats is one of the most convenient ways to get food and groceries delivered to your door. But you might be intimidated by the ordering process if you’ve never used Uber Eats.

In this beginner’s guide to Uber Eats, you’ll learn how to search restaurants and stores, place an order, cancel an order, contact your driver, tip your driver, and more.

Article contents

  • What you can order on Uber Eats
  • How to place an order order
  • How to cancel (Watch out for fees!)
  • Drop-off options and delivery instructions
  • Tracking your order
  • How to rate & tip your driver
  • How to contact customer service

What is Uber Eats?

Uber Eats is an on-demand delivery app for local restaurants and stores. It is available as a standalone app in the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.

You can also order Uber Eats in the Uber app by tapping the Delivery option at the top of the home screen.

the uber eats app home page, with 2 restaurant listings

Download the Uber Eats app to place an order

screen in the uber app with an arrow pointing to the delivery option

You can also order delivery in the Uber ridesharing app

What you can order on Uber Eats

Uber Eats has expanded into many types of delivery, including:

  • Restaurant
  • Convenience stores
  • Alcohol
  • Grocery
  • Prescription & pharmacy
  • Pet supplies
  • Retail stores

Tap through the Home, Food, and Groceries sections to see the types of deliveries available in your area. Each page also has a search feature to help you find your needs.

List of uber eats categories including restaurant, grocery, pharmacy, and more

The Uber Eats delivery categories available in Los Angeles

How to place an order on Uber Eats

Ordering food with the Uber Eats app is straightforward: You open the app, find a restaurant or store, create an order, and set your delivery address.

To begin your order, select delivery or pickup at the top of the screen. If you select delivery, follow the steps to enter your address.

Then, find a restaurant or store by scrolling through recommendations or searching for specific restaurants and cuisine types.

After you tap on a restaurant, you can select between delivery or pickup.

To add an item to your cart, tap on the item and select from any required options (adding toppings, extras, etc). The default quantity for each item is 1, but you can increase the quantity by scrolling to the bottom of each item’s page.

The “Add to Cart” button will be greyed out and untappable if you haven’t selected all the required items. The button will become tappable once you’ve completed all the steps necessary for the item.

To see your order, tap View Cart.

Delete an item from your order: Go to the cart page and swipe left to delete an item.

Modify an item in your order: Go to View Cart, then tap the item. Make any changes, then tap Update Cart.

how to delete an item in ubereats

Cart page: You can modify an item, delete an item, or place your order

Tap Place Order when you’ve finished building your order. Make sure to enter any promo codes before you place your order.

How much should you expect to pay?

The cost of an Uber Eats order includes the food price, service fee, delivery fee, tip, and taxes.

Prices on Uber Eats may be higher than ordering directly, but Uber does not add any markup.

If you want to consistently save on every order, subscribe to Uber One to get $0 delivery fees and reduced service fees.

  • How much does Uber Eats cost? How prices work

How to cancel an Uber Eats order

To cancel your order, tap Carts at the bottom of the screen and select the order. On the tracking page for the order, tap the three dots in the upper right corner, then tap Cancel Order.

If Cancel Order isn’t an option, you are too far along in the order and you must contact support to cancel.

Watch out for cancellation fee!

Uber can charge you a cancellation fee if:

  • You cancel your order after the restaurant has begun preparing your food
  • Your delivery courier is on the way to pick up your food
  • The courier has already picked up your order

Uber Eats does not guarantee a refund on your food if you cancel too far into the order process.

Order tracking page: Track order status, cancel your order, and get help

You may be charged a fee if you cancel your order

Delivery drop-off options: No contact, meet at door, meet outside

At checkout, you can choose how you want your order to be dropped off:

  • Leave at door: Your driver will drop your order off at your door for a no-contact delivery
  • Meet at door: Your driver will meet at your door to hand off the order directly to you
  • Meet outside: Go outside to meet the driver on the curb or at their vehicle

You can also write delivery notes to help your driver find your location.

Settings in the uber eats app to change drop-off options

Set your drop-off preference on the Checkout page

Don’t put food notes in the drop-off instructions!

One common mistake on Uber Eats is to leave special instructions about food items in the delivery drop-off instructions.

Delivery drop-off notes are additional instructions to help drivers find your location—they’re not intended to be instructions for the restaurant!

Delivery drivers don’t see the drop-off instructions until they pick up your order. If you put a note for extra ketchup or napkins in the drop-off instructions, your driver may not see it until they pull up to your address.

page in the uber app with drop-off options

Don’t put food notes in the drop-off instructions

If you have extra instructions that you want the restaurant to see, use the ‘special instructions’ box at the bottom of most menu items.

Select an item and scroll to the bottom of the page to find the special instructions box.

listing for an item on uber eats with a special instructions note box

Add notes for the restaurant in the special instructions box

Use special instructions to make requests to remove ingredients or add extra free items like condiments and utensils.

Tracking your order

After you place your order, an order tracking screen will appear. The tracking screen shows a few different statuses in the order tracking area: ‘Confirming order with restaurant,’ ‘Preparing your order,‘ and ‘Food is on the way.’

If you leave the order tracking screen, you can return to it by tapping the green bar at the top of the screen.

You can also find the order tracking screen by tapping Carts on the bottom of the screen.

A green bar on the home screen of Uber Eats leads to the order tracking area

Return to the tracking area by tapping the green bar on the home screen

steps to track and uber eats order: tap cart, orders, then track

Another way to track your order

How to rate & tip your driver

You can tip your driver on the checkout page before you place your order, or wait until after your order is complete.

Drivers receive 100% of tips. Tipping is not mandatory, but it is highly recommended.

Can drivers see your tip? Before accepting your order, Uber Eats drivers see an estimated payout that includes some or all of any tip you enter at checkout.

In other words, your driver can tell if you tipped or not, but they won’t know the exact amount of the tip until the order is complete.

So if you don’t tip at checkout, the estimated pay for your order will be low and the driver might not accept it.

  • Why tipping can get you faster service on Uber Eats & DoorDash
Uber eats tipping screen with options to tip by percentage or a custom amount

Tipping is highly recommended. Think of it as a bid for faster service

A tipping suggestion on an uber eats order that is in progress

If you don’t tip at checkout, your order progress screen will nudge you to tip

To rate an order: Follow the popup prompts after the order, or go to the Carts tab and find the order.

Tap the Rate Order button. Follow the on-screen steps to rate your driver and confirm the tip. If you don’t want to leave a tip, select “Done” without specifying a tip amount.

tip UberEATS driver

Make sure to rate your driver and leave a tip after the order is complete

Problems with your order? How to contact customer service, or your driver

If you have an issue with your order, you can contact Uber Eats customer service. There is a phone line and a live chat feature.

You should call customer service during your order to modify or cancel your order. Other than that, the best way to get help is to report an issue after the delivery is complete.

Call customer service during your delivery to:

  • Change your delivery address
  • Modify or cancel your order if the app won’t let you

Contact your driver to:

  • Give more drop-off instructions
  • If they are still waiting for your order, ask for extra free items like napkins or sauces

Use the Get help section of every receipt to report these issues after the delivery is complete:

  • Missing items
  • Order never arrived
  • Driver was unprofessional

Your driver can’t help you with most order issues, so contacting your driver about missing items or other delivery problems is not helpful.

More help for Uber Eats customers

  • Someone else’s food delivered to your door? What to do
  • Is priority delivery worth it on Uber Eats?
Save on Uber Eats: Use code eats-cws7s2 to get a discount on your first order

Originally Published August 30, 2023
Filed Under: Delivery Apps

About Doug H

Gig economy driver, writer, and expert since 2013. I created Ridesharing Driver to help drivers navigate all of the challenges we face in the on-demand world!

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