Gig Driver Take-Home Pay Calculator

The number in the app is gross. Your car takes a share of every mile and the IRS takes a share of what is left. This calculator turns a week of gig driving into net pay per hour and per mile using AAA's measured cost per mile and the 2026 federal tax rules, so you can compare platforms, hours and cars on the only figure that pays rent.

Weekly gross earnings (all apps, incl. tips) $1,200 Hours online per week 30 hrs Working miles per week 400 mi

What your car costs per mile

Federal income-tax bracket on top of SE tax

Net per hour, after car and federal tax

Net per week (0% of gross kept)

Vehicle cost this week (0¢/mi × miles)

Federal tax set-aside (SE tax $0 + income tax $0)

Net per working mile

Mileage deduction this week at 76¢/mi (second-half 2026 rate)

you keepvehiclefederal tax

Tax: 15.3% SE tax on 92.35% of (gross minus the mileage deduction), plus your bracket on profit after half the SE tax. State tax, the QBI deduction and other expenses are not modeled. Planning figures, not tax advice.

How to work out your real take-home pay

Start from a full week of gross. Add up every platform's payout including tips for one week, and the hours you were online, not just the hours on an order. Waiting time is work time when you are measuring an hourly rate.
Count every working mile. Include the drive to the first pickup, repositioning between orders and the trip home after the last drop. Platform estimates cover on-order miles only; Gridwise puts unreported deadhead at 30-40% on top of what apps show.
Price the miles at what your car really costs. Use AAA's figure for your vehicle class or your own fuel, maintenance and insurance numbers. This is a cash cost and it is separate from the tax deduction.
Estimate tax on the profit, not the gross. Deduct the miles at the IRS rate first (76 cents from July 1, 2026), then apply self-employment tax of about 14.1% of profit plus your federal bracket. Divide what is left by your hours.

Median gross pay by platform, before any of this

Gross medians from Gridwise's 2025 driver data, including tips. These are the figures the calculator's gross slider is competing against, and none of them is a net number.

Platform	Median gross per hour (2025)	Type of work
Uber (rideshare)	$21.92	Passengers; longer trips, more miles per hour
Lyft	$20.38	Passengers
Uber Eats	$15.03	Food delivery
Instacart	$12.21	Grocery shopping and delivery; unpaid in-store time
DoorDash	$11.63	Food delivery

Source: Gridwise 2025 gig driver earnings data, as cited in our gig driving guide and the State of Gig Work 2026 report. Rideshare's higher gross comes with more miles per hour, so its net advantage is smaller than the gross gap suggests.

Cost per mile vs deduction per mile: the two numbers people confuse

Your cost per mile is cash leaving your life: fuel, tires, oil, repairs, insurance, and the value the car loses. AAA measures it at about 77 cents for an average new vehicle driven 15,000 miles a year, 55.9 cents for a small sedan and 98.5 cents for a half-ton pickup. Gig drivers often do better than that because they drive older cars many more miles, which spreads insurance and registration thinly and because most of the depreciation already happened to the previous owner; 30 to 40 cents is common for a paid-off economy car, and that is the basis of the calculator's first preset.

Your deduction per mile is a tax figure the IRS sets for everyone: 72.5 cents through June 30, 2026 and 76 cents from July 1. You deduct it whether your car cost 35 cents or 98. For a cheap car the deduction exceeds the real cost, which is why the federal tax on gig income is usually lower than drivers fear, and why an incomplete mileage log costs real money: every unlogged 100 miles in the second half of 2026 is $76 of deduction gone. The mileage deduction calculator handles the split-year math on its own, and the DoorDash tax calculator runs the full federal return estimate.

What moves the net most

Miles per hour. At 77 cents a mile, 15 miles an hour costs $11.55 of every hour's gross; 10 miles an hour costs $7.70. The difference between a dense urban delivery zone and a suburban one is often larger than the difference between platforms.

Which app, which hours. The same driver in the same car nets different amounts on different platforms at different times. The net earnings dashboard exists to make that visible per platform from real trips, rather than from a weekly average.

The car. Moving from a 98-cent pickup to a 56-cent sedan on 400 working miles a week is $170 a week before tax, about $8,800 a year. The best car for gig driving article does the economics.

Stop guessing the miles

Every input above is an estimate until it comes from your own trips. GigOdo logs the miles automatically, takes your real fuel fills, and shows net per hour by platform at the end of each day. Free, with no platform logins.

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Take-home questions

How much do gig drivers actually take home per hour?

Less than the app shows. Gridwise's 2025 data puts median gross hourly earnings including tips at $21.92 for Uber rideshare, $20.38 for Lyft, $15.03 for Uber Eats, $12.21 for Instacart and $11.63 for DoorDash. Subtract vehicle cost (AAA's 2025 average is about 77 cents per mile for a new car) and 2026 self-employment tax of 15.3% on 92.35% of profit, and a typical delivery driver nets roughly 55-70% of gross. The exact figure depends on miles per hour and the car.

What is the real cost per mile of driving for gig work?

AAA's 2025 Your Driving Costs study: about 77 cents per mile for an average new vehicle at 15,000 miles a year, 55.9 cents for a small sedan, 98.5 cents for a half-ton pickup, including fuel, depreciation, insurance, maintenance and tires. High-mileage drivers in older paid-off cars spend less per mile, often 30-40 cents, because the fixed costs are spread over more miles and the depreciation has already happened.

How much should a gig driver set aside for taxes?

Self-employment tax is 15.3% on 92.35% of net profit (about 14.1% of profit), and federal income tax applies at your bracket on top, after half of the SE tax and your standard deduction. Profit means gross minus the mileage deduction, which at 76 cents a mile in the second half of 2026 is often larger than your cash fuel cost. For many part-time drivers the effective rate on gross ends up between 7% and 15%; a full-time driver with other household income can be higher.

Why does the mileage deduction differ from my actual vehicle cost?

They answer different questions. The IRS standard mileage rate (72.5 cents through June 30, 2026, 76 cents from July 1) is what you may deduct per business mile regardless of what you spent. Your actual cost per mile is what the car really takes from your pocket. A paid-off economy car might cost 35 cents a mile while deducting 76, which is why the tax bill on gig income is lower than the gross suggests.

Is it worth driving if I only net $12 an hour?

That is a personal call, but make it with the net figure, not the gross. Two things move the net most: miles per hour (dead miles between orders are the biggest controllable cost) and which platform you are logged into during which hours. Tracking both for two weeks usually reveals a 20-40% spread between your best and worst hours.

Does this calculator include state income tax?

No. It models federal self-employment tax and federal income tax at the bracket you choose. State and local income tax, where they exist, come on top, as does the extra 0.9% Medicare tax above $200,000. The vehicle cost is a per-mile estimate; your own fuel, insurance and repair figures are better if you have them.