What is Amazon Flex Earnings?
Working for Amazon Flex can be both enjoyable and monotonous. However, it's always interesting, since you get to meet so many characters during the work period. Of course, it is only a good job if you like to drive and want a part-time supplementary income. The Amazon Flex site claims that it's drivers will earn between $18 and $25 an hour, and if you take on Prime deliveries than you should earn more. Let's take a look at the facts and find out what you do earn in reality.
Base Pay
The base income per hour is $18, in other words, if you don't have any work you will be paid minimum income of $18 for just being available. Some cities and locations do pay more. The base rate can increase on certain days, and the rates increase anywhere up to $25 per hour. Black Friday is a classic example as well as Christmas.
Prime Now
Some service types include tips, so the more you deliver, the higher the chance of receiving a tip which bolsters the overall income model. In any event, you must never include tips as an income factor. Tips are a taxable item, so you must remember to include them in your tax reports.
Prime Now allows tips to be adjusted in the app, remember, all tips are paid through the app not in cash when delivering. The tip can be adjusted by the customer after the delivery is made.
Expenses
As with all car related operations, there are expenses, and these are calculated as follows. If you don't own a car and intend on buying, leasing or renting then you must include the monthly car fee as well. In this calculation, we base a used car cost into the estimation. This means that after 36 months you will have paid for the car completely if you work 4 hours a day.
Expenses include a plethora of details, such as direct car expenses and indirect costs from outfitting and maintaining new gadgets and items in the car.
The result was found to be:
- Expenses paid by the driver per hour: $12.21 (Buying a Car)
- Expenses paid by the driver per hour: $5.79 (You own a car)
- Expenses paid by the driver per mile: $0.19
Now let's look at how we reached this information:
Calculations for expenses per mile for a Toyota Prius C 2017 model
- Car buying price $24,686 (= $685.72 per month)
- Annual loan interest 3.79% (=$77 per month)
- Annual Car Depreciation 15% (= $264 per month)
- Annual Car Insurance $1,350 (=$112.5 Per month)
- Gallon of Gas $2.35
- Miles per gallon 50
- Annual Car maintenance $800 (=$66.66 per month)
- Weekly Car cleaning bills $25 (=$100 per month)
- Three-year indirect expenditure $2,250 (=$62.50 per month)
Total Monthly Expenditure (no gas) $1368 (rounded)
Total cost per hour for a 4-hour daily shift: $3.80 (Including gas)
Total Expenses per mile $0.19 (based on 20 miles/hour)
Hourly monthly expenses $12.21 (4 hours daily for 28 days a month)
The above calculation shows us that if you make $18 minimum, then your hourly income will be $5.79
Now that might look small, but remember, you factored in the full car cost, which means that you are buying the car with this work. For 4 hours a day over three years you end up buying the car as well as making $5.79 per hour. This is without tips and special days. So, the actual income will be higher.
If you already own a car, then you can remove the car value and payment schemes (but not the depreciation) from the list, and this will give you $2.11 per hour, and that makes your hourly earnings a minimum of $15.88
Bottom line:
Pay for car = $5.79
Car-free expenses = $15.88
Also, take into account that this is an important factor when planning your yearly tax returns, also, remember that the mileage factor will include the current federal deduction rate for mileage which is $0.535 per mile.
Payments
Amazon Flex makes payments twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. From Tuesday to Thursday is paid on Friday, and Friday to Monday is paid on Tuesdays.
On many occasions deposits will take up to 48 hours to appear in your account, this is the digital transaction period. So, if you don't see you're earning a day after it was paid, just be patient. If you don't see it after two days; contact Amazon Flex support through the "earnings" option in the app or contact Flex help.
Conclusions
Driving for Amazon Flex can be a very good source of income to finance the purchase of a car as well as just make more money if you own one. It is not a full-time job to get rich, but if you are prepared to work 2 blocks a day, you can expect to earn a minimum of $108 a day which is $2,808 a month for 26 days of work.