Review: Don’t expect big pay delivering booze for Saucey

What: Saucey provides delivery work for people who want to pick up and deliver alcohol, generally between the hours of noon and midnight

Expected pay: about $7 per delivery

Husl$core: $$$ (scale of 5)

Commissions & Fees: NA

Where: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego, Sacramento and Oakland

Requirements: Be over age 21, with a valid driver’s license and no DUIs in the past five years, and a smartphone

Review:

Saucey enlists drivers to pick up and deliver alcohol. Like many of the other delivery apps, Saucey is vague about how much you’ll earn, saying that you get a set amount, which varies by city, for each order and then 50 cents for each item in the order, plus your tip.

However, the site does provide one guarantee: If you deliver at least 50 orders, they’ll make sure you earn at least $350. That works out to $7 per delivery, which isn’t bad if a delivery can be accomplished in less than a half-hour and doesn’t require a lot of gas or wear and tear on your car.

The site also has a minimum pay for those who commit to working in “core blocks,� which means you agree to be on the clock taking whatever deliveries are ordered in a set area during a set time. Again, the company doesn’t specify exactly how much pay is guaranteed. But it appears that it’s at least minimum wage.

Having any guaranteed pay at all differentiates Saucey from most other delivery options, which often don’t pay you at all if you don’t have deliveries during your shift. Still, after accounting for gas and wear and tear on your car, you may be making just a shade over minimum wage, so this is just an average option.

Other delivery jobs that you might like include Amazon Flex and Roadie.

What their drivers say: (from Indeed)

“Great concept and customers love the idea. But pay was nothing when you are driving your own car, gas, insurance, and cell phone. At the end, you end up getting paid minimum wage. I don’t recommend this job for anyone until they increase pay and pay for your gas, insurance and so on.�

“Worst experience ever! very dangerous place to work, support very rude, less than minimum wage, you have to be getting cardboard from dumpsters like homeless to carry the products.�

From Glassdoor:

“Pay structure that doesn’t work because only about 30% of their customers tip. Eliminate post tipping (doesn’t make sense for delivery) or reinstate the old pay structure. Introduce customer ratings so drivers know which customers are abusing the platform by not tipping drivers. There are two reasons that I keep doing this: Business is slow enough a lot of the time that it gives me an opportunity to spend time learning things to move into an actual career. And I still make enough to pay the bills. And #2 , the other delivery companies suck really bad.�

“Can’t make much money due to pay structure. Drivers hope it’s slow because you’re making the same money whether it’s busy or slow (unless you’re so slammed that you can’t handle it all)�

“Pay structure has decreased. Before you could make minimum wage ($10/hr) PLUS commission + tips. Now if it’s slow, you’re only guaranteed minimum wage. Therefore you’re going in hoping it’s busy and that you’ll make more than $40-$60 a shift. Liquor partners have moved from local liquor stores in the heart of the area you’ll be delivering to, to chain liquor stores with early hours and inconvenient locations. Impacts how/what shifts you pick up.�

Kristof is the editor of SideHusl.com, an independent site that reviews hundreds of money-making opportunities in the gig economy.