How Shipt actually pays you
Shipt used to be simple: $5 per order plus 7.5% of the receipt total. That flat formula is gone. Shipt no longer pays by commission — the old $5 base plus 7.5% of the order total is gone, and Shipt now uses "Offer Pay," an effort-based model where each order shows you an amount before you accept it.
Shipt's own corporate blog explains what goes into that number. When you review an offer, the offer card gives you an estimate of what it will pay — that's your "Offer Pay" — and it's your decision whether to accept, with the amount rewarding you for the effort it takes to complete the offer. Independent breakdowns describe the algorithm weighing things like estimated drive time, how long the shop should take based on item count, and order difficulty — heavy items, substitutions, multi-store runs.
The $16/hour floor (and the catch)
In 2023, Shipt added what it calls an Earnings Standard. Straight from the company: this is a guarantee that no offer will be less than $16 per hour, in every single market across the country, based on Shipt's time and effort estimates. In many of the busiest markets, where living costs are higher, that earnings standard runs higher than $16, to more than $27 per hour in select markets.
The catch is in the fine print: that floor is based on Shipt's estimate of time and effort, not a stopwatch on your actual shop. If traffic is bad or the store is a mess, your real hourly rate can land below the number the app promised.
What shoppers actually keep
Tips are not part of Offer Pay — they're separate, and they're yours. Shipt shoppers receive 100% of customer tips, which can be added at checkout, in cash at delivery, or in the app after delivery, on top of Offer Pay and any bonuses.
Tips matter more than most people expect. One analysis of thousands of tracked Shipt orders found the median Shipt shopper earns $16.64 per order, and tips are strong too, at $5.83 median per order, making up roughly 33% of gross earnings. In other words, a third of what you actually bring home on a typical order comes from the customer deciding to tip — not from the algorithm.
What a week on Shipt can look like
There's no single "real" number because pay depends on your market, the orders you accept, and how often customers tip. But putting the pieces together:
A new shopper working the lower end of the Offer Pay range, before tips, is closer to the $16/hour floor.
Add typical tips, and many shoppers land somewhere in the high teens to mid-twenties per hour, gross.
In busier or higher-cost markets, the published Earnings Standard climbs higher — Shipt says over $27/hour in select places.
That's gross pay — before gas, wear on your car, and taxes.
What comes out before it's really yours
Shipt shoppers are independent contractors, which means two things that salaried workers don't deal with. First, nothing is withheld from your pay — no federal or state tax, no Social Security or Medicare. Second, you'll generally owe self-employment tax on top of regular income tax once your net self-employment earnings reach the IRS threshold (currently $400/year), which covers the Social Security and Medicare contributions an employer would normally split with you. A tax professional can help you figure out exactly what you owe based on your full financial picture.
Mileage is the other big line item. If you drive to stores and to customers' homes, you can generally deduct that mileage as a business expense on your taxes using the IRS standard rate, instead of tracking actual gas and maintenance costs. According to IRS guidance reported for 2026, the standard mileage rate for business use is 72.5 cents per mile for the first half of the year, rising to 76 cents per mile for the second half. Always confirm the current rate on IRS.gov before filing, since mileage rates can be updated. That deduction doesn't put cash in your pocket today, but it does shrink what you owe at tax time — which is why keeping a mileage log matters as much as checking your weekly deposit.
How and when you get paid
Shipt pays shoppers via direct deposit every Friday for the work completed the previous Monday through Sunday, including pay for every order plus any tips earned that week. Faster cashout options also exist for shoppers who don't want to wait until Friday for money they already earned.
The honest bottom line
Shipt's $16/hour floor is a real guarantee, backed by the company itself, and tips genuinely push a lot of shoppers well above it. But "up to $27/hour" is a ceiling in specific markets, not a typical paycheck, and none of these published numbers account for gas, vehicle wear, or the taxes you'll owe as a 1099 worker. If you're sizing up Shipt against another gig, run the math on your own market and your own car — not just the number on the offer card.
Because Shipt pay lands once a week and tips can swing an order's value by a third or more, income can feel uneven even in a good month. That's exactly the kind of gap a tool like B9 is built for — giving gig workers a way to access pay they've already earned instead of waiting out the week.