Real numbers. Real driving.
I drive rideshare in Durham, North Carolina. Everything here is the arithmetic I actually run on offers between pings — costs, pickups, floors, and the difference between what an offer says and what lands.
Trackers, automation, and advisors do three different jobs. A working Durham driver sorts Gridwise, Solo, Everlance, Stride, Hurdlr, Mystro and Maxymo into their real categories, and shows which question each one can actually answer.
EPA combined MPG crossed with EIA's published gasoline prices, for the cars drivers actually run. The fuel gap between a 52 MPG hybrid and a 22 MPG van is real, and it is smaller than you think once wear is counted.
Two popular lies about acceptance rate: that declining is free, and that it gets you deactivated. Neither survives contact with the evidence. A Durham driver with 9,572 trips lays out what declining actually costs and what it does not.
There is no platform-level answer to which app pays more, because neither app pays you a rate. It pays you offers. Here is the arithmetic that ranks any two offers against each other, whichever logo is on the card.
Gridwise leads with demand maps and mileage logging. Solo leads with a pay guarantee tied to an hourly floor. Neither one scores the offer in front of you, and Gridwise says so itself. Here is how to pick.
Fuel takes a computable slice of every dollar Uber pays you, and the slice differs by more than seven cents a mile between Texas and California. Here is how to size yours, using EIA's published pump prices and EPA fuel economy ratings.
Every hourly figure published for Uber drivers is wrong for you, and most of them are quietly measuring a different hour. Here is how to calculate your own, with the three deductions the headline numbers leave out.
Dollars per mile is the most popular way to judge an Uber offer and one of the least reliable. Two offers at the identical rate per mile can be worth double each other. Here is what the number is actually good for.
Pickup miles cost you at the full rate and pay nothing, and pickup minutes stretch your hourly rate at the same time. Here is the arithmetic, the hard limit I run at 6.0 miles or 12 minutes, and the one exception I allow.
Nobody can tell you which app pays better in your market, because nobody has your car, your hours or your pickups. Here is a seven-day protocol for measuring it properly, including the survivorship trap that ruins most driver comparisons.
Your cost per mile is half measurable and half estimated, and almost no driver has ever worked it out. Here is the build, using EPA fuel economy ratings and EIA's published pump prices, plus the wear half that nobody wants to think about.
A Durham driver's actual method for deciding if an Uber offer is worth accepting: subtract your real cost per mile, count the pickup, and compare against an hourly floor you set yourself.
Early access
DriverSignal reads the offer card on your screen and scores it against your own cost per mile and your hourly floor — on device, before you accept.
No driver-account login · On-device analysis · You decide every ride