Chicago
MEDIUM · sourced, not yet live-verified
Adjusted to MEDIUM in an earlier verification pass. Earnings figure is a blended estimate. Cited Gridwise blog provides national-median DoorDash data ($11.26/hr) but the Chicago-specific $18.50/hr value is derived (Gridwise national + ShiftTracker peaks + Uber Eats blended), not directly observed. Tier-3 source class. Promote to HIGH only with a Chicago-specific tier-1/2 source. Original rationale: Triangulated multi-source: Gridwise 2025 data tracking 115,771 Dashers nationally (median $11.26/hr DoorDash) + ShiftTracker 2026 Chicago-specific samples ~$24.75/hr DoorDash dinner peaks + Uber Eats $24.68/hr avg in dense urban markets including Chicago + Indeed Chicago Delivery Driver salaries (n>
Only HIGH-confidence cities carry a full verification audit. See the methodology for what each tier means.
Earnings (USD per hour)
Source: Gridwise 2025 driver dataset (national DoorDash median; Chicago est)
What would you take home in Chicago?
Take-home, weekly
$397
Take-home, monthly
$1,721
Gross, weekly
$555
Gross, monthly
$2,405
With a 1BR apartment outside the city centre at $1702/mo, rent eats most of your take-home (99% of monthly net).
Take-home is gross hourly minus an estimated tax/expense rate per country. See the methodology page for the derivation. This widget assumes you actually work the hours you set. For app-based delivery, a portion of logged-in time is unpaid waiting; the headline rate reflects engaged time only where regulators have defined it.
Cost of living vs. earnings
That works out to roughly 30 hours per week. Rent at $1,702 per month is 53 percent of gross monthly earnings, which puts a Chicago delivery driver in HUD's “severely cost-burdened” band by the federal definition (over 30 percent of gross income on housing). Measured against net take-home pay, which is what a worker actually has available to spend, the same rent is 74 percent. Affordable rent at this earnings rate, defined by HUD as no more than 30 percent of gross income, would be around $960 per month. Across the 46 cities in the dataset, Chicago ranks 13th for hours needed to cover rent, where lower is better.
Pay vs. local labour market
Gross hourly is 111% of local minimum wage, 50% of local median.
View Chicago on the interactive map
See full source citations for this city on the sources page. Read about how each metric is computed in the methodology.
Primary earnings source: gridwise.io/blog/how-much-do-doordash-drivers-make · archived