Is Amazon Flex worth it?

Amazon Flex advertises a fixed price for a fixed block, which makes it look easy to evaluate. A four-hour block at a stated rate divides neatly into an hourly figure. The trouble is that the figure ignores everything the block costs you.

The short answer

Flex is worth it if your vehicle is cheap to run, your depot is close to home, and you can book blocks at times you would otherwise not be earning. It is worth much less if you drive a long way to the depot, run a thirsty or expensive car, or take blocks in areas with long distances between drops.

Work out your own number

Take one block and subtract, in this order:

1. Fuel for the block, including the drive to the depot and home again. That is often 20 to 40 miles on top of the round itself.
2. Vehicle wear. A rough proxy is the difference between what the mileage costs you in the real world and what you claim back - tyres, servicing and depreciation are real even though the tax system handles them for you.
3. Any hire and reward insurance attributable to those hours.
4. Tax and National Insurance on the profit.

Then divide by the actual time, not the block length. If a four-hour block regularly takes you four hours and forty minutes plus a half-hour round trip to the depot, your denominator is closer to five and a half hours.

A worked example

This is an illustration of the method, not a claim about Flex pay in your city.

The headline £72 for four hours reads as £18 an hour. The number that ends up in your bank, for the time you actually gave it, is less than half that. Neither figure is wrong - they measure different things - but only one of them is your wage.

What makes the difference

• Depot distance. A depot twenty minutes away rather than forty is worth more than most rate increases.
• Vehicle economy. At 15p a mile versus 25p, an 86-mile block differs by £8.60. Over 200 blocks that is £1,720.
• Route density. A rural block with 40 drops spread over 60 miles pays the same as an urban one with 40 drops over 20.
• Surge blocks. Flex raises prices when blocks go unclaimed. Waiting for those changes the arithmetic considerably.

Compared with food delivery

Flex is more predictable: you know what the block pays before you accept it, and you are rarely idle. Food delivery has more upside on a busy Friday night and more downside on a wet Tuesday. Drivers who value a known figure tend to prefer Flex; drivers who can pick their hours precisely often do better on food. There is a fuller comparison in food delivery versus parcel delivery.

The honest conclusion

Amazon Flex is a reasonable earner for drivers with the right vehicle and a nearby depot, and a poor one otherwise - and the gap between those two cases is far larger than the gap between platforms. The only way to know which you are is to measure a few blocks properly.

JoltMile does that arithmetic per shift, including the depot miles, so after a week of blocks you have your own number rather than an estimate.