How Long Before DoorDash Cancels Order

We never make orders with the purpose of them getting eventually cancelled and our money, refunded.

However, unforeseen circumstances are a thing.

They’re bound to happen at least every once in a while.

Now, for a situation DoorDash chooses to cancel an order, how long does it take?

This is all we talk about today.

How Long Before DoorDash Cancels Order

Several scenarios could lead to DoorDash cancelling your order.

And each one of them should theoretically have a different time range before DoorDash takes any action.

Before we get to how long it takes, let’s make a brief talk about these scenarios.

Note: If you cancel your order yourself, it only takes within 5 minutes (usually immediately) to have it cancelled. Keep in mind you’ll only have the option to cancel an order when the delivery hasn’t begun.

When searching for a driver takes forever

This is the most common reason and perhaps also the reason you’re here.

You see, the DoorDash Driver search algorithm works by sending order requests to drivers successively.

When an order is placed, a request is sent to a driver. The driver’s decision to accept or decline determines whether the request is then sent to another drive

This is one of the reasons it takes time to find drivers on the app. It’s slow due to its successive nature.

And It only gets worse when your order isn’t appealing to drivers.

You could end up in the loop of searching for drivers. Not something most people want.

Generally, in an unfortunate situation where searching for a driver takes forever, the company is likely to cancel your order after a while.

As we’ve seen, this is usually between 30 minutes to 1 hour of continuous searching.

Keep in mind that this may also vary by location.

For instance, the higher the density of drivers in your location, the more DoorDash may want to do some more searching for drivers.

This would lead to more time spent before your order gets cancelled.

That aside…let’s get into the next scenario.

Issues from the restaurant

One common situation that could lead to your order being delayed or cancelled is the restaurant.

And it can happen in many ways.

Just take a look at a scenario when the Restaurant doesn’t currently have the meal you ordered.

Or what about when they’re closed for the day, no longer available, or the restaurants deliberately cancel the orders themselves (it’s quite possible)?

Very common when you make night orders.

The funny part about this is how DoorDash doesn’t automatically cancel orders where a restaurant is available, but rather leaves the driver to go on to the restaurant.

According to DoorDash, Drivers are expected to use one of the special features on the app to individually let them know that a Restaurant is closed after they’ve visited the restaurant.

Editors Thought: Now, tell me why DoorDash couldn’t just create a feature that lets restaurants report when they’re closed. 🤦‍♂️

Well, in any of these scenarios, you as a customer would have a delayed order which eventually gets cancelled.

The time it takes before cancellation is usually a few minutes after the Driver has reported the situation to DoorDash.

Order taking too long to be delivered

As we’ve seen, a number of things could lead to an order getting cancelled.

But Issues like car brake down (which is uncommon, though), slow-moving traffic, and road blockage, are some things we can’t control.

They’re bound to happen to some extent.

But then in the event of any of these, how long does an order take to be delivered?

Or better off, cancelled. (Having an order delivered over an hour late is almost useless to most people)

Well, only when your order takes too long to be delivered does it get cancelled.

This may be a matter of an hour or thereabout.

Keep in mind that you could request a refund or at least some credit when an order is delivered extremely late.

Conclusion – What to do

To be honest, knowing the exact time an order takes before getting cancelled is something really difficult to do and almost impossible, especially when you’re looking out for a definite time range.

My advice to you is to always keep in contact with your driver.

A good driver should always be able to keep up with you, on whatever is going on.