How to Dash Now Instead of Schedule: 2 Steps

If you’re in a location with a high driver density, getting the “Dash Now” can be a nightmare. As with most people, you’ll always need to schedule to start dashing for any day.

But is there a way to tweak this? Can you dash now instead of having to schedule or waste countless times waiting if the schedule doesn’t work?

Let’s go over this…

A Brief On How Dash Now Works

Dash Now is a feature on DoorDash that lets drivers instantly start dashing without spending time having to schedule deliveries.

The catch here is the “Dash Now” feature is only available when there is high demand for deliveries in a certain area, which you can tell by checking the heatmap before starting your delivery.

Keep in mind that this (the high demand for drivers) can be very common and sometimes a real hassle in some other locations.

Generally, when the heatmap shows any form of red, there are more available driver slots than taken. Hence, Doordash will have the “Dash Now” button available, allowing extra Dashers to instantly hit the road.

If the heatmap shows grey, there’s good balance between customers demand and available drivers. In other words, the driver slot in that location has been filled, hence you can’t “Dash Now.“

Editors note: The heatmap doesn’t necessarily tell whether there is more customer demand in a location or not. From our experience, it only tells if the available slots DoorDash sets in a location have been filled or not. Note that these available slots are gotten from historical events of the need for drivers in locations, and not real-time as most people assume.

How to Dash Now Instead of Schedule

To be honest, it’s not entirely possible to switch a “schedule” to “Dash Now.” There’s no trick or bug that lets you do this unless the Dash Now button voluntarily comes up by itself.

However, there are a few things you can do or keep in mind…

Keep an Eye on the Heat Map

As we said earlier, any color from red to dark pink shows that you can Dash Now since there are available drivers slot.

And we also know that Heat maps temporarily fluctuate a lot.

For instance, when someone cancels or misses their schedule, their slots would be available for a lucky driver to steal. If you’re lucky to catch up, why not? It’s better than being stuck with the inability to dash.

However, in reality, it would be quite difficult to keep up with this.

Qualify for the Top Dasher Program

Not something you may want to hear, but yeah, the Top Dasher program is the easiest way to Dash Now without a schedule.

Top Dasher is a program by DoorDash to incentivize drivers who keep up with the company’s definition of a good driver.

In exchange, they get to receive some benefits which include a better delivery priority, an early access schedule, and most importantly, the ability to “dash now” every time.

However, the major dislike for this program is the requirement which includes…

1. Having to get an acceptance rate of over 70% (which is the most difficult),
2. A more than 95% completion rate
3. A minimum customer rating of 4.7
4. A minimum driver history of 200 deliveries and
5. 100 deliveries in the last month.

Related: How to actually Raise Acceptance rate on DoorDash

Why You Should Always Schedule

Unless you qualify for the Top Dasher program or ar e lucky to stay in a location with fewer drivers, there’s no definite way to get Dash now without scheduling.

And if you can’t schedule you can’t dash.

The worst is how most people are not a fan of the available alternatives like the Top dasher program which has a tough requirement.

So how do you schedule?

To be honest, scheduling is not a long walk as most people assume. If you’re able to get the hang of how it works, you shouldn’t have a problem.

1. Open the DoorDash app
2. Once you’re signed in, click on the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) and navigate to the schedule tab
3. From the menu, tap on ‘Schedule’. This will take you to a screen where you can view all available time slots for dashes in your area.
4. Choose the date you want to schedule your dash for, depending on availability.
5. Select the start and end times for your dash. You can also select the region you want to dash in if more than one is available.
6. Tap ‘Save’ to confirm your schedule

Final Thoughts

Depending on your location, getting “Dash now” might be very rare.

The only way to actually bypass it is to struggle to get into the Top Dasher program.

And whether the program is worth it or not is heavily dependent on a lot of factors which include your location, and your approach to dashing. Generally, it’s usually best you test things out yourself.

Or…perhaps, go with scheduling.