Why DoorDash Schedules are Currently Full In Your Area…

As a delivery driver, you want to make every minute count since the amount of input is roughly proportional to your earnings.

But, what happens when you are stuck with an error that says “Schedules are currently full in your area, so we’ve added you to our waitlist”?

It can be frustrating, can’t it? This article will explain why and what to do when you get into a situation like this.

The Reason DoorDash Schedules Are Currently Full In Your Area

Referral programs, constant advertisements, word of mouth, and a number of other promotions have been really effective in making good turn up for new drivers on DoorDash and most delivery platforms.

The bad part about this is how the increase in drivers is not proportional to customers. In fact, the food delivery industry has been on a downtrend from its high during the pandemic.

This has resulted in a sort of competition for drivers and is most likely the reason for one of the popular scheduling errors on Doordash, “Schedules are Currently Full In Your Area, so we’ve added you to our waitlist”.

In fact, competition is the reason DoorDash began making schedules – something no other delivery platform does.

Now, back to the topic of the day, what does this error mean?

Well, it essentially shows that drivers are saturated in your locations. It could also be a sign that there have been a lot of requests from users at the time, hence leaving it out for a while would make things better.

Generally, this is common among drivers in particular locations or people who failed to schedule relatively earlier than others in the same location.

Note, however, that it’s not a general bug for all users.

Either way, below are some steps we recommend…

What to do When Doordash Schedules is Currently Full

1. Wait it out

Following what the platform says, it’s always best to wait.

Hopefully, this should be your last time encountering this.

And If you keep on facing similar issues, it’d be advisable to contact DoorDash support.

While you wait, however, you also want to keep an eye on the schedule always.

For instance, if someone is not able to meet up their schedule, it gets canceled automatically after 30 minutes, the moment shift is expected to be started.

This immediately leaves drivers in such locations with a free schedule to go after. If you’re lucky enough, that’s a gain.

To cover the time that should be wasted in waiting, you could be trying other platforms…

2. Harness other delivery platforms

While DoorDash is great, it shouldn’t be the only company you work it. You should always have a backup plan.

There are a number of other food delivery platforms out there such as Postmates, Grubhub, Ubereats, Just Eat, and the list goes on.

Now, most people usually claim DoorDash is the better platform for food delivery, but that’s not entirely true.

From my experience as a food delivery driver, the profitability of a food delivery platform is heavily dependent on the market. This is one reason you find some drivers earning a certain amount, and others finding it an illusion to see the same amount based on their market.

A market can also be profitable for one platform and not for the other.

This is the reason you need to always need to test out different platforms and find what works for them individually. Public opinions are less important here.

3. Qualify for the Top Dasher Program

Top Dasher Program is an initiative on DoorDash that rewards drivers based on a certain standard and requirement at the end of the month.

Generally, after every month DoorDash assesses all drivers’ stats and rewards the ones that meet the following requirements:

1. You need to increase your acceptance rate to over 70%
2. A minimum completion rate of 95%
3. Customer rating of at least 4.7
4. 100 deliveries in the last month
5. A driver history of more than 200 deliveries

No doubt, these requirements are quite difficult but may be worth it. You can read about our take on it.

Now, one of the rewards of the program is the ability to Dash Now consistently. Basically, this allows you to make deliveries without having to schedule ever again.

Editors note: Dash Now is a feature on Doordash that allows drivers to dash without scheduling orders. Normally, it only comes up when customers’ demand in a particular area is above available drivers at a time.

4. Change your Location

If you keep facing this problem whenever you choose to dash you may need to take drastic action by changing your location and see what happens. This helps most of the time.

You could try moving to a closer town or just moving a bit from your location.

Note that this is not against DoorDash’s policy unless you intend to dash to a different country. Then that’s where it’s against the company’s policy.

Final Thoughts

The issue of DoorDash schedules being currently full in an area is actually a temporal issue that can either be fixed by waiting or contacting customer care if takes a while. In the mean time, you may also want to look at other solutions we proferred.