Hi everyone. 
This post will cover Actual Amazon Flex earnings - maybe I will do another one about other gig work, but for now it’s only about flex.
(mainly from a uk driver perspective, though it applies to us drivers too)
If you’ve ever been curious about doing Amazon Flex or what Amazon Flex earnings are like and you want to learn a little more about it, this post is for you. ( you can also find a helpful and free amazon flex earnings calculator below )
There is often a lot of, shall we say “misleading” information out there online, especially on places like reddit that make it look like you’re making £14 per hour and up doing Amazon Flex ( even Amazon Flex boast this online on places like Indeed - they really do ) and I really wanted to dispel this myth, because it simply isn’t true, from a certain point of view at least. Let me explain.
When people claim to be making £14, £17 or even £20 per hour they are 99.99% of the time referring to their gross revenue, not net profit.
Why do they do this? I don’t know, but you can take a good guess * hint, it feels good to brag *
I can tell right away most people on this forum would have gathered that right away, you appear to be an informed bunch to say the least. I won’t however, let that stop this post from being written. I think there are plenty of people out there who aren’t, and would like to gain more understanding towards their Amazon Flex earnings.
Speaking of gross revenue. Many Amazon Flex drivers focus on block pay without factoring in the real costs: fuel, insurance, and vehicle maintenance.
You will find the terms " base pay " and " surge pay " springing up quite a lot across the internet when talking about how much does Amazon Flex pay.
What does that mean exactly? Essentially it is the minimum amount (base) Amazon will pay a Flex driver for a block whereas “surge” pay is often a seemingly unlimited amount they will offer for a block, usually this happens when Amazon needs a bunch of parcels delivering asap. While it is not clear when, how or why they offer surge rates over base, many people try to predict or gamble on Amazon’s algorithm offering the surge rates with things like bad weather or busy times of the year such as the December/January holiday periods.
So what are the rough ranges of these types of pay? While I can’t give exact perfectly accurate figures, I can give you some pretty close estimations.
Base Pay: £47.50 - £49.00
Surge Pay: £60.00 +
Amazon Flex do offer blocks occasionally between these too, you can see figures like £52.50 for a 3 hour block, or even £55.00.
You’re self employed with Amazon Flex:
You’re not employed by Amazon when you do Flex - this means you are responsible for declaring to HMRC any earnings you make with Amazon Flex.
While I am not qualified to give any advice about this, I can at least make it known to you that if you do decide to try Amazon Flex, you are considered self employed. So it’s best to look into this thoroughly before hand.
So how do you know what Amazon Flex actually pay? How do you know if it is worth it? Well, it depends on what profit you have left after expenses.
Spreadsheets are currently the norm for these tasks but are often time consuming, prone to mistakes and some drivers just aren’t good with numbers, so they never end up using them.
Moreover, there are tools out there online that remove many pain points a spreadsheet comes with. Using an Amazon Flex earnings calculator can help you see the full picture and make better driving decisions.
A few things to consider when calculating actual earnings:
- Income vs. Expenses: Don’t just look at gross pay. Always subtract fuel costs, insurance, and maintenance to understand your net profit. Tools like an amazon flex earnings calculator let you instantly see the effect of these expenses.
- Fuel & MPG: Your car is different than other drivers and your fuel costs will also for the most part be different, it’s important to know what both numbers are so you can factor in your fuel expenses.
- Consistency Matters: Your earnings estimates are more accurate if your block schedule is relatively consistent week to week.
- Maintenance Costs: The cost of doing Amazon Flex does not stop at fuel and insurance. Most people completely ignore the fact their car will need repairing throughout this kind of work. More miles mean more running costs; it is important to factor this into your final earnings calculations for a true accurate profit & loss calculation.
- Quick Checks vs. Detailed Analysis: You can generate rough estimates quickly or do a deeper dive into each block’s mileage, pay rate, and location differences to identify the most profitable blocks.
- Visual Insights: Seeing a breakdown of expenses, net profit, or net hourly rate can immediately highlight which blocks are worth your time.
- Spreadsheets Are Tricky: Manual calculations often introduce errors or miss costs and are time consuming. They also rarely interpret the data for you. Even simple charts can reveal patterns and unprofitable blocks faster than rows of numbers.
By approaching Amazon Flex like a business rather than just picking up shifts, you can maximize your efficiency, reduce wasted time, and increase your overall earnings.
Let’s talk more about expenses’:
We already spoke about a rough range of what Amazon Flex will pay a driver, but what about the costs they will incur?
Maintenance:
This is a big one, because many drivers will ignore this completely. Afterall, your car does go through wear and tear every time you drive it, so you really should include it. The best thing to do here is use a set amount per mile to factor into your calculations. Typically £0.08 to £0.12 is a good cost per mile. This should cover a lot of the costs you might incur during your Amazon Flex venture.
Fuel:
This is an easy one to know, you just need to know the price at the fuel pumps, your cars real mpg and how many miles you do per block. I’ll spare you the math because there are loads on places online you can find that will do that for you.
Insurance:
Being in the UK, we are required additional coverage on top of SDP insurance to deliver with Amazon Flex. You specifically need Hire & Reward insurance, or maybe some kind of business insurance, just make sure it says in the policy you can do things like delivering parcels. The problem with this is, everywhere you go online almost, you will see people saying they use those " pay as you go " style insurance companies like INSHUR or Zeygo and I can tell you right away you’d be paying close to double in most cases by using these.
I’ve seen rates of £1.02 per hour and sometimes more. This equates to well over £100 per month if you complete a lot of blocks per week. Not worth it when you realise with other companies like Acorn or similar you can sometimes end up paying less than £50 per month for the same coverage.
Outro:
These are all the things you need to factor into your Amazon Flex earnings if you want to truly understand how much you are making. It is not sexy, it is quite boring actually, just as most admin or accounting work is in business.
As I mentioned, those places online where you see a driver claim they are on £17 an hour with amazon flex is pure ego talking, not factual real net profit.
Net profit is the most important metric with this gig. Net hourly rate is important too, but notice I said " Net Hourly Rate " and not “hourly rate” - subtle difference there but important.
Figuring out all of these numbers yourself with a spreadsheet can be quite time consuming. I used to spend a fair few hours throughout the week updating my old ones. That’s where free web applications to do it all automatically come in.
With this particular Amazon Flex Earnings calculator linked at the end of this post, you can literally have any blocks true profit broken down for you, and an entire years worth of projections output in 30 seconds, plus a whole bunch of other useful features too.
Free Amazon Flex Earnings Calculator:
If it sounds like it might help, then you can find our Amazon Flex calculator here - it’s free for everybody to use forever: Full Feature Amazon Flex Earnings Calculator
Alternatively if you want to learn more about this amazon flex earnings calculator then you can check this out for more information: More Information
Thanks for reading, I hope it’s been insightful and be sure to add any insights below in the comments you’ve found, that I did not mention, to help add to the value of the post for other people to view. I think this could become a really useful source of information to any new people considering gig economy work in general.
Cheers.