Delivery riding is real work with real costs, and most of what is written about it is either recruitment copy or a complaint thread. This guide is neither. It covers what the job actually requires, how the money moves, and what to check before your first delivery — using Suki Rider as the worked example, because we can state its numbers exactly. Most of it applies to any platform you ride for.

What you need before you start

The requirements are roughly the same across platforms, because most of them come from the law rather than the app:

• Age. You must be an adult. On Suki the minimum is 18.
• A valid Philippine driver's licence for the vehicle you will actually use. A motorcycle licence does not cover a car, and vice versa.
• A registered, roadworthy, insured vehicle. Registration (the ORCR) and the insurance the law requires are yours to maintain — no platform does it for you.
• A smartphone with mobile data. The app is your dispatcher, your map, and your proof of delivery. Data cost is part of the job's overhead.
• A government ID. Platforms verify who you are before you can accept work. On Suki you submit an ID and a selfie; the face check runs entirely on your own phone, and no face template is ever created on our servers or run against any database.

Verification takes time to review. Apply before you need the income, not the week you need it.

You are a contractor, not an employee

This is the single most important fact about the job, and the one most often discovered too late.

A delivery rider on Suki — and on essentially every platform in the country — is an independent contractor. That means no employer-paid SSS, PhilHealth, or Pag-IBIG: you contribute as a self-employed person, voluntarily, and if you do not, nobody does. It also means no company accident or health cover. Suki does not insure riders. You must keep the vehicle insurance the law requires, and we strongly recommend personal accident cover on top — it is cheap relative to what it protects.

Income from deliveries is taxable income. Suki provides earnings records to support your reporting, but registering with the BIR and filing is your responsibility, and none of this guide is tax advice.

If what you need is employment — benefits, a fixed wage, someone else carrying the risk — a platform is the wrong tool, and knowing that early is worth more than any earnings tip.

How the money works

Suki Rider keeps two balances, and the distinction runs through everything:

Commission is 20% of the delivery fee, deducted from your credits the moment you accept an offer. You need enough credits to cover it before you can accept — the app will not let you take work you cannot fund. You top up credits via GCash, Maya, QR Ph, or bank transfer, with a convenience fee of 2.5% (minimum ₱10).

Getting paid depends on how the customer paid:

• Cash on delivery: you collect the delivery fee in cash, directly, on the spot. It never enters the app.
• Paid online: the delivery fee is credited to your earnings balance.

You can move earnings into credits at any time, so once you are rolling, commission funds itself from what you have already earned. You cannot move credits back into earnings — treat a top-up as spent.

Withdrawing earnings goes to a verified GCash number or bank account: minimum ₱200 per withdrawal, a flat ₱15 fee, a daily limit of ₱5,000, processed in 1–3 business days.

Accepting, declining, and cancelling

Three rules, and they are different on purpose:

Declining an offer costs nothing. Not money, not standing, not future offers. An offer that does not pay for its distance is an offer to say no to.

Cancelling after you accept is what hurts. A business has prepared goods and is waiting for you; walking away lowers your reliability score and reduces the offers you see afterwards. Accept what you will actually complete.

Cancellations that are not your fault do not count against you. If the business cancels, your reliability is untouched — and the commission that was deducted when you accepted is refunded exactly, even if the rate has changed since.

What the app tracks — and what it does not

Worth knowing precisely, because riders are routinely told it is worse than it is:

• Offline: nothing. Going offline stops location collection entirely.
• Online and waiting: approximate location only, to find deliveries near you.
• Carrying an order: precise location continuously, including in the background, so the customer and business can see you coming. It stops when the delivery ends.

Route trails are kept for 90 days, visible only to authorised staff, and used to resolve disputes — not to monitor your speed, and not to discipline you.

Safety, in one paragraph

In an emergency, call 911 first and deal with the delivery after. Suki will not penalise your reliability for a delivery you could not complete because of a genuine safety incident, so there is never a platform reason to take a risk. No delivery fee covers a hospital bill.

Counting whether it is worth it

Nobody can honestly tell you what you will earn, because it depends on how many businesses and customers are active where you ride. What can be said honestly is what to subtract before you call a day's collections a day's pay:

• Fuel — the obvious one, and it scales with every kilometre you accept.
• Commission — 20% of each delivery fee, off the top.
• Maintenance — tyres, oil, brake pads. A peso set aside per kilometre now is cheaper than a breakdown later.
• Data, and the phone itself — a dead phone is a day off.
• The contributions nobody deducts for you — SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, and something toward accident cover.

A fee that looks good before that list can look very different after it. Riders who last are the ones who do this arithmetic per week, not per delivery — and who decline the offers that fail it.

Starting on Suki

If the numbers above work for you: download Suki Rider, register your vehicle, submit your ID, and wait for verification to clear. Coverage depends on which businesses have joined near you, so open the app and look before committing to anything — what is actually available at your location is the only forecast that matters.