Acceptance Rate Lyft (2023)

keeping high acceptance rate for lyft power drive bonus

For Lyft drivers, understanding the company’s Acceptance Rate protocol is crucial to understanding pay rate. Technically speaking, Lyft’s acceptance rate is the percentage of ride requests a driver accepts and completes each week (it resets weekly at 5AM on Mondays). A fully completed ride includes the acceptance and either dropping the rider off at their destination or marking the rider down as a no show. Further, rider cancellations do not count as “completed” rides and therefore do not count towards your acceptance rate. This rate is then converted to determine passenger wait times and keep them as short as possible.

There are a few reasons why a driver’s acceptance rate might decrease. First of all, and put simply, Lyft tracks all missed requests, and there requests count towards a driver’s acceptance rate. However, if a ride is cancelled due to poor connectivity or any other technical difficulties, Lyft will not count these missed requests towards the overall acceptance rate. Second of all, any cancelled rides count against a driver’s acceptance rate, though no shows and rider-cancelled rides do not.

Acceptance Rate is also affected by Lyft Line rides. Each pickup during a Lyft Line counts as one ride. If you pick up three different friends during one Line, this will count as three rides. Similarly, if Lyft Line rides are cancelled, they do not count as rides. However, if a Lyft Line is cancelled because of an incorrect number of passengers, then this ride is considered a “no show” and will still count as a ride.

What’s the difference between acceptance and cancellation rate?

Acceptance rate is the amount of requests you accept divided by the amount of requests you have received. This is actually Uber’s definition of acceptance rate. Lyft’s definition of acceptance rate is a little more nuanced, and we’ll discuss that in a little bit.

For example, you start your day, you accept your first request, then your acceptance rate would be 100%. Say your next request, your second request of the day comes from 10 miles away, and you decline that request. Then your acceptance rate would be at 50%.

As far as cancellation rate, that is calculated by taking the amount of requests canceled by you, the driver divided by the amount of requests that you have accepted. And a driver-canceled ride is any ride that you accept and then cancel. If you decline a request by tapping the “x” with Lyft or tapping “No Thanks” with Uber, that is not a canceled ride, but a declined request.

Also, if you let the 15 seconds pass and don’t touch anything on the screen when a request comes, that is also a declined request. When a passenger no-shows you on Lyft and you cancel that ride and accept the cancellation fee, your cancellation rate is not affected at all, but it is affected with Uber when that same thing happens. Although Uber will take these cancellations into account if your cancellation rate ever is flagged in the system. Passenger canceled rides have no effect on your cancellation rate whatsoever. Cancellation rate is only calculated using driver-canceled rides. An example of cancellation rates; say you accept 50 ride requests in a given week, and you cancel three of them. Your cancellation would be 6%.

How does your acceptance rate affect you?

With Uber, the only thing you really want to worry about is if you are declining or missing a bunch of requests in a row. You may be logged out of the app for 10 to 15 minutes, but when it comes to bonuses, Uber has moved away from acceptance rate requirements in most markets. With Lyft though, and their Power Driver bonus, there are a lot of drivers that need to maintain a 90% acceptance rate for the week in order to obtain that bonus. Although, we have heard for some drivers, Lyft is removing that acceptance rate requirement altogether for promotions.

Lyft calculates acceptance rate by taking the number of completed rides plus the rides marked as “no show”, and dividing those rides by your total ride requests. Again, this is a weekly calculation. This resets every single week. So one thing that sticks out in that calculation is rides marked as “no show”. I used to think that any ride that you accepted affected your acceptance rates. So if you accepted a ride and the passenger canceled right away, then that affected your acceptance rate. That would improve your acceptance rate, because you accepted that ride.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Passenger canceled rides do not affect your acceptance rate. The only time your acceptance rate is affected is if you’ve arrived at the passenger’s location, you’ve waited the five minutes, and you’ve marked the passenger as “no show”. That will improve your acceptance rate. There are three ways to negatively affect your acceptance rate. If you decline a request, if you miss a request, or if you cancel a ride. Also, there are no decimal points with acceptance rate. So say your acceptance rate is 89.5%. That will round up to 90%.

Here’s an example of a calculation. Say for the week, you had 45 completed rides plus two rider no-shows. That would be a total of 47 accepted requests for the week. Let’s say you declined five ride requests because they were too far away. That would be a total of 52 total requests for the week. 47 divided by 52 total requests equals 90%. And Lyft does not give you that calculation for the week. They just give you a percentage. So if you want to know your true percentage, if you want to calculate your true percentage, you’re going to want to keep track of the no-shows and you’re also going to want to keep track of your declined, your missed, and your canceled rides.

At the beginning of the week, you want to be aware of the total amount of rides you need in order to qualify for your Power Driver bonus. For example, I need 45 rides in order to hit the lowest-tiered Power Driver bonus, for me personally. At the beginning of the week, I know that I can miss or cancel five requests and still maintain that 90% acceptance rate. 45 divided by 50 is 90%.

FAQ

How do I know my Lyft acceptance rate?

Lyft uses acceptance rates to determine eligibility for certain features, except in California. You can view your acceptance rate in your Driver Dashboard.

Can Lyft fire you for low acceptance rate?

Bonus: Uber Rarely (if ever) deactivates users for not accepting rides. Many drivers are afraid to ignore ride requests because they fear being deactivated by Uber, Lyft, or whoever they may be driving for. Actually, Uber and Lyft don’t explicitly state that a driver can be deactivated for a low acceptance rate…

Does Uber care about your acceptance rate?

Your acceptance rate is no longer displayed in the Uber app. While it is important to accept trips when you are able, we no longer display your acceptance rate because it does not have an affect on your ability to earn promotions.

Why is it so hard to get a Lyft ride?

Uber and Lyft are facing a supply shortage, as returning and newly vaccinated customers again flood the apps, only to find out there aren’t enough drivers to serve them. It’s resulting in longer wait times and higher fares for riders.

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