Some time ago, I saw a piece of news released by an “authoritative institution” stating that the average annual salary of Guangzhou food delivery riders was 150,000 yuan, with over 90% of riders earning more than 100,000 yuan annually…
Did you feel dumbfounded after reading this “authoritative release”?
The actual situation: Crowd-sourced riders, working 5-6 hours a day, have an actual salary in the range of only 2,000-3,000 yuan. Furthermore, the unit price in 2026 will be more than 30% lower than in 2025. How is it lower? It means that for the same unit price, you have to travel a longer distance than in 2025, or for the same distance, the unit price is lower.
The most absurd unit price I’ve seen recently is just over 4 yuan, for a distance of nearly 7 kilometers. Can they dare to say that running these deliveries can earn an annual salary of 150,000 yuan? Running these orders, the hourly wage is not even 10 yuan.
They actually dare to say an annual salary of 150,000 yuan? An annual salary of 150,000 yuan means earning 3,000 yuan per week. If calculated based on working 6 days, that’s 500 yuan per day? 10 hours a day, earning 50 yuan per hour? And continuously for 10 hours without interruption? Without going to the toilet or eating? Based on 5 yuan per order, can you run 10 orders in an hour? Isn’t this ridiculous? One order in 6 minutes, are those 6 minutes enough for calling, waiting for traffic lights, or picking up the meal? If the workload is 3 times greater during peak hours compared to off-peak hours, then you’d have to complete one order every 3 minutes… And this is calculated based on the highest unit price for crowd-sourced orders. If it’s those running on the Changpao or Fengpao platforms, the unit price is only 2-3 yuan per order, then you’d have to run 20 orders per hour? Continuously for 10 hours? As far as I know, they have “reward activities”, that is, by various conditions, they create a few order kings, which is not too difficult. After creating these order kings, they only count the salaries of the order kings, and then they get an annual salary of 150,000 yuan.
It’s extremely absurd.
According to someone’s revelation, the “riders” mentioned in the announcement only selected “individual riders” for statistics. One explanation is that they are “high-frequency riders” (skilled riders), another explanation is that they work “more than 6 hours a day” (the time is only counted when they are carrying the meal, other times are not counted). Another explanation is that they earn more than 6,000 yuan and are included in the part of riders who need to pay “social security”.
Based on my running for 6.5-7 hours a few days ago, the actual time carrying orders was only a little over 5 hours. Since it was Sunday, the number of orders was more than usual, and I earned about 150 yuan. That is, the high-frequency riders they mentioned can be the one in a million “high-frequency” type, the one who is constantly busy.
In short, this only counts the very few riders who “earn a lot of money” (I suspect that the number of riders being counted doesn’t even reach 10% of the total number of riders). Then these “negative help” institutions use it as the income level of the “riders”, and then fabricate a lie of “Guangzhou riders’ income increased by 20%+ in 2025, with an annual income of 150,000 yuan”, and the approximate conclusion is “there is no exploitation here”, there is no “oppression” here, and there is no damage to the rights and interests of workers. According to their statement, riders are a high-income group, and the delivery unit price can be further optimized (reduced).
Why do they do this? Firstly, to shift the blame (believing that the rights of riders do not need to be protected), secondly, to whitewash the peace (fabricating the lie of a significant increase in annual income), and thirdly, to deceive people into becoming free labor.
I haven’t run on Meituan for a long time, but the Meituan orders I’ve seen recently are as low as 4.2 yuan (the lowest last year was 4.5 yuan) per order, and the distance for the 4.5 yuan order can be as far as 3.8+ kilometers. That is, infinitely approaching 1 yuan per kilometer. (It is estimated that some have already fallen below 1 yuan per kilometer)
Taobao’s has long fallen below 1 yuan per kilometer, and even seen many orders as low as 4 yuan for nearly 7 kilometers.
This is the platform’s trick. Nowadays, Taobao (Ele.me, Honeycomb) crowd-sourced orders are still at a minimum of 4.3 yuan per order, but the range of this 4.3 yuan can be as long as 6 kilometers. That is, the range of 1-7 kilometers can be 4.3 yuan. As I said before, this can be said that “the rider is driving a taxi that only has a starting price but never jumps the meter”.
Look at this again, 3 kilometers to pick up the meal, 3 kilometers to deliver the meal, and then climb 5 floors, the 4.3 yuan starting price remains unchanged. Since I’ve been fooled N times, I’m afraid when I see this address. The 5th floor of this address is as high as the 7th floor of others… My legs are weak after climbing. Recently, I also saw a 9th floor, I thought there was an elevator, but it was a staircase. The customer shamelessly asked me to keep climbing up. I had to climb to the platform on the 4th floor and then go through the access control to continue climbing up. Finally, I stopped on the 6th floor and waited for him to come down. It’s really absurd. Half a year ago, the platform announced that it would provide subsidies for situations such as “climbing stairs, crossing rivers and bridges, and walking in residential areas”. But half a year has passed, and nothing has changed. Not only has the subsidy not increased, but the unit price has also been reduced. Not only has the unit price been reduced, but the “acceleration card” has also been cancelled, which is equivalent to a second price reduction.
Not only has the unit price become lower. The platform is also shamelessly doing “upgrades”. At the end of December, they did it once. At that time, “8 stars” were reduced to “6 stars”, and the original 6 acceleration cards were reduced to 4. Now, it’s even more absurd. They say in the promotion “continuously improve the score and cancel the acceleration card”. That is: if you want to maintain the “priority viewing of orders, priority dispatching privileges”, you have to accept more orders without any bottom line, no matter how low the unit price is, you have to accept the order, otherwise, the platform will deduct your points and prevent you from upgrading.
After canceling the acceleration card and without reward activities, you will lose 200-300 yuan per month.
Based on my data: The Taobao platform completed 272 orders yesterday, 4 more than the 268 in February, but the basic delivery fee was 1541 yuan, which is 13% lower than the 1720 yuan in February. The unit price has become lower, which does not mean that the distance run is shorter, but rather longer. Previously, I used to run for 5-6 hours a day. Recently, I often run for more than 6 hours to barely maintain 100 yuan on Saturdays and Sundays. It takes longer to reach about 80 yuan from Monday to Friday than before, and 100 yuan is hard to come by. Unless I don’t rest at noon (don’t charge). Now that the acceleration card is gone, I will lose 200 yuan a month. Their intention is obvious, that is, if you want to “get back these 200 yuan, you have to increase your working hours and continuously accept more low-priced garbage orders”.
So, that’s how it gradually becomes a slave…
Look at this 0.03 yuan acceleration card (some orders are 0.1 yuan, some orders are 0.03 yuan), 3 cents. If there are 3 cents on the road, would you pick it up? 1 dime, I don’t think anyone would pick it up. 3 cents? If you deposit 2 yuan in the bank, the interest is more than 3 cents. This is clearly insulting people with 3 cents.
When you use this 10-cent and 3-cent acceleration card, when you go offline, it also pops up a window to obstruct you, saying “Please stay”, which is clearly disgusting the riders. These so-called acceleration cards also say they are very “precious”, not every order has them. I think the platform should set up a “trash can” for these so-called “acceleration cards” and throw them directly in, it’s annoying to look at.
As I expected before, they are constantly reducing the unit price, deducting the value of labor, and then occasionally launching a so-called “reward”, and then withdrawing the reward, constantly challenging the riders’ order acceptance bottom line. It completely disregards the statutory minimum hourly wage…
Many people have said that every time after “upgrading”, “rectification”, “optimization”, and “talks”, the unit price is constantly reduced and the riders are disgusted. Now it’s even more awesome, just like “Are you happy” back then, visiting those people on the train, saying “Everyone here has bought tickets, everyone is on the train”, “Annual salary of 150,000 yuan, everyone is happy”.
The day after I saw the news about the annual salary of 150,000 yuan, I saw a group of shocking photos circulating in the rider group. The scene was really heartbreaking. I’m only sharing one of them: This person must have died…
Traffic accidents are seen every week, why? If your life has to earn 100+ yuan every day to survive, and the platform is reducing the unit price year after year, and more and more riders are pouring in, in order to “do better (more cheaply) than others”, to maintain the grade points, to maintain the priority order grabbing rights, the humble riders can only accept orders no matter how low the unit price is”, in order to maintain the goal of earning 100+ yuan, they can only operate at high speed, rush when they receive an order, and then the outcome becomes like that.
Attached picture: Taobao orders in April 2026, a large number of orders (long-distance orders) are less than 1 yuan per kilometer.
Like these: The system assigns an order to pick up the meal 2 kilometers, deliver the meal 6 kilometers, with a time limit of 40 minutes, the price is 5 yuan, will you do it or not? There are 12 opportunities to reject orders every day. If you reject 12 times, you have to go offline and can’t run anymore. This is equivalent to forcing the rider to run these “garbage orders”. If you run at an average speed of 15 kilometers, it will take exactly 30 minutes to go back and forth, earning 5 yuan in half an hour. If there is a traffic jam and you wait for a red light, the hourly wage will definitely be less than 10 yuan. You don’t think there are no traffic lights on these 8 kilometers, right? I calculate that you are riding at the platform’s permitted maximum speed (40 kilometers), and there are no intersections, no red lights, no traffic jams, and no turns, your hourly wage will only be 20 yuan, which is still lower than the statutory minimum wage. For such orders, if you don’t do them all, the platform will think that “you have an attitude of absenteeism”, so it forces you to go offline. And what is the requirement to go back online? It is said to be “turn on the automatic order acceptance function, and automatically accept whatever orders the system dispatches (regardless of the unit price)”.
The following is a screenshot from someone else (as long as you open “automatic order acceptance” and unconditionally accept orders, you can go back online, for example, if it dispatches a 4 yuan order 10 kilometers away, you also have to do it).
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