It's only the time between accepting a delivery and finishing it. Time spent waiting for a new delivery offer is not paid.
> After a few minutes of waiting, you are offered and accept an order and drive 10 minutes to get to the restaurant. You wait 5 minutes at the restaurant, then drive another 15 minutes to deliver the order.
> In this example, you spent 30 minutes actively on the delivery, which includes the drive to the restaurant, the wait at the restaurant, and the drive to drop off the order.
Waiting time for the next order is the same distribution for each one of them. So to minimize the number of pay gaps in a day, you will want to stretch out each delivery as long as possible.
If you are a true believer in the impossibility of good service in the absence of heavily tip-based pay, you set up incentives like this and your belief system won't ever be challenged.
> After a few minutes of waiting, you are offered and accept an order and drive 10 minutes to get to the restaurant. You wait 5 minutes at the restaurant, then drive another 15 minutes to deliver the order.
> In this example, you spent 30 minutes actively on the delivery, which includes the drive to the restaurant, the wait at the restaurant, and the drive to drop off the order.
https://help.doordash.com/dashers/s/article/Time-Earnings-Mo...