FAQ

Even if I only ordered $8 worth of food? That’s a 62 percent tip!

Yes. Even if your order is under $25, tip at least $5.

Even if the pizzeria is ten feet from my door? They barely had to do any work!

You’re paying for the privilege of not leaving your home, not directly compensating the deliveryperson for the minimum wage equivalent of his or her labor. The absolute minimum value you should place on that is $5, which you should tip.

Even if I order from the same restaurant six times a week? Those tips add up!

Who actually does this? Tip at least $5 every time you get food delivered.

Related The Definitive Guide to Tipping at Any Restaurant in America

Even if I’m broke and can’t afford a $5 tip?

The very idea that your quality of life will be damaged by an incremental expenditure of two dollars — the cost of raising your humanity-insulting $3 tip to an acceptable $5 — in a manner that outweighs the comparable value those two dollars would contribute to the likely underpaid, uninsured, family-supporting human being bringing you a chirashi bowl is utterly laughable. However! If it is, improbably, the case that those two dollars would really hurt you more than they’d aid another, maybe look into whether it wouldn’t hurt you even less to spend zero dollars, in which case you should just leave your fart-filled apartment and get your food yourself.

If have friends over and we order $80 worth of Laotian food — because Laotian food can be really expensive! — do I have to tip $16?

I don’t know! Percentage-based tips start losing a lot of their logic when we’re talking about what is, essentially, commodity service! But as long as you’re not tipping a hot cent less than $5, you are not in violation of the ethical principle around which this article is constructed. (Also, yes, you should tip $16.)

What if I think tipping is an illogical practice and I refuse to engage in it?

Odds are pretty good that at least one person in your life — a person who really matters to you, someone you rely on and value and love — comes to loathe you more and more every day, specifically because you both have and act on this garbage opinion.

What if the restaurant also charges a delivery fee?

That's not a tip. Tip at least $5.

What if it’s raining really hard, or there’s a snowstorm?

Tip $20. Or maybe $40. Or cook, you lazy monster.

· All Delivery Week Coverage [E]

The Argument Against Tipping, Explained