How much does a gig worker really earn? It's complicated
On New Year’s Eve, India woke up to gig workers logging off en masse, turning a day of celebration into a flashpoint over wages, incentives and the true cost of app-based work.The strike finally failed to really take off, as many riders chose to work after Swiggy and Zomato rolled out special incentives. Zomato offered peak-hour payouts of ₹120– ₹150 per order and waived penalties for refusals and cancellations, enabling riders to earn up to ₹3,000 in a day, according to a letter reviewed by Mint.
Swiggy, on its part, had dangled incentives of up to ₹10,000 for 31 December-1 January, with peak-hour earnings touching ₹2,000, its communication to partners showed.The strike, however, did manage to rake up a discussion on gig workers' payouts and work environment. This triggered a public face-off between platform executives and worker unions, one anchored in sharply different readings of the same question: how much do India’s app-based workers really earn?In a series of posts on X following the protests, Eternal chief executive officer Deepinder Goyal cited internal platform data to outline how delivery partner earnings are calculated.
He said the average earnings per hour for the company's Zomato delivery partners in 2025 was ₹102, excluding tips, based on all logged-in time, including waiting periods. According to him, partners who choose to work close to full-time around 10 hours a day for 26 days a month can earn roughly ₹26,500 a month in gross income.
Read on livemint.com