How your earnings are calculated, line by line

Trust in a driver platform comes down to one question: can you check the arithmetic. If your earning arrives as a single number with no working shown, you are being asked to take it on faith, and faith runs out.

Here is how a Topsy trip becomes an earning.

The fare

The fare is computed from the route: distance, time, the multiplier for the ride class, and any stops the rider added. The rider saw this number before booking and it was held for ten minutes while they decided. If it lapsed, it was recalculated in front of them.

This matters to you because it means the fare is not a negotiation you inherit. The number was agreed by arithmetic before you were assigned.

Commission

Topsy takes a commission from the fare. Your earning is the remainder. Both figures appear against the trip rather than only the total, so the split is visible on every job rather than described once in a policy document.

Waiting time

Waiting is recorded. There is a grace period after you mark yourself arrived, and beyond that the wait is counted. This exists because a driver waiting at a kerb is working, and unpaid waiting is how a good hourly rate quietly becomes a bad one.

Stops

Stops are priced into the fare before the rider books, so a multi-stop trip pays for the route it actually covers. If a rider asks for an unplanned detour mid-trip, that is not in the fare. You are within your rights to ask them to add it properly.

Payouts

Earnings accumulate and pay out on a schedule you can see in the app. The history is itemised per trip, so a payout can be reconciled against the jobs that produced it rather than accepted as a lump sum.

What to check

Look at the per-trip detail rather than the daily total, at least at first. If a figure looks wrong, the record of that trip carries the route, the distance, the time and the waiting. Raise it with driver support with the trip reference, and there is something concrete to examine rather than a disagreement about memory.