Shipt vs Spark for evenings and weekends with a day job

The short answer

If you want a published pay floor and a payday you can budget around, Shipt is the easier app to fit around a day job. It promises offers worth at least $16 an hour by its own time estimate, pays every Friday and lets you keep 100% of tips. If you care most about hourly figures and are happy to drive, Spark Driver, Walmart’s delivery app, has stronger independent earnings data, but its deliveries stop at 11 PM and it says far less about how and when you get paid.

Time cost: four to eight hours across Saturday and Sunday is a sensible test for either app. Weeknights are optional, and on Spark they end at 11 PM.

The two apps side by side

Both apps treat you as an independent contractor using your own car, and neither lists a minimum number of hours. The differences come down to how pay is calculated, how open each company is about payouts, and how late you can work.

If you’re also weighing restaurant delivery, our comparison of DoorDash vs Instacart for evenings and weekends covers the main alternatives.

How much Shipt pays, and what the $16 floor means

Shipt pays per offer. The amount depends on how much effort the order takes, not on what the groceries cost, so a big cart of cheap items can pay more than a small cart of expensive ones. Shipt’s shopper pay FAQ gives a simple way to turn any offer into an hourly rate: multiply the offer amount by 60, then divide by the estimated time in minutes.

Here’s an example with made-up numbers. Say an offer pays $24 and Shipt estimates it will take 75 minutes. That’s $24 × 60 ÷ 75, or $19.20 an hour before tips. Under what Shipt calls its Earnings Standard, no offer in any US market should pay less than $16 an hour, so a 75-minute job could not be offered for less than $20.

The floor is based on Shipt’s estimated time, not the time you actually spend. If half the list is out of stock, the parking lot is full and the customer’s building has a slow elevator, your real hourly rate drops below the figure on screen. You keep every dollar of customer tips on top of the offer, and Shipt adds promo pay to orders that are at high risk of being rescheduled several times.

We couldn’t find an independent hourly figure for Shipt that we would trust, so the floor and the formula are your best guides. For your first couple of weekends, run the formula on every offer and note how long each order really took.

What Spark pays, according to the data available

Spark’s driver FAQ says trip pay depends on distance, on order size (more items pay more) and on extras such as apartment deliveries or heavy items. You keep 100% of customer-confirmed tips, and Spark says the earnings snapshots it shows are only estimates.

The best outside figures come from Gridwise, which sells a driver-tracking app, so keep that in mind. Its 2025 data from more than 500,000 Spark drivers shows a median of $21.74 an hour in trip pay including tips, or $22.57 with incentives, before gas and car costs. Gridwise publishes no comparable figure for Shipt, so it would be unfair to say Spark simply pays more. The fair comparison is that Spark’s numbers come from a large outside sample, while Shipt’s come from its own promise.

Eligible drivers also get some perks: fuel discounts through Walmart+, cash-back offers through OnePay, and reward tiers that unlock phone-plan discounts and a free month of Walmart+.

Getting your money

If you need to know exactly when money lands, Shipt is easier to plan around. It pays by direct deposit through Stripe Connect into a checking account every Friday, covering orders and tips from the previous Monday to Sunday. Its Instant Payout option costs $0.49 per transfer, allows up to three transfers and $500 a day, and usually arrives within an hour. You need one successful weekly deposit before you can use it, and tips of $50 or more go into the weekly payout instead.

Spark only says earnings are paid “instantly or disbursed weekly, depending on your account setup,” through outside companies with their own terms. It doesn’t publish a payday or fees, so read those terms in the app before you choose how to get paid.

What you need to sign up

For Shipt you need to be 18 or older and have a valid US driver’s license, a Social Security number, auto insurance, a mailing address, a reliable vehicle and an iPhone on iOS 13 or newer or an Android phone on 7.0 or newer. You also need to be able to lift 50 pounds, which deserves some thought if your day job already leaves your back tired.

Spark asks for a valid REAL ID-compliant or state-issued license in your name, a Social Security card, and proof of insurance showing your name, the expiration date and the vehicle you’ll deliver with. Screening may include driving-record and criminal background checks.

Make one call before your first shift on either app. Personal auto policies often exclude business use, so ask your insurer how it treats delivery driving before you have a fender bender, not after.

Both apps have settled over driver pay

In February 2026 Walmart agreed to a $100 million judgment with the FTC and states. The case alleged that Spark drivers didn’t receive their promised base pay, tips and earned incentives. Of the total, $79 million goes to drivers directly. Eligible drivers are contacted by email and don’t need to file anything, though not every driver will be paid. Walmart must also run an earnings verification program for 10 years.

Shipt’s case is older and smaller. It settled a California case for $14.5 million over contractor classification and unpaid expenses, while denying the claims, and the claim deadline passed in 2023. Neither case is a reason to stay away from these apps, but together they make a good argument for screenshotting your offers and checking your pay against them each week.

Before you start: your day job

Rules on outside work vary from one employer to the next. Read your employee handbook or contract for anything on outside work, conflicts of interest or moonlighting. If you work in retail or grocery yourself, check especially carefully whether shopping for a competitor’s customers could cause a problem. Keep the two jobs separate: don’t take offers on a work phone, don’t check the app during work hours, and don’t let a Friday afternoon order make you late for anything. Our guide to making side hustles work around a full-time job covers this in more depth.

Taxes when you already have a W-2 job

You’re paid as an independent contractor, so plan to set money aside for tax yourself. Federal self-employment tax of 15.3% applies once your net earnings from this work reach $400. The reporting forms are changing: the 1099-NEC threshold rises to $2,000 for payments made in 2026. You owe tax on everything you earn whether or not a form arrives.

Two things help. First, track every mile. The IRS standard mileage rate is 72.5¢ a mile for January to June 2026 and 76¢ from July 1, and for a driving gig that deduction can make a real difference. Second, if you’d rather skip quarterly estimated payments, the IRS says employees can ask their employer to withhold more by filing a new Form W-4 with an additional amount. For most people with a day job, that’s the simplest route.

You may also hear about the new federal deduction for tips. It only covers listed occupations, so ask a tax professional whether it applies to you. This is general information, not tax advice, and a short conversation with a preparer in your first year is money well spent.

A realistic weekend schedule

Here’s one way to fit it in without giving up the whole weekend:

• Saturday, 9 AM to noon: a three-hour block of orders while the household has a slow morning.
• Saturday afternoon and evening: off, for errands, kids’ activities and rest.
• Sunday, 10 AM to 1 PM: a second block, which suits people who like their Sunday evenings quiet.
• Sunday, 15 minutes afterwards: log your miles, screenshot your earnings and run the Shipt formula on the week’s offers.

If you’d rather keep your weekend days for family, Shipt also works in the evening wherever stores stay open late. On Spark, a 7 PM to 10 PM block fits comfortably inside the 11 PM cutoff. For more ideas, see our list of weekend side hustles that fit around a full-time job.

Will this wear you out?

Grocery work is more physical than it looks. Lifting cases of water, hunting for substitutes and carrying bags up stairs wears you out differently from a day at a desk, and it builds up over a weekend. Long blocks also make it easy to keep accepting offers well after the pay stops justifying the effort. Set a stop time before you start and stick to it, even when the app is busy.

The seasons matter too. Holiday weeks, summer trips and the start of school terms change both demand and your own free time, so judge an app over several ordinary weekends rather than one unusual one.

Scaling it gently

Spark says you may drive for any delivery service you choose. So the gentle way to grow is to have a second app open in the same block and take whichever offer pays better per minute, rather than adding hours. If you go that way, our comparison of Grubhub, DoorDash and Uber Eats for evenings and weekends can help you pick the second app. If you do add time, make it one weeknight block rather than a third weekend block, and check after a month whether your Mondays still feel manageable.