As a New Yorker, I’ve been annoyed to see how an identical Uber and Lyft rides could be cheaper or extravagantly costly for my buddies and me, even after we’re standing proper subsequent to one another.
And a brand new examine has discovered that these worth variations should not simply in my head ― there actually could be wildly totally different costs for the very same rideshare journey.
In response to a brand new Nationwide Bureau of Financial Analysis working paper, the identical Uber and Lyft journeys can have a “substantial” worth distinction of about 14%. The economists analyzed 2,238 actual Uber and Lyft journey requests collected by New York Metropolis in February to achieve their conclusion.
Right here’s what you should know, and the one easy motion you may take to economize in your subsequent Uber or Lyft experience.
Right here’s How A lot You Could Lose By Not Value-Evaluating Each Apps
Illustration: HuffPost; Photographs: Getty
What’s fascinating is what didn’t assist save riders’ {dollars} or time. On common, paying extra didn’t imply you waited much less for a experience, and neither Uber nor Lyft turned out to be usually cheaper.
“There’s an entire bunch of instances that Uber is dearer, and an entire bunch of instances that Lyft is dearer,” Michael Luca, a professor at Johns Hopkins College’s Carey Enterprise College and one of many examine’s co-authors, informed me.
Within the NBER New York Metropolis audit, the common worth hole between Uber and Lyft rides was roughly $3.50, which may add as much as some huge cash over a 12 months of rides. Luca famous that the greenback distinction relied on the size of the experience; longer rides usually had bigger worth gaps.
We riders are those who pay the most important worth after we don’t evaluate Uber and Lyft worth quotes. The economists estimated that New York Metropolis riders forgo about $300 million in potential annual financial savings ― about 6% of whole gross bookings ― by not evaluating costs between the 2 platforms.
Primarily based on the audit, prospects normally checked Uber first about 54% of the time. However it might assist their wallets to verify each Uber and Lyft. Luca mentioned the examine’s outcomes prompt that customers who took 100 rides would save about $177.74 per 12 months in the event that they all the time price-compared, in comparison with those that didn’t.
“All people could be paying that a lot much less in a world the place you could possibly type of frictionlessly evaluate between the 2 [apps],” Luca mentioned.
Very Few Of Us Evaluate Lyft And Uber Costs, However We Actually Ought to
Each Uber and Lyft informed HuffPost they don’t coordinate costs with one another. Lyft’s Sid Patil, government vp of the rideshare firm’s market division, informed me this 14% worth variation is because of “actual market dynamics.”
“At any given second, we might have extra drivers accessible in a particular space, totally different demand ranges, or totally different promotional exercise,” he mentioned.
Uber disagreed with the NBER methodology and mentioned the worth variations are how “a aggressive market works.”
“The underlying examine misstates that two journeys are ‘an identical’ based mostly solely on pickup and drop-off factors,” mentioned Harry Hartfield, head of product coverage at Uber. “This basically misunderstands that the worth is decided by platform-specific situations, comparable to what number of drivers are at the moment energetic, the place they’re in relation to the shopper, what number of different prospects are requesting related journeys, and extra.”
The NBER economists concluded within the paper {that a} dependable worth comparability software may assist riders extra simply price-check, which Uber’s phrases of use stop third-party providers from doing.
Uber’s Hartfield mentioned worth comparisons “are nonetheless very straightforward to do.”
But when worth comparisons are “very straightforward,” why are so few of us doing it? Luca famous that solely 16% of consumers within the worth audit who opened one rideshare app additionally opened the opposite, and he mentioned this discovering means that it might not be straightforward for customers to readily price-compare.
Luca thinks that, generally, many tech corporations imagine that if it’s more durable to go looking and discover for issues, “then prospects ought to have the ability to overcome that friction. And I feel that there’s a rising physique of proof that little frictions may truly pose actual limitations to prospects,” he mentioned, citing how a federal decide ruled in 2024 that Google broke the regulation by making it more durable for customers to make use of something however its search engine because the default.
“A part of the worth of the digital age is enabling extra frictionless search. So the extra we may do this, the higher off customers are going to be,” Luca mentioned.
Within the meantime, it’s as much as us riders to verify each Lyft and Uber if we have now them, in order that we will keep away from paying extra for the very same journey. Taking just a few further seconds to open up each apps is a bit more inconvenient, however as this examine suggests, the financial savings could be big.
