DoorDash’s own study of driver earnings suggests pay of just $7.17/hour after expenses.

DoorDash is out today with a claim that “overall earnings (including tips) increased from an average of $17.24 per active hour in August to $18.54 per active hour in October.” These figures are wildly higher than drivers report (which is why we’re collecting our own data).

They’re also wildly misleading: they blend tips and pay (yet again), do not account for expenses, and use a shady timeline. They also show just how easy it would be for DoorDash to do better. Accounting for tips and the most basic estimate of mileage expenses, the company’s own figures suggest hourly pay after expenses of just $7.17/hour.

Here are 5 things to know about the DoorDash figures:

1. Their figures blend tips & pay, suggesting that despite months of controversy, the company still does not understand the difference between tips from customers and pay from the company. Why else would they continue, after all the controversy on this issue, to still refuse to break out the pay versus the tip? Our data suggests tips are about 30% of driver income on average, meaning that the supposed increased from $17.24 to $18.54 in pay + tips is more like $12.09 and $12.97 in pay alone.

2. Their figures do not account for expenses. Driving is costly, with a per-mile expense of about 58¢/mile according to the IRS to account for gas, repairs, wear & tear, etc. Our data suggests DoorDash drivers put in at least 10 miles per active hour, which means an additional cost of $5.80. This means that the after-expenses pay figures they’re reporting are a change from a pay rate of $6.29/hour after expenses to $7.17/hour. This is less than the federal minimum wage — as an average. (And this is before accounting for things like the additional payroll taxes borne by contractors.)

3. There is no transparency, so everything could change tomorrow. Because the company’s pay model relies entirely on a black-box algorithm rather than transparent per-mile and per-minute rates, there’s no way to know if pay rates for a job today will be the same for the same job tomorrow. The same applies for a third-party study — because there is no transparency about per-mile and per-minute rates, pay can be constantly tweaked without disclosure to anyone.

4. Their figures use a shady timeline. The baseline figures the company is using are at the peak of exposure of the tip-stealing controversy, when tips were likely relatively suppressed due to public attention to how tips were handled.

5. They can do it better. If the company can run hourly figures, they can establish an hourly pay floor — and one that actually accounts for drivers’ expenses.