Since Uber left the Philippines in 2018, a driver in Metro Manila who wanted app work has mostly had one answer: Grab. On two wheels there are Angkas, JoyRide and Move It. inDrive and a few others have been working to get a foothold. And now there is Intra Cab.
This is not a post about which app is best. It is about how the money works on each model, so you can compare them for your own car, your own hours and your own part of the metro.
The three models you'll run into in the Philippines
Commission per trip. The platform calculates the fare and takes a percentage of it. This is how Grab and the motorcycle-taxi apps work. Around a fifth of each fare is the figure most often quoted for the big platforms. On a ₱300 trip, a 20% cut is ₱60 you don't see — on a day of twenty trips, that is ₱1,200.
Rider-proposed price plus a service fee. inDrive works differently: the rider proposes a price, drivers accept or counter, and the two agree. That part is closer to how Intra works. The difference is that inDrive still charges drivers a service fee on each trip, so the agreed figure is not quite the figure you keep.
No cut at all. The rider pays you directly in cash and the platform takes nothing. This is how Intra Cab works — the fare you quote is the fare you keep, handed to you at the end of the trip. There is no wallet and nothing to cash out, because the money never passes through us.
Why the cut matters more than the headline fare
A platform with higher fares and a 20% cut can leave you worse off than one with lower fares and no cut. The comparison that matters is take-home per hour, not the number quoted to the rider.
Run your own numbers:
| What the rider pays | What you keep | |
|---|---|---|
| 20% commission | ₱300 | ₱240 |
| 25% commission | ₱300 | ₱225 |
| Service fee of, say, 10% | ₱300 | ₱270 |
| No commission | ₱300 | ₱300 |
Multiply that difference across a week on EDSA, with fuel at this year's prices, and it stops being small.
The other half: who decides the fare
Commission is only half the picture. The other half is whether you have any say in the price.
On a fixed-fare app you don't — the platform calculates the fare and you accept or decline it. When it runs a promotion to win riders, or when surge switches off before you reach the pickup, your earnings move with it and you have no say. When a trip means an hour in the rain on C5, the fare does not know that.
On Intra you send your own price on every trip, in pesos, after seeing the pickup, the drop-off and the passenger count. The rider sees your offer alongside other drivers' and chooses. If a trip isn't worth doing at a low price, you don't offer a low price. If the Skyway toll makes sense for the trip, you put it in your quote instead of eating it. And because there's no commission priced into what you quote, you can often come in competitively and still keep more than you would elsewhere.
What Intra does not do
In fairness, the comparison cuts both ways. Grab and the motorcycle-taxi apps have the riders today; Intra has almost none in the Philippines yet. They have in-app payments and promos; Intra is cash, direct from rider to driver, by design. They have been through the regulatory process that applies to ride-hailing and motorcycle taxis here; whatever franchise, accreditation or permit the law requires of you to carry paying passengers is yours to hold, and Intra does not issue or check it.
Questions worth asking any platform
Before committing your time to any app, get clear answers to:
- What percentage or fee do you take per trip?
- Are there incentive targets, quotas, or conditions attached to the bonuses?
- Who sets the fare — me, or you?
- How and when do I actually get paid, and in what?
- Can I drive for other apps at the same time?
If the answers are hard to find, that's information too.
Where Intra stands, honestly
No commission. No fees. No plans. You set your own price on every trip, the rider pays you in cash directly, and you can drive for anyone else you like at the same time — there's no exclusivity.
The trade-off is just as plain: Intra has only just opened in the Philippines, so right now there are far fewer riders than on Grab. Keeping 100% of a trip you don't get isn't worth anything. That's exactly why it makes sense to run Intra alongside what you already do rather than instead of it — it costs you nothing to have installed, and every trip that does come through, you keep whole.
Sign up to drive in the Philippines · What you need to sign up · An honest way to work out what you could earn in Metro Manila
Commission and fee ranges above are general industry figures, not quotes for any specific platform. The description of inDrive's rider-proposed pricing is based on how that service describes itself publicly as of October 2026. Always check current terms directly with any platform before signing up.