Comet
Uber and Lyft drivers in the US mostly argue about the same things: pickups, per-mile rates, airport queues. Drive in Moscow, Lagos or Jakarta and the apps work differently, and so does the advice. The math underneath barely changes.
Outside the US the apps differ a lot: riders bid on inDrive, Yandex splits rides into tariffs, and much of Southeast Asia rides on motorbikes. The question stays the same everywhere: does this trip pay for the time and distance it takes, pickup included, after what the car costs to run?
Most driving advice online is written for one market, usually the US. That’s fine if you drive in Phoenix and much less useful if you drive in Almaty. We spent a while reading what drivers in other countries post about their work, and the differences are bigger than the brand names.
Where the rider names the price: inDrive
On inDrive the rider proposes a fare when they request the trip, and nearby drivers can accept it, offer a different price or ignore it. The app runs in a long list of countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia, and the model changes the driver’s job completely. You aren’t judging a fare the app chose. You’re deciding what to ask for.
That makes one number more important than any other: what a kilometer costs you. A driver who knows it can counter a low bid with a price that covers the trip. One who doesn’t is guessing, and the rider’s opening offer anchors the guess.
Comet doesn’t read inDrive today. If you drive there, the most useful thing you can do is work out your cost per mile or kilometer once and keep it in your head when the bids come in.
Tariffs, coefficients and helper apps: Yandex Pro
In Russia and nearby countries, Yandex Pro splits work into tariffs like Economy, Comfort and Business, plus delivery. Prices move with demand, and drivers watch a demand multiplier the way US drivers watch surge.
What stands out is how many helper apps Russian drivers use. RuStore lists overlays that sit on top of Yandex Pro and evaluate an incoming order before you accept it, along with “radar” apps that map where demand is high. When we read through their reviews, drivers praised the same thing again and again: getting the information without leaving the work app. Their complaints were about trust: billing they didn’t expect, and figures that looked confident but turned out wrong.
One difference matters here. Some Yandex orders don’t show a fare before you accept, and at least one helper app shows an estimated fare anyway. Comet works with Yandex Pro, but when the card hides the fare, it shows no grade. We’d rather say nothing than show you a guess that looks like a fact. The cost is that you’ll sometimes see no grade where another app shows a number.
Two wheels: Jakarta and Southeast Asia
In Indonesia and much of Southeast Asia, a large share of ride-hail trips are on motorbikes. Riders book a bike the way an American books an UberX, through apps like Grab and Gojek, because a motorbike gets through traffic like the jam on this guide’s cover in a fraction of the time.
The economics flip in interesting ways. A motorbike costs far less per kilometer to run than a car, so a fare that would be a loss in a sedan can be a decent trip on a bike. Time matters more, because trips are short and many. The per-hour number is the one bike drivers live by.
Comet doesn’t read Grab or Gojek today.
Where fares are the fight: Bolt and South Africa, Nigeria
Read driver groups in South Africa or Nigeria and fares dominate the conversation: drivers comparing Bolt, Uber and inDrive trip by trip, arguing that the cheapest app wins riders, and calling for better pay. The apps are the same names US drivers know, but the margins are tighter and fuel is a bigger share of every fare.
That’s exactly the setting where grading an offer against your own costs pays off, because a trip that looks fine on the fare can leave almost nothing after fuel. Bolt is in beta on Comet, which means it reads Bolt’s offer cards but has seen fewer of them than Uber’s.
Australia and Latin America: DiDi
DiDi competes with Uber in Australia and across Latin America, and drivers there often run both and compare. In Australian driver forums, the talk is about when DiDi’s trips pay better than Uber’s in particular suburbs, which is the same per-trip comparison US drivers make between Uber and Lyft.
Comet reads DiDi’s Australian driver app in beta, including its kilometer-based cards with separate pickup and trip legs.
What’s the same everywhere
Strip away the app, the currency and the vehicle and every driver is asking the same question: does this trip pay for the time and distance it takes, pickup included, after what the vehicle costs to run? Bidding, tariffs and motorbikes change how you get the answer, not what the answer depends on.
That’s why Comet grades in miles or kilometers, in your currency, against minimums you set for your own car and market. It also reads the currency on the card before grading, and if it can’t tell what currency the fare is in, it doesn’t grade.
Where Comet works today, and what’s next
Today Comet supports Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Uber Eats and Yandex Pro, with DiDi, Bolt, Hopp, Empower, Taxsee, Grubhub, Spark and Instacart in beta. The full list and what beta means are in Which gig apps does Comet work with?
We add an app only after we’ve seen enough of its real offer cards, plus the screens that look like offers but aren’t. If you drive for inDrive, Grab, Gojek or another app that isn’t listed, screenshots of real offer cards sent to cometappsupport@gmail.com are the most useful thing you can give us. We won’t promise a date, but that’s how every beta app on the list started.
Miles or kilometers, your currency, your costs. Comet grades each offer before you tap and never taps for you.
