• Amazon is testing a new 24/7 delivery service, offering premium slots for faster shipping options.
• Amazon's new delivery model can add high costs, but increased sales volume could help turn a profit.
• Amazon is also testing premium, faster deliveries for an extra fee.

Amazon built the "Everything Store." Now it's trying to become the every-hour store.

The e-commerce giant is testing a new delivery system that breaks the day into 10 distinct windows spanning 24 hours, according to internal documents obtained by Business Insider.

That's a meaningful expansion from Amazon's traditional delivery hours, which typically run from 6 am to 10 pm. The new structure effectively turns delivery into a rolling, all-day cycle, with faster options carrying premium fees.

The initiative, led by Udit Madan, Amazon SVP of worldwide operations, began as a pilot program with plans to potentially expand across the network later this year, according to the documents.

Selling speed

If successful, it would mark one of the most significant changes to Amazon's delivery model in years, shifting the company from offering fast shipping as a default to selling speed as a premium product.

As part of the effort, Amazon has explored charging extra fees for fast delivery options, including 45-minute and 2.5-hour services, according to the documents.

By expanding delivery hours and introducing paid upgrades for faster service, Amazon is trying to turn the final and most expensive stretch of its logistics network into a new source of profit.

According to internal projections, Amazon projects the new delivery fees and higher sales volume will ultimately make faster shipping a meaningful profit driver, even as it expects hundreds of millions of dollars in near-term costs.

"Explore avenues to monetize (charge ship-fee) on the last 1-hr of delivery," one of the documents stated.

Starting as a small pilot

An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider the company is conducting a "small pilot in a few US locations" to test a new delivery structure that will "introduce shorter delivery windows" and provide customers with "more frequent delivery options throughout the day."

Amazon has not decided on the future rollout of the new program and is evaluating customer response before deciding whether to expand it more broadly, the spokesperson added.

This is unrelated to last week's launch of 1-hour and 3-hour delivery options, the spokesperson also said. That built on a limited 30-minute ultrafast service introduced last year.

"We are always innovating on behalf of customers and continue to find new ways of offering them lower prices, greater selection, and more convenience," the spokesperson said in an email statement.

Slicing up a day

Under the new system, Amazon divides the day into named, overlapping windows, each roughly three hours long.

The windows span early-morning slots like 3 am to 6 am through evening and overnight periods such as 8 pm to 11 pm and 11 pm to 4 am, each with internal codenames ranging from "Sunrise" and "Coffee" to "Nightowl."

The new system also gives Amazon tighter control over how delivery options are presented.

According to the documents, Amazon wants to show customers specific arrival times, making delivery feel precise and predictable, not just fast. For example, it wants to say the package "arrives in 45 minutes," instead of a window range, the documents showed.

The Amazon spokesperson said the company already provides delivery estimates like "arrive by," and, in some cases, more precise timing as it continues to improve accuracy over time. Amazon is not moving to "exact, minute-by-minute scheduling," the spokesperson added.

Amazon believes a steady, deliberate rollout of the new delivery service will help it better learn and measure the impact before expanding across the full network, according to one of the documents.

Speed is expensive

The plan to charge for faster delivery marks a broader shift for Amazon. For years, the company bundled new perks into Prime at no extra cost. Now it's increasingly charging for premium features, from ad-free Prime Video and Whole Foods deliveries to services like One Medical.

For the faster delivery fee, Amazon benchmarked similar services from Walmart, Instacart, DoorDash, and UberEats, one of the documents showed.

The Amazon spokesperson said this is not a shift away from "fast, free delivery" or "a change in approach." The Prime membership continues to offer "significant value, including fast, free delivery on millions of items, alongside optional faster delivery options in some cases," the spokesperson added.

The push for all-day delivery and speed, however, comes at a cost.

One estimate, based on expanding the service to all sites by July, projects more than $330 million in costs this year and over $780 million next year. A slower rollout, reaching full scale by September 2026, would bring next year's costs closer to $490 million, according to the documents.

At the same time, Amazon expects faster shipping to drive higher order volume and revenue, with the goal of ultimately making the model pay for itself.

The company projects the fully scaled program will increase sub-same-day delivery volume by at least 40 million units this year alone, helping offset the added costs through higher sales and new revenue streams, including premium delivery fees. Those fees are expected to generate at least $20 million in incremental revenue this year, according to the documents.

Over time, Amazon expects the model to turn profitable, projecting about $40 million in operating profit this year and roughly $260 million in 2027 if fully rolled out by September 2026, the documents added.

That helps explain why Amazon is moving quickly to expand all-day delivery. The company wants to "blitz scale" the model across its network this year after the current pilot test, according to one of the documents.

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• Pay for gig work varies significantly across apps, a new Gridwise report found.
• The report estimated hourly pay rates for ride-hailing, delivery, and other types of gig work.
• Taskrabbit, Walmart's Spark, and Uber ranked among the highest-paying apps, Gridwise found.

The gig economy has grown to include apps from Uber to Instacart. They don't all pay the same.

Average hourly pay on the apps varied in 2025, according to data analytics company Gridwise, which analyzed about 1 billion tasks across ride-hailing, delivery, and other gig work apps.

Workers for Taskrabbit, a platform where users hire independent contractors for yard work, home repair, and other physical tasks, earned the highest hourly pay rate at $38.

Spark, Walmart's delivery service, took second place at $23 an hour, with Uber just behind at $22.

DoorDash's hourly pay was $11, the lowest of the apps Gridwise analyzed.

Some companies say their workers earn higher hourly rates than Gridwise's estimates suggest. A Taskrabbit spokesperson said that its gig workers earn $49 an hour on average, although earnings vary by location. Uber said last year that the company's drivers earn $32 per hour while actively working on the app.

Gridwise compiled the estimates for its annual gig mobility report, released last week. The hourly pay data includes base pay, bonuses, and tips that workers received.

The data show that the best-known gig services don't always offer the best pay for workers, Ryan Green, CEO of Gridwise, told Business Insider.

Walmart launched its Spark delivery service as a test in 2018, years after competitors such as DoorDash and Uber Eats. Spark drivers pick up or shop orders at Walmart stores, helping the retailer grow its delivery business quickly.

"They just snuck up on the market and have rapidly grown into this space," he said.

Ride-hailing fares have risen faster than driver pay

Some gig workers have told Business Insider that it's harder to make money on apps like Uber and DoorDash than it was several years ago, due to higher competition and lower pay rates.

Most gig workers are responsible for their own costs, such as car maintenance. As a result, some gig workers have decided to accept only the trips that pay them the most for their time.

The price of gas, which has shot up in the past two weeks after the US started a war with Iran, is the latest cost pressure on ride-hailing drivers.

Uber and Lyft increased prices last year — and passed on a fraction of that hike to the drivers who make their businesses possible.

From December 2024 to December 2025, average customer ride prices on Uber and Lyft rose 9.6%, according to Gridwise. Over the same period, driver gross pay per trip increased 3.6%, and gross pay per hour rose 4.1%.

"We saw a modest increase on the driver side, and a much more substantial increase on the pricing side," Green said.

Last year, Gridwise found that weekly pay on most ride-hailing and delivery apps fell in 2024.

Delivery workers for services like DoorDash also saw an increase in per-hour pay last year — 3.2% — though their working hours on the platform rose about 17%, according to Gridwise.

Were you a gig worker in 2025? Business Insider is gathering information on gig worker earnings for a coming story.

You can contact Alex Bitter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501.