Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Many people choose a paper round as their first job – and there’s nothing to stop you making a bit of money getting paid to deliver as an adult. If you’re after a simple job to make some extra cash, start distributing leaflets, papers and brochures.
In a world dominated by online advertising, all sorts of businesses still need people for so-called door drop marketing. That means companies will pay you to deliver publications for them. You may be dealing with any printed materials such as leaflets, flyers, newspapers, magazines, catalogues, brochures or directories.
It doesn’t take much to get started if you’d like to get paid to deliver leaflets. And, as well as becoming an additional source of income, it’s a good way of staying active, fit and sociable.
Find out more about getting paid to deliver printed literature…
You won’t really need any entry qualifications to get paid to deliver leaflets. In fact, it’s a fairly straightforward job that pretty much anyone can take up, although a reasonable level of physical fitness will certainly help.
If you have restricted mobility or trouble lifting things, your options will be more limited. That’s not to say you’ll be ruled out from getting paid to deliver leaflets, though.
You’ll just need to make a realistic assessment of the demands of the job and your own capabilities before deciding whether it’s feasible to take on the role.
You might find that a car or other motorised transport may be a requirement – or a big help – but, depending on the work, other options may be suitable.
Getting a classic newspaper-round pushbike would be ideal for distributing materials. Or perhaps consider getting a hand cart.
If none of these are an option, that’s fine too. As long as you have a good pair of walking boots and a sturdy backpack, you’re good to go get paid to deliver leaflets.
There’s a number of ways to find delivery work; some of them obvious, others requiring a little bit of initiative. Think about some of these options:
It’s the obvious place to start looking for a job – and firms offering work may well think so too! Pop in to check if there’s any work available to get paid to deliver printed materials.
Check out the jobs pages of local newspapers. Some of these are online, but with many small, free papers you may be better off checking out the print versions.
Also think about contacting the papers directly. You may be able to easily secure a newspaper round, or the paper may be able to put you in touch with the distribution agent.
The internet is full of classified ad websites. Check out Gumtree and Craigslist, as they may well be a great resource for finding casual work.
More traditional firms may prefer a more traditional classified ad – look out for card adverts in the window of your local shop or post office.
Recruitment websites such as indeed.co.uk carry delivery jobs. You can easily set up an email alert on sites like that to find out when new vacancies arise in the field of work you’re interested in.
For a more proactive approach, go out there and ask. Try popping into local taxi firms, takeaways and other businesses to check if they need any help with distribution.
There’re large companies specialising in leaflet production and/or distribution, such as Letterbox Distribution or Dor2Dor.
Try contacting such firms directly to enquire about work opportunities.
Getting paid to deliver literature is a low-skill job with few requirements. As such, it’s unlikely to be highly lucrative.
Expect to be paid by how many items you drop off or by the number of rounds you undertake. If a company is prepared to pay for your time, minimum wage laws may come into play. Try these top tips for boosting your delivery income:
You may find higher wages on offer for delivering bulkier items, such as catalogues. Of course, those are heavy and your expenses are then likely to increase as you’ll probably need motorised transport.
If you choose a paper round, you can usually expect a bit more money if the paper also contains separate advertising leaflets. In that case, try to find papers that you know use these (usually the freebies).
Inevitably, some companies will pay you more than others. Therefore, perhaps brush up on your haggling skills before negotiating your wages.
Be smart about your work. If you manage to get two rounds in the same area, you may be able to do all the delivering at the same time. This means getting paid twice, from two separate companies.
Why not start your children in the world of work by getting them to help out on the round? You can spend time with them, keep an eye on them… and let them help with the leg-work.
New parents may even want to consider bringing the baby along – that Bugaboo pram looks like it can carry a lot of leaflets!
Try to avoid leafleting schemes where you earn by commission only. In those cases, the company will have to make money from something you delivered.
There’d be no guarantee of this happening and, in any case, it could be difficult for you to prove.
As such, this leaves the serious risk that you’ll spend hours dropping off literature, only to get nothing in return.
You also need to be careful as some leafleting schemes are scams, so do your best to determine whether the company you’re thinking of working for is reputable.
Be especially cautious if it’s an online company without proper contact details. If it only has a mobile phone number or no proper address listed (perhaps just a PO box), for example, it’s not a great sign.
A quick Google search may help you get an idea about a firm’s reputation. Look for things such as media stories and people’s opinions on forums.
You can get a lot of information on a business for free from the government’s website using details held by Companies House.
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I would like to apply for this job role for becoming a leaflet delivery person. I am a very keen walker and loves going out and meeting new people. I have done delivery before and I really enjoyed it, as it gets me out and about. My job role will include walking, delivering the leaflets and meet new people. I also a very good time keeper and a reloyable person and a good sense of humar. Thanks for taking the time and look forward hearing from you.
Many thanks
Kerry black
hi i am 53 looking to deliver the wirral Globe or leafelets or any thing really round the seacombe area of wallasey
don`t drive reliant on public trasnport
Its just my view but doing things like mystery shopping and sampling products pays well and you generally get to try some good food.
I am a team leader working on the distribution of the Exeter Yellow Pages for Deya. I have work for distributing the Yellow Pages for week commencing Monday 3rd September for people available to deliver Yellow Pages in the EX14 (Honiton) EX13 (Axminster) EX12 (Seaton) and DT7 (Lyme Regis) areas. Anyone looking for distribution work and able to deliver in these areas is welcome to e mail me [email protected] with their telephone number (preferred) or e mail address stating the area they would be interested in delivering and I will contact them.
Hello everyone, I’m in this lovely city London, from a few weeks. Waiting for my NIN interview and other documents (My passport is in a institution),while i want to earn some legal money to pay, and sign up in a school to improve my language skills. Those are my very first steps in this Country. I came to my parents who work and live from a long time hire. So my only one question is: Can i start some job like a Leaflet Distributor somewhere without working documents. I change my Driving license in DVLA already. ID from my country… Read more »
First of all thank you for the mention on your website. We do not have any casual or part time distributors in our company and only have adults working due to health and safety issues and the weight of some of the items we deliver. My recommendation would be for people visiting your website to apply for work with the big national newspapers as they will treat distributors well and pay on time. Newsquest, Archant,Northcliffe to name a few. The rest can be found by visiting the association for our industry at dma.org. and then go into the door drop… Read more »
Thanks Simon, that’s great information. The article has now been updated with the publishers you mentioned.
i was interested in passing out flyers can you give me a call at 216-254-3218
if anyone is interested in setting up a leaflet distribution company please kindly drop me a line
[email protected]
big companies such as MyHermes and Home delivery network are always looking for self employed drivers
Hello, I enjoy your weblog. Is there something I can do to obtain updates like a subscription or something? I’m sorry I am not familiar with RSS?