Uber vs Bolt — Cheapest ride-hailing service in South Africa

Bolt’s main ride-hailing service is cheaper in five major cities in South Africa than Uber’s, a comparison by MyBroadband has shown.

Uber and Bolt are South Africa’s two most popular e-hailing apps.

When MyBroadband last compared their pricing in October 2020 and September 2021, Bolt was more affordable than Uber.

We conducted an updated comparison over the same routes to see if this has changed.

Our comparison started with getting estimates for fares over three trips in South Africa’s five most populated cities — Cape Town, Durban, Gqeberha, Johannesburg, and Pretoria.

Due to their proximity to each other, Johannesburg and Pretoria were treated as one region.

The three theoretical trips we chose for each of the four regions covered short, medium, and long distances.

Bolt was the cheapest for 11 of the 12 trip estimates and the most affordable overall.

However, the difference in pricing between the operators has narrowed somewhat.

Over a total distance of 448km, the combined cost of the three trips in the five cities was R4,254 for Uber, compared to R4,055 in October 2020.

For the same trips on Bolt, a user would have paid a combined R3,828, almost exactly 10% less than Uber. In October 2020, those same routes would have cost R3,139 on Bolt.

Therefore, Bolt’s fares had jumped by roughly 22% in three years, while Uber’s only increased by about 5%.

The table below summarises the key numbers from our latest comparison of Bolt and Uber’s prices in South Africa.

We also compiled tables that show the estimated fares for each trip in the four regions.

It is important to note that although the price per kilometre can be used when comparing the two services, it should not be used when comparing prices in the different cities.

That is because we did not use the exact same distances for the trips in each city, which could make the fares in cities with greater total trip distances more expensive.

In addition, e-hailing services don’t have set pricing based on distance but also consider factors like driver availability, traffic, and travel time.

The city where Bolt and Uber’s pricing was closest was Durban, which also had the only trip on which Uber was slightly cheaper than Bolt.

The most significant differences in pricing were in Gqeberha — a city that has had its fair share of e-hailing-related unrest.

It was interesting to note that, at the time of our comparison, we struggled to find available drivers on Bolt for this city.

Johannesburg and Pretoria

Cape Town

Durban

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