Lalamove has officially launched its ride-hailing service called Lalamove Ride. The brand claims that it’s a “More Affordable Way to Move,” which suggests that it’s banking on lower rates as its main selling point.
If you’ve updated your Lalamove app today, you’ll notice that there’s now a “Ride” tab beside the “Delivery” tab.
How it Works
Lalamove Ride is basically the same as every other ride-hailing app, pick a pickup point, a destination, and you’ll see how much you’ll have to pay.
While Grab, in particular has multiple options which include Saver for cheaper rides in exchange of longer waiting times, Grab Taxi, and even Pet, Lalamove only has two options – Car for up to four passengers, and CarXL for up to six passengers. You can add additional stops if needed.
Unlike in Grab, where you can select multiple types at the same time, Lalamove only lets you choose one at a time, which means you’ll have to manually switch to Car or CarXL.
What’s nice about Lalamove Ride is that it allows you to see a breakdown of your fare even before you book, so you can check if there are any additional charges like the High Demand Surcharge that’s affecting the fare amount, unlike in Grab, where you’ll only see a complete breakdown on the receipt sent via email after the ride.
Is Lalamove Ride Really More Affordable?
To check if Lalamove Ride is really the “More Affordable Way to Move,” we compared its fares against three of its popular competitors, setting the pickup point at my Home in Taguig City. If it matters, this was done at around 1:56 PM. Note that prices change based on location, distance, time, and surges.
| Destination | Lalamove | Grab | JoyRide | InDrive |
| SM Aura | PHP 294 | PHP 349 | PHP 409 | PHP 312 |
| SM Southmall | PHP 303 | PHP 389 | PHP 432 | PHP 330 |
| SM North EDSA | PHP 534 | PHP 647 | PHP 778 | PHP 599 |
| NAIA Terminal 3 | PHP 254 | PHP 323 | PHP 354 | PHP 271 |
As you can see, Lalamove had the cheapest rates across the four destinations. What’s important to know is that there are times when Lalamove will have a “High Demand Surcharge,” and other won’t. My guess is it’s due to the lack of available drivers in the area, since the service is pretty new. Occasionally, the app will also show a cheaper fare when selecting the CarXL option compared to Car, which is odd.
Payment Options
As important as it is to offer more affordable fares, I believe that it’s also equally important to offer as many payment methods as possible, especially now that many users are going cashless. Unfortunately, Lalamove Ride only has cash and wallet as payment options.
I understand that the service is new, so things can definitely improve down the road, but this is also an issue even for deliveries which has been around for a while now and still accepts the same payment methods.
How About Senior Citizen, PWD, and Student Discounts?
There seems to be no option in the app to apply these discounts, which is understandable, as the service is pretty new. We will reach out to a representative to find out if there are plans for this in the pipeline, so stay tuned.
More Affordable? Yes, Better Overall? Depends
Of course, we haven’t actually tried booking a ride yet, so there are still numerous factors to consider here, including the time that it takes to book a ride, the actual quality of the ride, and since we’ve only covered a number of destinations here, it’s still uncertain whether it’ll be the same case for your preferred destination.
So far, if all you want is the most affordable way to get to the destinations we’ve mentioned and you don’t mind the limited payment methods, then Lalamove Ride seems to be the better choice. However, it’s always good to check every platform before you book, as rates can always vary.
We’ll update this article once we get to go on an actual ride.
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
