Uber is a service that enables you to book a car service with the tap of your finger on your smartphone or mobile device. Depending on which of the hundreds of cities that you are in, you can also get different levels of car service ranging from UberX (a low-cost sedan), UberBlack, UberSUV and more, and the great news is they are will now be offering upfront pricing rather than surge pricing so you can know exactly how much your ride will be before getting in.

Here’s what Uber has to say: 

Imagine buying an airline ticket without knowing the full fare until the end of your trip. Or booking a hotel room online and being told that the real price would be 1.3X. Yes, that sounds odd—but it’s what happens with many Uber trips today.

We moved to upfront, per trip fares—just like airlines and hotels—two years ago when we launched uberPOOL. Riders needed to enter their destinations so we could match them with other people headed the same way. This allowed us to calculate the actual fare in advance and show it to riders before they booked their ride. 

Knowing how much a ride will cost in advance is clearly something riders appreciate: today uberPOOL accounts for over 20 percent of all rides globally. And we now want more riders globally to benefit from this feature. 

So in April we began slowly introducing upfront fares for regular uberX trips in cities across the US and more recently in India, with more to follow. To date, hundreds of thousands of riders have experienced upfront fares as part of this rollout. 

Upfront fares are calculated using the expected time and distance of the trip and local traffic, as well as how many riders and nearby drivers are using Uber at that moment. And when fares go up due to increased demand, instead of surge lightning bolts and pop-up screens, riders are given the actual fare before they request their ride. There’s no complicated math and no surprises: passengers can just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Bottom Line

If you’ve ever been trying to request an Uber with surge pricing in effect, you know the feeling of not knowing how much your ride will be, with the added fees. With their new upfront pricing method, even at peak times, you’ll know exactly how much it’s gonna cost you.

In addition, if you haven’t tried Uber yet, you can get a $20 credit on your first ride when you sign up here.

Feel free to share your thoughts below about their new pricing strategy.