👨🏿‍🚀 Daily – inDrive’s new side hustle |

If you’re an inDrive user in South Africa, you’ll begin to see ads the next time you open the app to request a ride, instead of just watching the little car icon drive to your location. Welcome to inDrive Ads.

Here’s what happened: Ride-hailing platform, inDrive, has launched an in-app advertising platform in South Africa, placing banner ads in what it calls “low-friction” moments, like while the rider waits for their driver or during the trip.

Why is inDrive doing this? The ride-hailing business is a tightrope. Riders are price-sensitive, especially to increments. Drivers are commission-sensitive and push for price increments. Platforms, on the other hand, are margin-sensitive. In South Africa, where Bolt, Uber, and inDrive already compete on price, there’s little room to squeeze either side without backlash. For inDrive, ads have become its way out of that standoff. Advertising gives them revenue that doesn’t depend on each trip.

What it means: Africa’s ride-hailing market is crowded. While Uber continues to maintain a significant revenue share, Bolt differentiates itself with lower commissions, and inDrive, with a negotiation-based fare model that appeals to price-sensitive riders. Launching ads isn’t an admission of a failed model. 

However, it does signal that ride commissions alone may not be enough for long-term sustainability. 

Ads are the new side hustle: inDrive’s new experiment with in-app ads is not the first SaaS monetisation play we’ve seen on the continent. In 2024, Nigeria’s Chowdeck, a food delivery app, introduced in-app ads to add a new revenue source. Since then, Chowdeck has evolved to running an events-based advertising business on the side, while also selling airtime. 

In Chowdeck’s case, it’s a super-app play. For inDrive, a ride-hailing platform, it seems like a low-effort way to make more money during wait times. Yet, two things will matter: inDrive’s scale and users’ willingness to click on ads while they wait for their rides. If it works, could we see the likes of Bolt and Uber adopt the same gimmick?