Grab Fares Feel Like They're Going Up. Six Months of Receipts Couldn't Tell Me Yet
I don't know yet whether Grab (Southeast Asia's ride-hailing app) fares are going up. Since I moved to the Philippines in April 2026, I've had a feeling they were slowly getting more expensive. But when I lined up six months of ride statements, the same route swung by about 100 pesos depending on the day and time, so there wasn't enough to say whether prices had risen. So I started recording fares. From now on, I can check regularly.
599 pesos there, a return quote over 1,200 pesos
Last weekend, on October 31, I went to Manila Ocean Park (an aquarium on Manila Bay).
On the way there, I called a Grab Standard (a regular car) at 8:58 a.m., and it was 599 pesos. When I opened the app around 3:18 p.m. to go home, the quote was over 1,200 pesos. Almost double the trip there. I couldn't bring myself to take it, so I picked a metered taxi in the same app and went home. I paid 563 pesos.
Same route, just a different time, and double the price. When that keeps happening, the feeling of "isn't Grab expensive lately?" builds up.
Lining up six months of ride statements
To check whether it was just my imagination, I pulled the statement you can export from the Grab app (Member Statement) for six months, from May 5 to November 4. From the ride records, excluding food and mart orders, I picked out routes I'd used several times. That's the table below (all are trips to or from home).
| Destination | Date/time | Type | Fare |
|---|---|---|---|
| To a nearby hospital | 5/22 14:33 | Standard | ₱227 |
| Same | 6/20 11:31 | Standard | ₱224 |
| Same | 10/3 11:36 | Standard | ₱227 |
| To an SSS (Social Security System) branch | 6/5 14:58 | Taxi | ₱213.50 |
| Same | 6/6 7:59 | Taxi | ₱193 |
| Same | 9/21 8:38 | Standard | ₱170 |
| From a shopping center to home | 5/6 12:08 | Standard | ₱479 |
| Same | 5/19 11:13 | Standard | ₱564.44 |
| Same | 9/23 10:44 | Standard | ₱503 |
| From a nearby subdivision to home | 6/14 19:06 | Standard | ₱330 |
| Same | 9/20 19:57 | Standard | ₱236 |
| Same | 10/16 18:31 | 6-seater | ₱348 |
To the hospital, it was 227 pesos in both May and October, no change at all. To SSS, September was the cheapest, and the ride home from the shopping center was most expensive on May 19. The ride home from the nearby subdivision ranged from 236 to 330 pesos, nearly a 100-peso gap, even in the same evening time slot.
The day the fare changed by 105 pesos in an hour
There are also routes where I have both the trip there and the trip back.
| Route | There | Back |
|---|---|---|
| Festival Supermall (a shopping mall in Alabang) 5/25 | 17:10 ₱230 | 20:57 ₱329 |
| Same 7/18 | 11:22 ₱250 | 17:19 ₱312 |
| Hair salon 5/12 | 12:28 ₱290 | 16:40 ₱247 |
| Embassy of Japan 9/24 | 13:43 ₱710 | 14:43 ₱815 |
For the Embassy of Japan on September 24, there was only an hour between going and coming back, and the fare went up by 105 pesos (about 15%). I also went to the embassy on November 3, and that time it was 533 pesos by taxi at 8:39 a.m. At Festival Supermall, both times, the ride back in the evening or later was more expensive. When I went to the same hair salon at 9:38 a.m. on August 9, it was 194 pesos, nearly 100 pesos cheaper than the 290 pesos in May.
In my records, the swing on a given day and time is much bigger than any difference between months. On top of that, I have at most three or four rides on the same route. With that, I can't say it "went up" or that it "didn't go up."
Having a phone fetch a quote every hour
Receipts only record the fare when you actually ride. So I built a setup that records fares without riding.
Since November 1, an Android phone I keep at home automatically opens Grab every hour, 24 hours a day. It gets a quote for a fixed route (from Old Zapote Public Market to Festival Supermall Alabang), doesn't book, and saves the fare and the map screen. The pickup point was Zapote Bridge until November 2, but I changed it so the same spot could be set in other ride-hailing apps too. Now it also records quotes from Green GSM (electric taxis) and Move It (motorcycle taxis).
It's only a few days' worth so far, but across 52 quotes from 12:20 on November 2, when I changed the pickup point, to 15:00 on November 4, the Standard quotes looked like this.
| Time slot | Standard quote | Average | Difference from overall average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Late night 0–4 | ₱295–₱338 | ₱301 | −28% |
| Morning 6–9 | ₱603–₱717 | ₱675 | +61% |
| Midday 11–14 | ₱325–₱472 | ₱369 | −12% |
| Afternoon–evening 15–21 | ₱329–₱654 | ₱421 | ±0% |
| Night 22–23 | ₱306–₱317 | ₱310 | −26% |
The overall average for the 52 quotes was about 420 pesos. I left the 5 o'clock and 10 o'clock hours out of the table, because they sit on the border between expensive and cheap periods and the values swung a lot.
The cheapest was 295 pesos at 2:00 on November 4, and the most expensive was 717 pesos at 8:00 the same day. Same day, same route, 2.4 times. From a few days of observation, 6–9 a.m. was about 60% above average, late night and 22–23 were nearly 30% cheaper, and midday was in between. The hourly quotes are only for the outbound route toward Festival Supermall, while the "rides back in the evening or later are more expensive" I saw in the receipts is about the return direction, so the two can't be compared directly. It's only a few days' worth, so this is not a conclusion yet.
The answer will pile up, hour by hour
My sense that "Grab's gone up, hasn't it?" couldn't be confirmed yet with six months of receipts. But ever since the day I stared at a doubled quote on the way home from the aquarium, my phone has been fetching quotes every hour without a single complaint.
Once a few months' worth has piled up, I'll check regularly and report back here. By then, I should know whether it was just my imagination.
