People enjoy eating quality food that is prepared by good restaurants. Nevertheless, sometimes people may not want to go to a restaurant, but instead may prefer to have food delivered to them. To meet this demand, a courier may deliver food prepared by a restaurant to a customer at a delivery location. For example, a service may enable customers to order food items from any of a variety of restaurants, and may arrange for couriers to deliver the food items from the restaurants to the customers. However, the service may not always be able to easily determine appropriate payment for the couriers. For example, a fixed hourly pay rate may not adequately compensate the couriers for the amount of effort expended in some cases, or may overcompensate the couriers for the amount of effort expended in other cases.