Instacart

Is Instacart worth it for grocery shoppers and delivery drivers?

Instacart pays per batch plus tips, and you supply the car, phone and insurance. What decides the fit is how predictable the pay is, who covers your risks and what independent data shows per hour. For how the work compares with other ideas, see grocery shopping and delivery.

How much Instacart takes from your pay

Instacart doesn't publish a formula or a take rate for batch pay, so what it keeps from each customer total isn't stated. It describes your total earnings as batch pay plus promotions plus tips. Instacart says batch pay reflects the travel to the store and the customer, the number and weight of items, and the expected shopping time. Customers pay several fees on top of groceries, and Instacart's customer terms say those fees can change and vary with demand. Instacart doesn't say what share of them reaches shoppers.

Tips are the one split Instacart spells out. It calls tips a critical component of shopper pay but publishes no figure for how much of total pay they make up.

How and when Instacart pays you

Instacart pays per batch, and it publishes no minimum payout. Weekly deposit and instant cashout run on different clocks, and Instacart gives no dollar amount for the instant cashout fee, so you only see the cost in the app.

Instacart requirements and how long approval takes

The requirements cover your age, work authorization, vehicle and phone, plus a photo that Instacart shares with customers. Instacart also says background checks are refreshed on an ongoing basis.

Instacart says orders appear once your account is approved. It doesn't publish a day count for the background checks, so the timeline above shows only the steps it states. Its sign-up page invites U.S. sign-ups and lists no waitlist or state exclusions.

Batches with alcohol, prescriptions, or bulky or heavy items go only to certified or opted-in shoppers, according to Instacart. Instacart says its independent contractors must obtain their own insurance, including auto liability and workers' comp, plus licenses and permits. The broker Insureon also states that Instacart doesn't provide auto insurance to shoppers.

How much you can make on Instacart

Instacart says per-batch pay depends on order size, distance and effort, and that total earnings depend on the individual. It publishes no typical hourly or monthly figure, and says only that it has over 600,000 shoppers. The independent numbers below come from Gridwise.

Gridwise's figures come from shoppers who track their work in its app, and they are gross, before gas, insurance and wear on your car. They show the rate for active work, not what you net after unpaid waiting and driving. To turn any of these into your own take-home, use how to calculate your actual hourly earnings.

Can Instacart deactivate your account?

Instacart's community guidelines say it reserves the right to suspend or deactivate shopper accounts beyond the guidelines it lists, so the named rules aren't a full safe list. Named violations include account sharing and multiple accounts. Switching devices mid-batch is also banned: the device that accepts a batch must complete it. Shoppers with suspended or deactivated accounts can appeal to Trust & Safety, and Instacart tries to block deactivated shoppers from opening duplicate accounts.

Ratings affect your access to work even without a deactivation. Instacart says shoppers with a customer rating of 4.7 or higher get batches minutes before lower-rated shoppers. Your average rating is based on your last 100 ratings, and the shopping quality score covers a 90-day window of items shopped.

Is Instacart legit?

Instacart is run by Maplebear Inc., a Delaware corporation, and its shares trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. The company files annual reports with the SEC, and its filing lists worker classification, including California Prop 22, as a regulatory risk. Instacart's U.S. customer terms require a 60-day informal dispute process before legal action, then binding arbitration with a class action waiver, with a 30-day opt-out. Most of the actions below involve customers or corporate hiring. The one about shoppers is the City of San Diego's 2019 suit alleging they were misclassified as contractors. Instacart agreed in Oct 2022 to pay $46.5 million to settle it, covering about 308,000 people who worked for it from 2015 to 2020, and said it had classified shoppers properly.

Scams that use Instacart's name

Instacart's sign-up page lists a driver's license, Social Security number and bank information as what you need, and lists no sign-up fee. The FTC's general job-scam guidance applies to any fake recruiter. See also how to spot side-hustle scams.

Instacart vs other grocery and delivery apps

If you want to weigh pay, fees and sign-up against similar work, see the profiles for DoorDash, Uber Eats, Spark Driver and Amazon Flex.