CHICustomer Hostility Index
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Instacart · CHI Company Investigation · Food & Local Commerce

InstacartMaplebear Inc. · NASDAQ: CART · Grocery delivery marketplace

Conclusion: Partially supports · Mechanism: benefit erosion and fee opacity · No score assigned

The membership stayed $99. The protection from service fees did not.

Instacart+ stayed $99 a year while its service-fee benefit moved from exemption, to discount, to nothing. The broader investigation partially supports customer hostility: the clearest deterioration is in fees and benefit erosion, not advertising.

$99Annual Instacart+ price, Nov 2018 to Oct 2026
0%Member service fee from Nov 2018
1.9%Lowest member rate Instacart advertised, Sep 2020
1 Mar 2025Member service-fee benefit ended
● Estimated read 10 min
01 · The bargain changed

Exemption, then discount, then nothing.

Dated from Instacart’s own help pages where they survive. The service fee is separate from the delivery fee, is kept by Instacart, and does not go to the shopper.9

  1. Oct 2016 10% service amount Waivable

    A 10% “service amount” took the default tip’s place at checkout. Customers could change or remove it.1

  2. Apr 2018 5% service fee Mandatory

    “from a 10 percent waivable fee to a 5 percent fixed fee”

    A 5% default tip was restored alongside it.2

  3. Nov 2018 Members exempt Service fee eliminated

    Express was cut from $149 to $99 and members stopped paying the 5% service fee. Non-members still paid it.3

  4. Sep 2020 Reduced fee from 1.9% Exemption became a discount

    “Express members pay a reduced service fee starting as low as 1.9%.”

    Non-member fees began at 5%.4

    Not establishedThe exact date between Nov 2018 and Sep 2020 when the exemption became a discount.

  5. 1 Mar 2025 Benefit removed Price unchanged

    “Starting March 1, 2025, we will no longer offer reduced service fees for Instacart+ members.”

    Instacart’s benefits page, January 2025.7 By April 2025 no service-fee benefit was listed.38

    December 2024The fees page still said “Instacart+ members pay a reduced service fee.”5

  6. Today $99 a year Service fees still apply

    $0 delivery fees on eligible orders of $10 or more. “Service fees apply.”9

    Current rateNot published. Instacart says service fees vary with factors like location, retailer and basket.918

Instacart did not raise the membership price. It reduced what the membership protected customers from.

Members went from paying no service fee (2018), to a reduced one (by 2020), to the same service-fee terms Instacart states for everyone (since 1 March 2025). The annual price stayed $99 throughout.

Benefit erosionPrice increase

Same price. Less protection.

The membership did not become worthless. One economically meaningful protection was removed while others improved.

Then · Nov 2018 – Feb 2025Instacart Express / Instacart+36
  • $99 a yearMembership
  • $0 delivery on orders of $35+Delivery
  • No service fee, from Nov 2018Full exemption
  • Reduced service fee, from 1.9% (Sep 2020)Partial

Service-fee protection: full, then partial

Now · 2026Instacart+91011
  • $99 a year or $9.99 a monthMembership
  • $0 delivery fees on eligible orders of $10+ ($35 Costco, $25 restaurants)Delivery
  • Service fees still applyNot waived
  • No stated member service-fee discountRemoved
  • Current service-fee rate unpublishedVaries

Service-fee protection: none stated

$1.90Member, from (2020 advertised floor)
$5.00Non-member, from (2020 floor)

Illustration only. On a $100 basket, the floors Instacart published in September 2020 imply a service fee starting at $1.90 for a member and $5.00 for a non-member.4 These are advertised minimums, not typical charges. No comparable figure exists today: Instacart publishes no rate for either group.

What members gained

Cheaper small orders and more perks

The $0-delivery minimum fell from $35 to $10 (standing by February 2025).8 Peacock Premium and, for annual members, New York Times Cooking were added; household sharing went from 2 to 4 people by January 2025.6710 The annual price has been $99 since November 2018.

What members lost

The benefit that scaled with the basket

The service fee varies with the cart. A full exemption, then a reduced rate, protected members most on large orders. That protection ended on 1 March 2025, in the same restructuring that lowered the minimum.735

Benefit erosion within a mixed value proposition — not total deterioration.
02 · Two different fees

“$0 delivery” is not “$0 fees.”

Membership waives the delivery fee on eligible orders. It does not waive the service fee. Instacart’s wording now says so where it describes the benefit.

Before · fees page, captured 6 Nov 2025
“Instacart+ members get free delivery on eligible orders $10 or more per retailer.”
Instacart Help Center12
Current · same page, from Dec 2025
“Instacart+ members get $0 delivery fees on eligible orders $10 or more per retailer. Service fees apply.”
Instacart Help Center, read 11 Oct 2026913
Instacart’s wordingDelivery feeService fee
What it isDelivery fee“varies based on the retailer, delivery window, and order total”Service fee“helps support the Instacart platform and covers a range of operating costs”
RateDelivery feeShown when choosing a delivery windowService fee“vary and are subject to change”; no rate published
Goes to the shopperDelivery feeNot statedService feeNo: it “isn’t a tip and doesn’t go to the shopper”
Waived for membersDelivery feeYes, on eligible orders of $10+Service feeNo, since 1 March 2025

Quoted from Instacart’s “Instacart fees and taxes” page, read 11 October 2026.9 The Terms of Service say that for members “Other charges still apply (including service fees…)”.11

The regulatory context

Allegation“Free delivery”In December 2025 the FTC alleged Instacart advertised free delivery while charging a mandatory service fee that could add as much as 15% to an order.14
AllegationGuarantee and trialsIt also alleged problems with Instacart’s satisfaction guarantee and with Instacart+ free-trial enrollment.14
Settlement$60 millionInstacart agreed to pay $60 million. It “neither admits nor denies” the allegations.1516
Company responseDenied wrongdoingInstacart said “$0 delivery” means no delivery fee and that the service fee was always a separate line.4041
Current presentation: mostly clear.

The delivery/service distinction is now stated wherever the membership benefit is described, and the settlement requires other fees to be disclosed clearly whenever free or discounted delivery is claimed.15 It remains a footnote, and the service-fee amount is not shown until checkout. The wording changed between 6 November and 12 December 2025, around the time of the settlement; this page does not establish what caused it.

03 · The price test

Same item. Same store. Different price.

The experiment was randomized, not personalized — but customers were still shown different prices for identical goods at the same time. This is separate from the membership story.

437Volunteers, shopping at the same time
~3/4Of products shown at more than one price
23%Largest item-level difference
~7%Average gap, cheapest vs dearest cart

Consumer Reports finding
In September 2025, volunteers organised by Consumer Reports and partners shopped simultaneously for identical baskets at Safeway and Target on Instacart.17 The investigation also reported price experiments at Albertsons, Costco, Kroger and Sprouts.

What Instacart says

The tests were “limited, short-term, and randomized” and run by retail partners that already applied markups.17 They “never used customer data to determine prices”.18

Consumer Reports said its investigation found no evidence to suggest otherwise.17

What changed

Instacart ended the tests in December 2025.1718 In July 2026 it published pricing principles: customers at the same store at the same time “will see the same item prices”, and no personal data is used to set prices.1819

These are company commitments, not independently tested.

04 · Who sets the price?

Retailers, mostly. Not always.

What Instacart tells customers

“Retailers set the item prices on the Instacart marketplace.”20

“The price you see for items on Instacart is determined by our retail partners — not by Instacart.”18

What its annual report also discloses

One way Instacart recognises retailer revenue is “the difference in price between amounts charged to customers for goods and the actual settlement price to the retailer for the goods”.16

Target told Consumer Reports it had no business relationship with Instacart. Instacart acknowledged taking Target’s public prices and adding an amount to cover its own costs.17

Instacart says retailers generally set item prices. Its filings also disclose that in some arrangements it earns the spread between what the customer pays and what the retailer receives. The company does not disclose how much of its business uses this model.

This shows pricing opacity, not universal control. Each storefront carries a pricing-policy label (“Everyday Store Prices” or “View pricing policy”), and customers can filter for retailers with no markup.2018

05 · The three-way revenue model

One grocery order, three payers.

Instacart can earn from the customer, the retailer and the advertiser inside the same transaction. That is a structural fact, not in itself a finding of hostility.

Customer

Pays for access

  • Delivery fee
  • Service fee
  • Instacart+ membership
  • Priority, long-distance, regulatory fees
Retailer

Pays for the order

  • Percentage of purchase value
  • Per-transaction fee
  • Technology licence fee
  • Price-to-settlement spread, in some arrangements16
Brand

Pays for attention

  • Sponsored product placement
  • Display ads and brand pages
  • Coupons
  • Audience targeting off the app
Instacart does not disclose how much of its transaction revenue comes from customers versus retailers.

Up to 2023, then flat

Sources: prospectus, 10-Ks for 2023–2025, Q2 2026 10-Q.2122231624
Before
Total revenue rose from about 7.1% to 10.0% of gross transaction value between 2020 and 2023. Filings attribute much of the transaction rise to cheaper fulfilment, and also name “customer fee optimization”.
Since
Transaction revenue has held at 7.1–7.3% and advertising at 2.8–2.9%.
Ads
Advertising and other revenue grew from $295 million (2020) to $1,065 million (2025).
Claim
“Advertising revenue allows us to charge lower fees”, the prospectus says.21 Company claim; it cannot be tested from disclosures.
06 · Advertising

A structural conflict, not a proven harm.

Instacart has thoroughly monetized product discovery. The investigation did not establish that paid placement is concealed or that advertising itself materially worsened customer value.

Verified

  • Sponsored items must be labelledInstacart’s ad specification: the word “Sponsored” must appear on the item card.25
  • Paid items can take prominent positionsThey “appear in highly visible locations throughout the customer shopping journey”, with more relevant ads placed first, including in Buy It Again.25
  • Shopping behaviour feeds ad targetingThe prospectus names “browsing, searching, purchasing, and choosing replacements”.21
  • Targeting extends beyond the appPurchase-based audiences are offered on outside platforms including YouTube and TikTok.2728

Not established

  • Paid placement changing unsponsored rankingNo evidence was found.
  • Sponsored placement in replacement suggestionsNo evidence was found. Instacart’s documentation lists similarity, other customers’ acceptance and the customer’s own history as the factors.26
  • How much of a results page is paidNo independent measurement was obtained.
  • The live appLabels and placements were not inspected first-hand.
07 · The counterweight

What improved.

This side of the ledger is why the verdict is PARTIALLY SUPPORTS, not SUPPORTS or STRONGLY SUPPORTS.

Membership price

$99 a year since November 2018

Cut from $149 that month and unchanged since.310 The monthly price has been $9.99 since at least 2022.36

Delivery threshold

$35 → $10

The member minimum for $0 delivery on standard eligible orders fell from $35 to $10.837

Price parity

More retailers at in-store prices

Retailers including Hy-Vee, Raley’s, Fareway and Grocery Outlet moved to no-markup pricing in 2025–2026.3031

Fee language

“$0 delivery fees. Service fees apply.”

Clearer than the earlier “free delivery” wording.9

Price experiments

Ended

Discontinued in December 2025, followed by published pricing principles.18

Take rate

Flat since 2023

Instacart’s revenue as a share of gross transaction value has held at about 10%.24

Also on the record: Instacart’s ad specification requires a “Sponsored” label,25 and the written refund policy now asks customers to choose their resolution, credit or refund.32

08 · Pattern classification

One partial pattern. One narrow. Two not supported.

CHI’s institutional signal taxonomy, applied without forcing a fit.

SP002

Existing-Customer Yield Optimization

Partially supported

The central finding. The service fee went from waivable to mandatory; members lost first an exemption and then a discount at an unchanged price; filings name “customer fee optimization”; price tests tried different price points; advertising raises revenue per order.

Counterweight: revenue share flat since 2023, membership price flat, free-delivery minimum improved, price parity expanding.

SP004

Regulated Pass-through / Customer Recovery

Supported · narrow

In New York City, a $5.99 regulatory response fee per delivery appeared in January 2026 as the city’s delivery-worker minimum pay rules took effect.29 Instacart’s fees page confirms NYC regulatory response fees appear in the order summary.9 Whether the fee is proportionate to the cost was not established.

SP001

Unmonetized Access / Entitlement Monetization

Not supported

No previously included access was newly metered. The “free delivery” issue is a disclosure question, not new monetization of free access.

SP003

Legacy Product Deprioritization / Portfolio Concentration

Not supported

No customer-facing product was retired or deprioritised. The Express to Instacart+ rebrand kept the price.

09 · What changed

Worse, better, and unknown.

What got worse

  • The service fee became mandatory, then variable.
  • Members’ protection from the service fee was removed in two steps.
  • The current service-fee rate is not published.
  • Randomized price tests showed different customers different prices for identical items.
  • In some arrangements Instacart earns a spread between the customer price and the retailer’s settlement price.

What got better

  • The membership stayed $99.
  • The free-delivery minimum fell from $35 to $10.
  • Current wording separates delivery fees from service fees.
  • More retailers moved to in-store pricing.
  • The price tests ended.
  • The written refund policy offers credit or refund.

What remains unknown

  • Member versus non-member service fees on identical orders today.
  • The exact current service-fee percentage.
  • How much of Instacart’s business uses settlement spreads.
  • How dense sponsored results are.
  • Whether checkout presentation changes what customers understand.
TermCurrent positionDirection
Long-distance feeCurrent positionApplies to routes of 15+ minutes or with a toll. The page said 30+ minutes as late as 28 January 2026; the date of the change is not known.939DirectionWider
Reporting a problemCurrent positionWithin three days of delivery or pickup; the customer selects a preferred resolution.32DirectionStated policy
Instacart creditsCurrent positionExpire on the date shown in the account; no cash value.33DirectionStated policy
Changing a tipCurrent positionRaise for up to 14 days after delivery; reduce only within 2 hours. Tips go 100% to the shopper.34DirectionStated policy

The live checkout and refund screens were not inspected; nothing on this page describes which option the interface pre-selects.

Final CHI assessment · Partially supports

The strongest case is benefit erosion and fee opacity, not advertising.

Instacart did not simply increase the price of its membership. Instead, it gradually reduced one of the membership’s protections while keeping the headline price unchanged. At the same time, the company expanded the number of ways it earns from each grocery transaction.

But the investigation does not show continuous deterioration. The membership price stayed flat, the free-delivery threshold improved, pricing transparency has become clearer, and monetization has been stable since 2023.

The evidence therefore partially supports customer hostility: the strongest case is benefit erosion and fee opacity, not advertising itself. No numerical CHI, CVI or CFS score has been assigned.

Membership price raisedNo
Member service-fee protectionRemoved
Service-fee rate publishedNo
Free-delivery minimum$35 → $10
Advertising harmNot established
CHI conclusionPARTIALLY SUPPORTS

The price didn’t change.
What it protected you from did.

Sources

Evidence behind this page.

Every figure on this page comes from the Instacart CHI research dossier and its publication verification (both 11 October 2026), and traces to a source below. Quotation marks are used only for wording checked against the original source. Labels: allegation means pleaded but not adjudicated; company-reported means an Instacart figure or claim not independently audited; calculated means arithmetic from sourced inputs.

  1. Consumerist (Consumer Reports), Oct 2016. Instacart shoppers say customers confused by change to tipping policy
  2. TechCrunch, 24 Apr 2018. Instacart now suggests 5% tip default
  3. Grocery Dive, Nov 2018. Instacart slashes delivery and membership fees
  4. Instacart Help, “Service fee”, archived 28 Sep 2020. Internet Archive
  5. Instacart Help, “Instacart fees and taxes”, archived 18 Dec 2024. Internet Archive
  6. Instacart Help, “Instacart+ benefits”, archived 7 Jul 2024. Internet Archive
  7. Instacart Help, “Instacart+ benefits”, archived 7 Jan 2025. Internet Archive
  8. Instacart Help, “Instacart+ benefits”, archived 13 Feb 2025. Internet Archive
  9. Instacart Help, “Instacart fees and taxes” (read 11 Oct 2026). instacart.com
  10. Instacart+ membership page (read 11 Oct 2026). instacart.com
  11. Instacart Terms of Service, last updated 7 May 2026. instacart.com
  12. Instacart Help, “Instacart fees and taxes”, archived 6 Nov 2025. Internet Archive
  13. Instacart Help, “Instacart fees and taxes”, archived 12 Dec 2025. Internet Archive
  14. Federal Trade Commission, 18 Dec 2025. Instacart to pay $60 million in consumer refunds Allegations
  15. Stipulated order, FTC v. Maplebear Inc., N.D. Cal. No. 3:25-cv-10783, filed 18 Dec 2025. PDF
  16. Maplebear Form 10-K, FY2025. SEC EDGAR
  17. Consumer Reports, 9 Dec 2025 (updated 22 Dec 2025). Instacart pricing experiment investigation
  18. Instacart, “How Pricing Works on Instacart” (read 11 Oct 2026). company.instacart.com Company-reported
  19. Instacart, “Instacart’s Pricing Principles”, Jul 2026. company.instacart.com Company-reported
  20. Instacart Help, “Item pricing” (read 11 Oct 2026). instacart.com
  21. Maplebear prospectus (Form 424B4), Sep 2023. SEC EDGAR
  22. Maplebear Form 10-K, FY2023. SEC EDGAR
  23. Maplebear Form 10-K, FY2024. SEC EDGAR
  24. Maplebear Form 10-Q, Q2 2026. SEC EDGAR Calculated
  25. Instacart Docs, “Sponsored products”. docs.instacart.com
  26. Instacart Docs, “Recommendations”. docs.instacart.com
  27. Modern Retail, 17 Jun 2024. Instacart is betting on YouTube
  28. Marketing Dive, 9 Oct 2025. Instacart TikTok integration
  29. Bushwick Daily, Jan 2026. Instacart added a $5.99 fee in NYC
  30. Grocery Dive, 24 Sep 2026. Instacart, DoorDash tackle online grocery affordability
  31. The Shelby Report, 24 Sep 2026. More grocers add no-markup pricing on Instacart
  32. Instacart Help, “Report a problem with your order” (read 11 Oct 2026). instacart.com
  33. Instacart Help, credit terms (read 11 Oct 2026). instacart.com
  34. Instacart Help, “Tipping” (read 11 Oct 2026). instacart.com
  35. Doctor of Credit, 20 Nov 2024. Instacart+ benefit changes
  36. TechCrunch, 15 Jun 2022. Instacart launches revamped subscription, Instacart+
  37. Instacart, Nov 2024. $10 cart minimums for $0 delivery Company-reported
  38. Instacart Help, “Instacart+ benefits”, archived 5 Apr 2025. Internet Archive
  39. Instacart Help, “Instacart fees and taxes”, archived 28 Jan 2026. Internet Archive
  40. TechCrunch, 18 Dec 2025. Instacart to pay $60M to settle FTC claims
  41. Grocery Dive, 19 Dec 2025. Instacart settles FTC lawsuit over e-commerce fees

Limits carried onto this page. The live Instacart checkout, refund screens and search results were not inspected, so actual member and non-member service fees on identical orders were not observed and no interface default is described. Instacart publishes no current service-fee rate. The FTC complaint itself could not be retrieved; its allegations are described from the FTC’s announcement and the filed order. The date the stipulated order was entered by the court was not confirmed from the docket. The share of Instacart’s business using settlement spreads, and the density of sponsored results, are not disclosed. The NYC fee amount comes from local press.

Status. Research frozen 11 October 2026 and publication-verified the same day. No numerical CHI, CVI or CFS score has been assigned; scoring is reserved for a later calibration stage.

Reading this beside the rest of the index

Three delivery platforms, one question about fees.

DoorDash and Uber Eats show fee structures growing more conditional. Instacart shows a membership keeping its price while losing a protection. Read the methodology for why no score is assigned yet.

Same verdict · Food & Local CommerceRead DoorDash → Same verdict · Food & Local CommerceRead Uber Eats → How CHI scores, and why no score is assigned hereRead the methodology → Every company in the sectorBrowse Food & Local Commerce →