Instacart

Items are marked up 15–17% vs. in-store prices, on top of a $3.99+ delivery fee, a 5% service fee, and a tip. A $60 cart lands at $85+ before tip. The FTC settled a $60M case against Instacart in 2025 for deceptive tipping practices, where tips were used to subsidize shopper base pay.

500,000+ SKUs across 100,000+ store locations including Costco, Aldi, Kroger, Publix, CVS, and regional chains — the largest retail partner network of any service on this list.

Same-day delivery in 1–2 hours in most markets, with a 30-minute Priority option available. Speed depends on shopper availability during peak times.

Instacart+ costs $99 per year or $9.99 per month and waives the delivery fee on orders over $35. The 15–17% per-item markup still applies whether you're a member or not, so membership savings can be offset by inflated prices.

The app is functional and widely used, but substitution decisions are made by individual shoppers and refund disputes are a known friction point. The FTC tipping settlement reflects a pattern of consumer-unfriendly defaults.

Instacart's app lets you filter by health attributes like 'organic' and dietary tags (gluten-free, vegan, keto) and pulls in dedicated health retailers like Sprouts and Whole Foods alongside Costco and Aldi, but it doesn't sell its own private-label groceries, so there's no in-house recall or ingredient-transparency record to evaluate.