· founded 2012
see the full file on Instacart shoppers| Guaranteed earnings floor | SEATTLE ONLY. Shoppers working in Seattle are covered by the City's App-Based Worker Minimum Payment Ordinance (SMC 8.37, effective 13 January 2024): a covered network company must pay the greater of a per-minute plus per-mile amount, or a flat per-offer minimum. For 2026 that is $0.47 per minute and $0.80 per mile, or $5.34 per offer (2025: $0.45 / $0.77 / $5.20; 2024: $0.44 / $0.74 / $5.00). The ordinance also carries a right to upfront disclosure of offer information before you accept. This is Seattle city law, not an Instacart policy. |
|---|---|
| Benefits for contractors | SEATTLE ONLY. Under Seattle's App-Based Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance (SMC 8.39, in force from 1 May 2023 and extended to all app-based workers on 13 January 2024), a shopper working for a network company with more than 250 workers accrues one day of paid sick and safe time for every 30 days with at least one work-related stop in Seattle. It is paid at the worker's 'average daily compensation', recalculated monthly, and can be used in 24-hour increments for illness, a doctor's appointment, caring for a family member, domestic violence, or a school closure. No equivalent exists for Instacart shoppers outside the handful of cities and states that legislated it. |
| How you are engaged | Instacart's own words: full-service shoppers in the US are INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS, paid per batch rather than per hour, with the amount depending on order size, driving distance and the effort of shopping and delivering. Shoppers keep 100% of customer tips and can cash out earnings in as little as two hours. Instacart states the flexibility explicitly and states the consequence just as explicitly - there is no guaranteed volume of work, so 'total earnings potential depends on the individual'. |
| No experience needed | No experience and no qualifications are asked for, but there are four hard gates: you must be at least 18, legally authorised to work in the US, able to lift up to 40lbs (18kg) without accommodation, and have regular access to a reliable car and a smartphone that can run the Shopper app. Sign-up needs a driver's licence, a social security number and a bank account. Under-18s cannot do this work, and neither can anyone without a car - which rules it out as a first job for a lot of the people it looks like it would suit. |
| Works around classes | Instacart's model is order-by-order rather than shift-based: shoppers see batches available in their area and take only the ones they want, so there is nothing to fit around a class timetable. Instacart's own framing is that once approved you 'start making money on your own schedule'. The trade-off is the one every gig platform carries - the hours are yours, and so is the risk that there are no batches worth taking when you are free. |
| Schedule protection | SEATTLE. In Seattle only, the flexibility is legally protected rather than contractual: the App-Based Worker Minimum Payment Ordinance gives covered workers the right to access the platform without limitation (except for health and safety), the right NOT to be penalised for limiting their availability or refusing offers, and the right to cancel an offer with cause. That is the protection that stops batch-acceptance scoring being used against a shopper who says no. It is Seattle city law and applies nowhere else. |
Every claim above is sourced and dated. See sources on the full page.
Work at Instacart shoppers and something here is wrong or out of date? Tell us at hello@perks.global and we will check it.