Guide ยท What we measured
Are Instacart prices higher than in store?
The short answer
For most stores, the price on Instacart is higher than the price on the shelf of the same store, for the same product in the same package, in the same week. In the pairs we checked by hand it ran from 0% to 20% higher, with a median of 13.3% and a mean of 10.7%. It was never meaningfully lower.
Instacart says so itself: many storefronts carry the line "Prices vary from in-store". What that line does not tell you is by how much. That is what we measured.
How we checked
A fair comparison needs the same product, the same package size, the same store and the same week, or it is not measuring the markup at all. So each pair was:
- a chain's own printed weekly ad price (its shelf price that week), and
- the same chain's Instacart listing of the same product and package, for the same ZIP code, in the same week.
We checked 24 such pairs by hand, plus an in-store check at Jewel-Osco against Jewel's own app. Pairs we could not match exactly were kept apart: three less certain ones (a "2 for" deal, an ad that printed no package size) came out 34% and 43% higher, and they are not in the figures above.
What we found
- Range, 24 pairs
- 0% to 20.0% above the shelf
- Median
- 13.3% above
- Mean
- 10.7% above
- Jewel-Osco, 13 pairs
- median 14.3%, highest 20.0%
- Lowest
- 0.2% below, once (a $4.99 listing against a $5.00 card price)
Three examples from Jewel-Osco, checked against Jewel's own app:
- A pound of Lucerne butter on sale: $4.99 on Instacart, $4.49 in Jewel's app.
- The same pound at its regular price: $6.99 on Instacart, $5.99 in Jewel's app.
- Kerrygold butter: $7.99 on Instacart, $6.99 in Jewel's app.
The stores that match the shelf
Not every store marks up. Some grocers run their own online storefront on Instacart's platform and sell at their in-store prices. In our checks, Woodman's, Tony's Fresh Market and ALDI matched their printed ad to the cent. ALDI's own storefront says it shows in-store shelf prices.
So "Instacart is always more expensive" is not quite right either. It depends on the store, and the listing usually tells you, if you read the small print under the store name.
What this means when you compare prices
- Do not compare an online price with a shelf price as if they were the same thing. A store that looks 10% dearer on Instacart may be cheaper on its own shelf.
- Check the store's own app for card and loyalty prices. Those are often lower again, and they are not always on Instacart.
- If you shop in person, the shelf price is the one that matters. Delivery prices plus fees and a tip are a different purchase.
How Cartworth handles it
Every price in Cartworth carries a label saying what kind of price it is: shelf price, online price (a store's Instacart listing), chain-wide (one listing for the whole chain), or weekly ad. When the best price is a shelf price and the next store only has an online price, Cartworth does not claim an exact saving between them. It allows an online price to be up to 25% above the shelf, which covers every pair above, and only says one store is cheaper when it still is after that allowance.
See how Cartworth compares prices, or read the guide to unit prices.