How Much Money Can You Make with Instacart?


how much money can you make with instacart

If you love grocery shopping, then the Instacart Shopper app can be a good option for you to earn some extra cash daily, following your own schedule. The app helps you get paid for buying groceries and delivering them to customers.

How much money can you make with Instacart? What expenses should you consider? Are there some tips to increase Instacart earnings? In this article, you will get answers to questions like these.

What is Instacart?

Instacart offers grocery delivery and pick-up service. Customers can order products and get them delivered from the comfort of their homes for a small fee. The company also offers an option for customers to pick products at selected retail locations.

Instacart has made over 500 million products available to shop from around 40,000 grocery stores in 5,500+ cities across the US and Canada. Customers can use either the app or the website to place orders on Instacart.

Instacart also offers opportunities to make money for individuals who love shopping for groceries, so it is one of the legit money-making apps in the market. Known as Instacart shoppers, they deliver groceries or prepare grocery items for curbside pickup. And Instacart pays for their services. The signup process is easier. Once your background check is done, you can start working.

There are two ways for you to become an Instacart shopper:

  • A full-service shopper who shops and delivers groceries to customers
  • An in-store Instacart shopper who hand-select customers’ orders for pickup

Full-Service Shopper Vs. In-Store Instacart Shopper

Are you wondering whether you should start as a full-service shopper or an in-store shopper?

Let’s have a bird-eye view of both:

Full-Service Shoppers

Full-service Instacart shoppers work as independent contractors. After customers place orders, these orders are displaced on full-service shoppers’ smartphones. Once full-service shoppers accept Instacart jobs, they will shop and deliver grocery items to customers’ doors.

To start working as a full-service Instacart shopper, you must have consistent access to a vehicle. And you will earn money per delivery.

In-Store Shoppers

In-store shoppers are not tasked with delivering groceries. Once customers place grocery orders that they wish to pick from the stores, in-store shoppers shop and stage for pick-up.

In-store Instacart workers are paid per hour, and they are scheduled for shifts based on personal availability, up to 29 hours per week.

In your initial offer letter, average hourly pay will be mentioned.

How Much Does Instacart Pay Per Delivery?

When you start as a full-service shopper, you will be working as an independent contractor. So, it is reasonable to think how much Instacart shoppers get paid per delivery. Knowing this beforehand can give you an idea about the number of Instacart jobs you have to complete to make a certain amount of money.

However, the Instacart pay structure for a full-service shopper is a bit complex. The amount per batch delivery an Instacart driver will earn depends on various factors, such as the number of grocery items, types of items, driving distance, and efforts required to shop and deliver those items.

Most Instacart shoppers may earn a minimum of $7-$10 per batch delivery. But the earnings vary widely because of many variable factors.

The company lets you keep 100% of customer tips. But you should be careful about Instacart tip baiting, which many customers are employing to lure Instacart shoppers.

Instacart’s introduced guaranteed minimum wage earnings for delivering for California, meaning Instacart guarantees that you will get at least 120% of minimum wage and $.30 per mile you spend shopping and delivering.

How Much Can You Make a Week with Instacart?

When you start out to earn extra money working as an Instacart driver or in-store worker, you would like to know how much money shoppers are paid weekly.

Glassdoor reports that in-store shopping executives from Instacart make a $13 hourly wage. In the gig economy, it is not great, but it is not bad either. If you’re able to work 29 hours in a week, you can earn around $377 or more.

For Instacart full-service delivery drivers, weekly earning potential depends on various factors, such as the number of batch delivery completed, distance, difficulty in delivery, etc.

Full-service shoppers can make $700-$1000 or more working 20-25 hours a week.

You can get paid weekly via direct deposit to a bank account. Instacart also launched a feature, allowing shoppers to get paid instantly.

How to Make the Most Money with Instacart Grocery Delivery Service

If you want to make money quickly using Instacart, the following tips can help.

1. Be Fast

The company pays you for the number of orders you complete. So, it is simple – if you want to make more money, be fast.

Selecting low-travel batches, trying to learn layouts of stores, not overthinking replacement products, picking fast checkout lanes, and parking your car near the exit are some common ways that can help you save time. While you are at it, learning how to become an Instacart shopper is one way to stay ahead of your competition.

2. Go to the Busiest Areas

The app will help you choose areas that have high demands. So go to the busiest areas. This will increase your chances of getting batches with high payments.

3. Adopt Mobile Payments

Instacart introduced mobile checkout, which enables you to pay at the register with a tap of your phone. You don’t have to use your Instacart payment card.

Faster checkouts enable you to complete more batch deliveries in a week, adding a few hundred dollars more to your monthly earning.

4. Grab Peak Hour Pay Boost

During peak hours, Instacart pays more for each batch. If you want to make money substantially each week, never lose the peak hour pay boost.

5. Improve Rating

Improving your customer rating can help you view batches first. This is because highly-rated shoppers get priority when it comes to viewing and accepting batches.

Expenses Instacart Shoppers Should Consider

If you’re thinking about becoming an Instacart shopper, you should consider the following are expenses:

  • Vehicle-Related

Instacart includes the cost of gas in its earnings estimates for delivery services. So, you will have to spend your own funds to take care of vehicle-related expenses, such as gas, vehicle insurance, vehicle maintenance, car payment, etc. An efficient shopper will try to find ways to minimize vehicle-related expenses to boost profit.

  • Taxes

Instacart drivers have to pay necessary state and federal income taxes on their earnings. So, you should consider this aspect as well. A relief is you can write off miles your drive to make deliveries when filing your taxes.

You may also have to spend money to buy health and safety kits and insulated bags f0r delivery.

Conclusion

If you love visiting your local grocery store, then Instacart can be a good option to earn side money each week, controlling your own hours. It is one of the popular grocery delivery gig apps. So, you are less likely to face troubles in using the app and finding batches to deliver.

Image: Depositphotos

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Sandeep Babu Sandeep Babu is a cybersecurity writer. He writes about malware, data security, privacy, and other cybersecurity topics for SBT and other reputed platforms.

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