Instacart reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
A grocery-delivery service where a personal shopper picks your order from nearby stores — a lifeline for the elderly, disabled and car-less, yet a constant battlefield over honest pricing, order accuracy and delivery times.
What users love
For those who can't get out, it's a lifeline — an attentive shopper who hands it straight to you
The warmest layer of reviews: the elderly, disabled, post-surgery and car-less call it a "godsend." Shoppers carry groceries to the door and into your hands, bring them inside, send photos of produce, pick ripe fruit — this is the value that keeps people loyal.
He even brought my groceries inside for me!I am handicapped and he was a blessing to me for doing that!
With my health issues, Instacart is a godsend.
instacart has been extremely helpful for me. I broke my leg 3 weeks ago. the delivery person brought the order to me directly and handed it to me.
When it works, it's effortless: a wide choice of stores and fast delivery
For a chunk of users it's seamless: an easy app, time to browse and zoom in to read labels, lots of stores to pick from. Delivery is fast and accurate, sometimes early, couriers are polite. For them, Instacart is something they can't imagine living without.
I love all the different stores to order from. Always super efficient and delivered right away.
I love that you can zoom in and read labels on almost everything. I am disabled and shopping in person is difficult and painful
great store selection and speed of delivery options.
What users hate
The promised delivery window is fiction: it gets pushed hours later, even with paid priority
The single most common complaint: an order promised by 2pm slides to 4pm, then to the next day, on repeat. Paid priority and rush don't help — people wait 5-7 hours, miss dinner and end up cancelling themselves.
Delivery time keeps getting pushed later its great having to wait 7 hour after I placed my order with priority
paid extra for the rush delivery within 2 hours. still came 5 hours later. why did I pay extra for rush delivery?
delivery is delayed, and sometimes even postponed to the next day! Why indicate the expected time if you don't invest in it at all?
The real price is a markup on every item plus layers of fees on top of "free delivery"
People compare the bill to the in-store price tag and find a 10-20% markup per item, then service fees, delivery fees and store markup on top. Even shoppers admit the customer pays at least a dollar more per product. The "free delivery" turns out to be paid for.
they were charging me about 10-20% more per item!!! What the actual?! only use this app if you want to have a grocery bill that is 20% higher
Upcharges on every item and offers "free delivery" when you are still paying for it.
you're paying at least $1 more then if you would shop yourself. Plus you pay the delivery fee and the store also charges you.
Instacart+ membership gets signed up without consent and then they refuse to cancel it
Again and again: a user explicitly declines membership, then wakes up to a welcome email and a $49 yearly charge. The signup button sits right next to checkout, and the annual plan drains the account. Cancelling is "too late" and no refund follows.
I specifically refused the Instacart + membership but it subscribed me without my knowledge or consent and charged me $49.
Charged me for a membership I never purchased. I will be canceling my account and will never use you agaim
They signed me up for a Plus account without my authorization. DO NOT use instacart. Doordash is better
Support is a bot that loops, and live agents drop the chat and punish you with delays
Dry AI replies with no apology, a chatbot going in circles, agents ending the chat with no solution. Worse: people say complaining gets their order deliberately pushed back hours. "Help" boils down to a $5 credit and "we understand your concern."
"Specialists" end chat w/o a word or solution, and if you complain they'll punish you by pushing back your order delivery by literal hours.
Their solution to everything is a $5 credit & assuring you they understand your concern
The in app support was terrible, insane lag, horrible chatbot that went in circle.
The app freezes on the login screen: buttons won't press, the screen is "frozen"
A whole layer of reviews: people simply can't get in — taps don't register, the sign in / log in buttons are dead, the screen hangs with an ad banner on top. Reinstalling doesn't help; they fall back to the web version or just delete the app.
I can't hit login The button will not be depressed it won't do anything
This app doesn't even respond to my touches when trying to sign up. No matter what I press, it stays at the sign in/up page
App just doesn't work. Gives a login screen but you can't click on anything. Nothing happens.
The shopper "forgets" items, flags them out of stock, or swaps in a bad replacement
A constant pain: half the list arrives, the rest is "out of stock" — though the store has it. Heavy or fussy items get refunded too readily instead of found. Replacements are poorly chosen and unapproved. The result is the very thing they ordered to avoid: going to the store yourself.
sometimes they simply don't bring some of the products from the list. And you are left without time and without the necessary goods.
heavy products or items that require more effort seem to get refunded too easily
no substitute was offered for missing items. delivery driver got lost
Perishables arrive warm and spoiled: melted ice cream, slimy onions, rotten meat
No temperature control: ice cream and milk ride in a hot trunk at 90°+, melting over two hours of detours. Near-expired produce, rotten meat and slimy onions show up — and refunds for spoiled goods are often denied.
Why do you say my groceries are temperature controlled when driver pulls up with no air-conditioning and I ordered ice cream while waiting on them to deliver groceries somewhere else first.
expired meat, vegetables and spoiled items. An actual human being is bringing these foods to feed my family. Threw away almost all my meat, moldy/slimey onions.
deliver ice-cream 2+ hours later melted no refunds
Order marked "delivered" to the wrong door or street — and they won't retrieve it
Drivers ignore instructions and apartment numbers, dumping bags at the wrong door or on a street the customer doesn't live on. The status says "delivered" but nothing arrived, and no one offers to go fetch it — especially brutal for people post-surgery who can't go out.
it's 92° and this idiot leaves my groceries on the ground on a street I don't live on. after repeated directions. He followed none.
never got my order and they delivered it to wrong address.
My last grocery order the driver left my bags & someone else's order
Money disappears unexpectedly: extra holds, double tips, charges attempted without consent
People catch unauthorized charge attempts, double tip charges, and holds triple the price of an added item. Customers can strip tips retroactively, leaving shoppers robbed. Fraudulent card charges get deflected onto the third-party Uber backend.
Instacart attempted to make a charge to my bank account. Thankfully there weren't enough funds to complete transaction. it wss declined. I did not authorize this attempted transaction.
Charged 2x for tip. multiple orders. Customer service literally just hangs up on you.
they froze my account for what they said was possible susiopous activity
Restaurant delivery is bolted on via Uber Eats and works poorly: prices shift, no tipping
Restaurant delivery, sub-contracted through Uber Eats, is the weak spot: receipts lag, you can't tip the driver after delivery, times are inaccurate, and missing orders get no refund. Seasoned users advise skipping the feature entirely.
But for restaurant orders, which is still new, it can be challenging at times. The receipt takes some time to become available. I especially dislike that it doesn't give the option to tip the driver after the delivery is completed.
Skip the restaurant delivery; Bad integration/sub-contract w/ uber eats.
the app is good on store orders but food orders are screwy