How much should you tip your Instacart Shopper?

A guide to tipping on Instacart

Let’s face it, there is little information on how to properly tip Instacart Shoppers. The food delivery industry in general is not very transparent about its pay structure.

But right upfront, let me say: $2 is never enough. Ever!

Neither is the 5% Instacart suggests. Keep reading to find out why!

Assume since there is a tip option at checkout, it’s not just a nice little extra for an already well-compensated shopper but it’s to make up for Instacart’s lack in pay.

In fact, Instacart recently announced that it would reduce its base-pay by about $1.50 per order. That’s already taken effect in my area where the Instacart base-pay has been $9 per order since I signed on in 2019 and is now around $7.50 per order.

Neither amount is enough to make a living anyways but I just thought I’d mention this change upfront. I’ll get into Instacart pay later on.

Since this pay is a recent development, some examples on this page will still use the $9 base pay per order until I collect more screenshots in the coming weeks.

Don’t get me wrong, Instacart is a great way for many people to get their groceries but there are just a few things I wish were more transparent like how much Instacart pays and how much customers should tip.

I know, you don’t have much say in who that shopper is but we also have no say in who we’re shopping for.

As a long-time Instacart shopper, I’m providing you, the customer with some more info so you can decide what works for you and your budget.

In a hurry?

Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. I often like to know the nitty gritty when I’m researching but sometimes I also just want to get the Cliffs notes (‘memba those?)

No? Well, here’s the information you need to help you tip on Instacart in a nutshell.

Since you’re choosing to play the Instacart game, it’s important you have some of the information that follows.

Instacart in a nutshell

Interesting so far, n’est-ce pas? You can already see how your tips make a world of difference between an Instacart shopper making below minimum wage per hour and someone actually making a living.As I said, I will show you quite a few examples of real-life Instacart orders.

If you’re like me, you like to understand the ins and outs of something before you’re fully convinced.

Stay tuned for that!

But here’s some more info before those of you in a rush, rush off!

Anything else before you go go?

Actually yes, if the above wasn’t compelling enough, I’d like you to remember one more thing.

I know you get the point!While Instacart is grouped into the food delivery industry, we’re actually more like personal shoppers with delivery (using our own vehicle) as part of our job.

Who am I to tell you what to do with your money?

Please allow myself to introduce myself (yes Austin Powers again!):

I’m Nadja (like Nadia) and I’ve shopped over 1,200 orders on Instacart.

Overall, I’ve been a full-time gig economist for the better part of six years (really since 2013….eek!) and I want to share my experience with other gig workers as well as customers so I can help each side understand the gig economy.

Prior to working as a gig economist (yea it’s kind of a fancy made up word I’ve come to enjoy), I worked in corporate America in management consulting, specifically organizational process improvement for nearly a decade.

This experience has helped me look at my food delivery work with a critical eye in hopes of bringing improvements to the gig worker and customer experience.

I aim to improve customer experience by giving shoppers the information (read: training) they need to do a good job and improve the gig worker experience by providing customers with the information they need to properly compensate their shoppers.

You mean Instacart doesn’t provide training?

Sure, there’s some generic “training” stuff on Instacart but it’s glamorized (like that one hour delivery pitch on your end) and doesn’t have any of the gritty real-life scenarios I’ve come to encounter.

Instacart allows anyone off the street who can pass a basic background check to become a shopper but most don’t make it because it’s actually quite cutthroat if you want to make it long-term.

Truly bad shoppers don’t make it past a few orders but since new shoppers join almost daily, you could get one, which is why you’ve probably ended up with weird replacements and moldy produce.

As I said, part of my mission with this website is to provide new Instacart shoppers with some real-life training to improve the overall customer experience since that’s not really Instacart’s focus.

Does tipping a lot guarantee you’ll get an experienced shopper?

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Unfortunately, it won’t really. You will get a decent shopper but Instacart doesn’t have a solid algorithm so pretty much any shopper can get any order unless their rating is truly atrocious.

If you give a shopper a 1-star rating, you could even end up with the same shopper again.

I’ve had many customers ask if they could request me and also know of fellow shoppers whose customers had the same requests but that’s just not how Instacart works.

Sure, I’ve had some of the same customers over the years but it was just pure coincidence that I was online when their order popped up and I happened to have the fastest reflexes to hit “Accept”.

That’s just the way it is on Instacart. Part of it is somewhat exciting but it can also be extremely frustrating.

Oh but I don’t order bottled water

That’s not the point. The point is that you don’t have to leave your house to go into a store, look for stuff, stand in line, load and unload the bags from your car, someone else does that.

Like I said, I love what I do but I can’t do it for less than minimum wage, which is what I’d make if it were up to Instacart.

Again, I’m not your loved one who’ll reluctantly grab some items on the way home from work. I do this for a living and while I absolutely love the freedom, I need to be compensated for the work.

Let’s move on!

You need to consider what type of store you’re ordering from, is it your local grocer or a big box store 20 miles away?

On Instacart’s part, the pay is mostly the same with the base of $5.50-$7.50 and then $.60 added per mile for whatever doesn’t fit into that base pay.

As we’ve established, Instacart mostly pays for mileage and not so much for the actual shopping part. If you do the math on many orders, the actual pay to shop is around $1.50, the rest goes to mileage.

Let’s go through some of the different stores on Instacart and what to consider when tipping at each of them.

I’ll give you some more examples of orders I recently completed to highlight what I would have made without some of the very generous tips.

What about delivery only?

Instacart has a few delivery only orders where someone at the store prepares the order and I only have to deliver.

Honestly when you know that’s the case, I am often OK with just a $3-$5 tip since I just have to pop into the store and grab the items.

Instacart pays me $4-$6 for those orders and they take a fraction of the time unless you live 10+ miles or have a large order with water, etc.

This page doesn’t really discuss delivery only. Delivery-only falls into a similar category as DoorDash, UberEats and Grubhub orders. Still very tip-dependent but $5-$10 tips go a longer way when you just have to pop into a restaurant or store vs. having to shop, checkout and deliver.

You can check out my tipping guide for delivery-only, here and apply it to Instacart delivery only orders.

What do most customers tip?

As I said, many customers choose to tip $2 regardless of order size, store or delivery distance.

I could show you screen recordings of hundreds of $2 tip orders I see all week but that would be slightly boring.

I take none of them unless one is grouped with a higher paying order, which we already covered earlier.

By now you know you’re not like most customers so you’ll tip at least $5 for smaller orders under 10 items, correct?

You’ve shown some very high tipping personal examples, can you show something more normal but still acceptable?

Yes, I’ve shown you some of the very low tipping orders I see but don’t take and and some very generous tipping examples from orders I recently completed.

All this is to show you that the average $2 tip would not allow your shopper to make a living since Instacart pays quite little.

I personally get quite a few of those high tipping orders since I’ve kept my rating at 5 stars for the majority of my time on Instacart.

In my experience, many high tipping customers increase their tip after delivery because I do put in quite a bit off effort to communicate with the customer to get good replacements, etc.

Now, let me show you some other examples of recent orders that weren’t insanely high tippers at 10%-20% but still allowed me to do quite well.

Here’s one that had around 30 items with a 15% tip off the total. It took 55 minutes from the time I left my house to the time I delivered.

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It also had some deli items and I was communicating with the customer about replacements for out of stock items so that took a minute.

Here’s another 30-ish item one that had some cases of water with a 10% tip off the total.

It took 40 minutes since it was a Monday morning and I was able to get to the store quickly, shop without a crowd and delivery nearby. This stuff makes a huge difference.

Thanks to the heavy pay for the two cases of water, the Instacart payment was also not too bad.

I made a refund, which affected my tip total but it was negligible.

Many customers I’d consider good tippers use the restaurant standard tied to their order total or just do a flat tip in the ballpark of that percentage that doesn’t fluctuate when I refund or add items.

Many of the high tippers would have increased the total since it slipped due to the refund.

As you know, I love to give thorough examples to prove my point, which makes me a real joy to be around! You can ask my friend to confirm.

Anyhoo, let me show you one of my recent orders, where the customer allowed their tip to fluctuate based on the fact that the store was out of one of their items.

As you can see, it was a very good double order but the second person ordered 6 of something and the store was out of their items and replacements were scarce.

I flagged down an employee and chatted with the customer about possible replacements.

The replacement I made was lower in price but came in cans, which were heavier than the original item.

Overall, the effort it took to get that replacement nailed down exceeded the effort it would have taken if the original item was in stock so the fact that I ended up with a lower tip does not make that much sense.

In my case, the customer was thankful I was able to find a replacement so there was no indication I did a terrible job.

Therefore, if you notice this kind of tip decrease, please make sure you add a few extra $$ if your shopper did a great job.

This especially matters at big box stores where the refund of one item could a result in a much smaller tip.

Is there an alternative?

Knowing that I make between $5.50-$7 for your order before gas and taxes and also knowing I’ll spend about an hour on your order, you can decide how much you’d like me to make an hour with your tip before taxes and gas costs.

You could also tip half of your item count. This only works for regular grocery store orders, not so much big box stores.

So if you have around 30 regular items at a grocery store, tip $15, 60 items, tip $30, etc. I wouldn’t just want to get $25 for a 50 item Costco order but it’s better than $2. I do think the % is probably your better bet.

Quick video that shows what happens to a no tip order on Instacart

So should you give a low rating if a shopper isn’t great?

Everything you do as the customer really just ends up affecting the shopper, not really Instacart but yes obviously rate according to the service you received.

If you give a shopper a 1-star rating and bad review, you could end up with that person again unless you ask Instacart to block them from being your shopper in the future.

As much as I am in favor of high tips, in my opinion and experience on Instacart, I would prefer if you reduced my tip if you think I did a terrible job rather than giving me a 1-star rating.

We don’t see written reviews unless they’re 5-star reviews so if you really want to help the shopper, reduce the tip (not to the point where it could be considered tip baiting but enough to send a message).

That will actually get to the shopper and if the shopper is willing to learn, could be much more of a lesson than a 1-star review without reducing the tip.

I know, Instacart can be so whacky! And honestly, it changes the rules all the time so most of us can’t keep up.

I just know that I want to keep my rating at 5-stars and provide excellent service.

I hope all this was helpful. Check out some of my other pages below.

Related Pages

Here are the five steps to help make the Instacart ordering process a smoother one.

Find info on whether to tip your Whole Foods (Amazon Prime) shopper when ordering for pickup, here.

Heard of Dumpling grocery delivery? Check out my article about my brief stint as Dumpling Shopper and whether or not it beats Instacart, here.

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