Single Mom Now Suffering.... - Anonymous employee Instacart Employee Review

1.0
Apr 25, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You Get To Pick Your Own Hours

Cons

You Have A Time Limit And Must Race To Beat It, Know The Layout Of All Of The Fredmeyer's And Costcos In Gresham and Tualatin Area, Get The Highest Ratings, Will Work More Than You Will Get Paid, No Gas Reimbursement, Must Use Your Phone For The Whole Time You Work So Bring A Backup Battery Not Just A Charger, Will Spend More Gas Than It's Worth...I worked for 18 hours and 39 minutes and only received a total of $113.92. I live in Vancouver, WA. You will not receive any training. You will not receive any location addresses until your first day of work and you only have a very broad map that has colors. You must be in the colored area to get shoppers. You must keep the app open at all times to get shoppers which drains your battery. You will need to scan all items in while you are shopping but the stores' layouts change from time to time and you are penalized when the store is sold out of an item or doesn't carry it at that time. You will never speak to a LIVE person/customer service from Instacart. They only have automated answering and emails and they don't answer your emails correctly all the time.

Explore other reviews about Instacart

5.0
Apr 27, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Focused direction. Good WLB. Decent pay. Fully remote.

Cons

A bit slow growth on business and career

1
2.0
Jun 21, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Fun going out and talking to people. You will interact with people everyday. You control how much you get paid. Lots of flexibility in the time between accepting an order and traveling to the store and beginning to shop. It isn't pedal to the metal to get to the store like DoorDash is. You can also cancel batches after accepting as long as you keep your rate under 15%. This is different from DoorDash where your rankings will suffer if g.t. 2% cancellation rate.

Cons

There's a learning curve and it takes a while to learn each chain of stores' items. Once you become proficient at one store, the algorithm will lowball your offers relative to other less-experienced Instacart shoppers. Overall, Instacart shoppers likely get paid similar or less than the store's regular employees.

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