As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases — including a fee if you start an Amazon Prime trial through the one Amazon link on this page. Shipt, Instacart and Target pay us nothing, and part of the conclusion is that many people should buy neither. See our methodology.
Shipt and Instacart+ both cost $99 a year. Both also offer a 14-day free trial, and both waive the delivery fee but not the service fee. All of that was read from each company’s own site on 13 October 2026. The difference that actually decides this is one number: Shipt waives delivery at $35 an order, Instacart+ at $10.
If your typical order is a full weekly shop, that gap barely matters. If it’s a top-up of milk, bread and whatever you ran out of, it is worth real money.
The prices, side by side
| Shipt | Instacart+ | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual plan | $99/year ($8.25/month equivalent) | $99/year |
| Monthly plan | $10.99/month | $9.99/month |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
| $0 delivery on orders of | $35+ | $10+ (Costco $35+, restaurants $25+) |
| Fee on smaller member orders | $7 under $35 | Not published |
| Service fees waived? | No | No |
| Extras | Preferred shoppers, scheduling | Peacock Premium, NYT Cooking (annual) |
Shipt figures from shipt.com/membership, Instacart figures from instacart.com/instacart-plus, both 13 October 2026, exact.
Annual cost is identical, so the annual plans do not separate them. On monthly billing Instacart+ is $1 cheaper: $9.99 × 12 = $119.88 against Shipt’s $10.99 × 12 = $131.88.
The basket-size test
This is the calculation to run on your own orders. Shipt’s page states that “deliveries under $35 with a membership will incur a $7 fee.” So a Shipt member who places a $25 order pays $7 in delivery on top of the $99 membership. Instacart+ waives delivery on that same $25 order.
Take someone who orders $25 of groceries every other week:
- 26 orders a year × $7 = $182 in delivery fees as a Shipt member
- 26 orders a year × $0 = $0 as an Instacart+ member
Both memberships cost $99, so on delivery fees alone the small-basket shopper pays about $182 more at Shipt. Service fees and prices are extra at both, and we cannot put a number on those, as explained below.
The workaround is to batch: wait until the cart passes $35, then order. That costs you the convenience you were paying for, and it means ordering less often, which weakens the case for any membership. If you’re willing to batch, Shipt’s $35 line is fine. If you order small and often, it’s a poor fit.
Instacart’s own rule has a catch of its own: Costco orders need $35, not $10.
Neither company publishes the fees that decide break-even
Here is the gap in both companies’ pricing. Neither Shipt’s membership page nor Instacart’s publishes what a non-member pays for delivery or what its service fees are. Shipt says service fees “will vary by retailer and location.” Instacart says delivery fees vary by retailer, window and order total. We aren’t going to quote you a blog’s average, because those copy each other and go stale.
So the break-even is a formula you fill in from your last receipt:
$99 ÷ (your delivery fee, excluding service fee) = orders a year to break even
At a $5 delivery fee that is 20 orders. At $10 it is 10. At $3 it is 33, which is more than one a fortnight. If you have placed fewer orders than that in the past 12 months, the membership is a net cost no matter which one you pick. Compare against what you did last year, not what you plan to do.
The monthly promotion, and what it really costs
Shipt currently advertises a monthly plan at $0.99 for the first four months, then $10.99, for new members, valid 8 October to 7 November 2026. Run it for a full year:
- 4 × $0.99 = $3.96
- 8 × $10.99 = $87.92
- Year one: $91.88, which beats the $99 annual plan by $7.12
That is only true if you stay for the full year and don’t cancel. In year two the monthly plan costs $131.88 against $99. Promotions like this are what our guide to annual vs monthly billing is about: the discount is real, but it’s priced to get you onto the more expensive plan for the long run. Put a reminder in your calendar for month four.
Which stores you can actually use
This matters more than a $7 fee. Shipt and Instacart each partner with a different, location-dependent set of retailers. Shipt’s membership page lists Target, Kroger and Meijer among its stores; Instacart’s lists “most major U.S. chains” and Costco. Which of those reach your zip code we can’t tell you.
Before paying either, enter your address and check whether the store you actually use is on the list. If your regular supermarket is only on one of them, that settles it, regardless of the arithmetic above.
Shipt also has a link to Target. Shipt’s help centre says any Shipt member can switch to Target Circle 360, which also costs $99 a year and covers Target’s own delivery. Our Target Circle 360 breakdown covers when that route beats a standalone Shipt plan. If you mostly shop at Target, it usually does.
What Instacart+ includes that Shipt doesn’t
Instacart+ includes Peacock Premium at no extra cost. Peacock listed that tier at $129.99 a year when we checked on 1 September 2026, and we did not re-check it today. If you’d pay for Peacock anyway, Instacart+ is $30.99 cheaper than Peacock alone, which makes the groceries free. If you wouldn’t, the benefit is worth nothing to you, and you should count it as zero. Our full Instacart+ analysis goes through that argument.
Shipt’s extras are softer: you can choose preferred shoppers and schedule deliveries ahead. Those are conveniences, and we have no way to value them in dollars.
Shipt’s navigation also lists a student membership and a SNAP EBT membership. We could not read the prices for either, so we’re not quoting any.
The alternative both of them compete with
If you already pay for Amazon Prime, you may have a third option. Prime costs about $140 a year (approximate; we can’t confirm Amazon’s prices at source), and Amazon’s newsroom says members get free same-day delivery on orders over about $25 in most areas. That is a lower threshold than Shipt’s $35 and a higher one than Instacart’s $10. The limit is selection: Amazon delivers from Amazon’s stores, not your local chain. Our Prime breakdown has the numbers.
The verdict
Pick Instacart+ if you place small or frequent orders, your supermarket is on it, or you’d pay for Peacock anyway. The $10 threshold and the Peacock benefit are the two things Shipt can’t match.
Pick Shipt if your orders are reliably over $35, your stores are on Shipt and not Instacart, or you shop mostly at Target, in which case compare Circle 360 first.
Don’t buy either if you order groceries fewer than about once a month, or if the formula above gives you a break-even higher than the number of orders you placed last year. At that rate you’d pay $99 to avoid perhaps $50 of delivery fees, and the service fees remain. Take the free trial, place your usual orders, check the receipts, and cancel before day 14. Our guide to cancelling covers the reminder habit that stops a trial turning into $99.
Both are sold directly: Shipt and Instacart+.
Shipt pricing, the $35 threshold, the $7 under-$35 fee, the trial and the monthly promotion verified at shipt.com/membership on 13 October 2026. Instacart+ pricing, order minimums and trial verified at instacart.com/instacart-plus the same day. Peacock’s price is from 1 September 2026 and was not re-checked. Amazon figures are approximate. We analyse published pricing and terms; we do not test services hands-on.