Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats: A Comparison
If you have ordered food recently, it is likely that you have used one of these apps Instacart, DoorDash and UberEats. These are the most popular delivery apps available and they are known for their high quality service. To pick the best among them is a tricky thing but before we do that, let us learn more about these apps.
About Instacart
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in 50 Beale Street, San Francisco, California, U.S. this grocery pick-up and delivery company is known as Instacart. Having started its operation from limited locations in the US it slowly spread to most of the country as well as established itself in Canada. Having partnered up with various national and local retailers the company soon started with same-day grocery delivery orders and in addition to grocery, they also started delivering alcohol as well. Fidji Simo is the current CEO of the company while Apoorva Mehta, Max Mullen, and Brandon Leonardo are the people credited with founding the company. The company belongs to the retail industry and is private, though it had plans to go public this year that idea, for now, has been put on hold. The company currently has 3,000 employees but this number stood at 3,00,000 during the pandemic as a lot of people were willing to be Instacart shoppers and help out others. The company’s revenue and valuation both run into billions of dollars. Now that we know about Instacart it’s time for two more introductions before we head to Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats comparison.
About DoorDash
DoorDash is a public food delivery company that was founded in the United States of America. The company is based in San Francisco, California, and it only became a private company in 2020 after having originally been founded in 2013. The company was founded in Palo Alto, California, and was initially known as PaloAltoDelivery.com before it became DoorDash. Tony Xu, Stanley Tang, Andy Fang, and Evan Moore founded the company. By 2018, DoorDash had beaten its competitors to the top spot in the food delivery industry. By the end of 2020, the company had more than 1 million delivery people and 20 million customers while also having 4,50,000 merchants use their platform. As of today, the company has a presence in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, and the United States. So far, DoorDash has acquired 4 companies including Wolt to help them with various aspects like delivery and technology in the food industry. It is said that the workforce of the company consists of more than 6,000 people. In November 2022 the company announced its plans to remove 1,250 employees or as much as 6% of the employees from its corporate sector. One last intro before we look at Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats comparison.
About UberEats
We all know Uber, the driving company, in the year 2014 they came up with this online food ordering and delivery app called UberEats. With a presence in more than 6,000 cities in 45 countries, the company is one of the top ones in this segment. Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp are the founders of this company while Dara Khosrowshahi is the current CEO. The company’s revenue stood at 8.3 billion dollars in 2021. The headquarters of the company is in San Francisco, California, U.S. Uber itself was founded in 2009 so it is commendable that the company could come up with another top company from a drastically different field in such a short span. UberEats was named UberFresh before it got its present name. After starting its operations in Santa Monica, California in 2015, the company started operations in London and Paris in 2016. From 0.6 billion dollars in revenue in 2017 to 8.3 in 2022 the company has grown at a quick pace and that hasn’t stopped them from trying to bring innovation into the field as they have experimented with drones and robots to bring to its fleet. Now that introductions are out of the way we can begin with Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats comparison.
Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEat
Before we start, a lot of you might be thinking about how exactly can you compare Instacart with the other two considering that they are from different niches. To this, we saw that overall the three companies belong to the retail and delivery industry, while their products might differ from each other they can still be compared on the basis of stuff like fees charged for service or area of operation and more.
Pricing
When it comes to getting a membership for any of these three companies and their app the prices might be different for each of them. Instacart offers you a monthly subscription for 9.99 dollars or 99 dollars if you pay for the whole year at once. When considered monthly the DoorDash membership also comes to 9.99 dollars in pricing. UberEats also offers membership for 9.99 dollars a month or 99.99 dollars a year. However, with their membership, you also get access to Uber rides. When ordering food through DoorDash, they initially charge you 1 dollar per order as a delivery charge for the first month and after that, you pay 5.99 dollars per order and it can go up to 8 dollars. Instacart allows you free delivery for the first 14 days if you take a membership trial while the first order is anyways free after which you pay 3.99 dollars as a charge for orders above 35 dollars. UberEats charges 4.99 dollars per order but new users can expect to get a coupon worth 5 dollars. After looking at all those numbers we can only vouch for UberEats emerging as the better option as its membership gets you the benefit of two services while its delivery service is only marginally higher than that of Instacart.
Area of Operation
Instacart does not operate beyond the boundaries of the US and Canada. DoorDash operates in the US and Canada in addition to Australia, Germany, New Zealand, and Japan. UberEats on the other hand operates in a lot of cities in North America, Europe, South America, New Zealand, Australia, Asia, and Africa. So there is no doubt as to which company trumps in this parameter in this Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats comparison.
Device Options
All these companies have apps for Android and iOS devices. You can go to the respective store and download the respective app or else you can simply visit their website and use their services from there. So there is not much to separate these companies based on this parameter.
Wages
While working for Instacart you can make anywhere between 11 and 25 dollars an hour and also 100% of the tips you get are yours. While working for DoorDash you can make between 12 and 17 dollars an hour and you also get to keep 100% of the tips you get. Working for UberEats you can make somewhere between 15 and 18 dollars an hour. Thus Instacart emerges victorious in this segment. So with all these facts and figures in place, we can see that the Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats comparison ends with UberEats winning the claim to be the best company among the three because of its area of operations being more than the other two while also having better pricing and benefits for membership. Let us now check out Instacart vs UberEats Pay comparison. Also Read: Shipt vs Instacart: Which is the best?
Instacart vs UberEats Pay
You could be the best company in the world but only a few top executives and other people will care about it. Maybe a few customers are happy to be using your products and services or for associating with you but don’t expect the workers to fall for it. Your employees and staff need the reflection of you being a good company in the form of timely and adequate payments in their accounts. Since the pay matters for the workforce that is the back of any company, we will now compare the Instacart vs UberEats pay in detail. As we mentioned above the range for the pay for both these companies we saw Instacart just edge out ahead of UberEats when it came to hourly wages but does that paint the whole picture? Or is there more to it? If we look at the average pay of both these companies then Instacart’s pay is said to be around 13 dollars an hour while UberEats’ comes to 14 dollars an hour which is contradictory to what we saw above in the Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats section. But keep in mind that these are average pay and can vary in the range mentioned above.
Pay in Instacart
For Instacart, the pay may be affected by the number of items you pick and deliver as well as the items that you pick. The delivery distance, the effort put into delivery/shopping, and tips are also a part of it. Whereas for UberEats the amount is decided by per pick-up fee, trip supplement, promotions, and tips. So considering this, UberEats has lesser parameters to decide pay which makes your work a bit easier than Instacart’s drivers. Also, if we were just to go by the 13 dollars and 14 dollars average pay then an Instacart driver would make 57,000 dollars a year while an UberEats driver stands to make 58,000 dollars a year. There is just a marginal difference between the two but we should not forget that this is the case when we consider the lower averages paid by each, but when we consider the range of pay of both the companies it is Instacart that can pay more than what UberEats pays. All in all, just as mentioned in the Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats section, the pay offered by Instacart can go higher than that of UberEats but tips end up playing a significant role in both these cases and so we would rather say it’s a tie. This was all about Instacart vs UberEats Pay. Now we have another company from the delivery space that we want to compare with Instacart. We are talking about a comparison with the Postmate platform. However, before we do go that way we need to introduce you to the latest company to feature in this article.
About Postmates
Headquartered in San Francisco, California this is yet another food delivery company. Postmates was founded in 2011 on the 1st of May by Bastian Lehmann, Sam Street, and Sean Plaice. As of 2018, the company revenue was 1 billion dollars and by 2019 it had as many as 5,341 employees. The CEO of the company is Bastian whereas Sean Plaice, Vivek Patel, and Kristin Schaefer form the management team. Nabeel Hyatt, Brian Singerman, and Scott Banister are board members. The company serves in select cities across the US. The company was acquired by Uber in 2020. By 2019 the company was present in 2,940 US cities. You can avail of the services of this company via their app or website. Postmates also had a run in Mexico City but ceased operations after it didn’t pick up as expected. Uber paid 2.65 billion dollars to acquire Postmates which was one of its direct competitors. And now that introductions are out of the way we move towards an Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats-Esque comparison between Instacart and Postmates.
Instacart vs Postmates
We will now compare Instacart and Postmates under various parameters to see how they fare against each other.
Pricing
The pricing war for Instacart and Postmates is similar to what it was for UberEats and the former. Both these companies ask you to sign up for membership by paying 9.99 dollars a month or 99 dollars annually. On Postmates you can be paying a delivery fee between 5.99 dollars and 9.99 dollars per order or between 1.99 dollars and 3.99 dollars per order if you order from one of their partners. While with Instacart you are paying 3.99 dollars as a delivery charge for items worth more than 35 dollars. So while the membership price didn’t have anything to separate the two but delivery fee shows that Instacart is the better app unless you are ordering from a Postmates partner which limits your options.
Area Of Operation
Instacart might have lost this parameter vs UberEats but in Instacart vs Postmates comparison, the former wins it. Instacart is available in the US and Canada as both countries can enjoy the benefit of this app. But Postmates only operates in select US cities. They tried to establish themselves in Mexico but failed and ceased operations and therefore Instacart emerged as the better app yet again.
Device Options
Both these companies have apps for Android and iOS devices. You can go to the respective store and download the respective app or else you can simply visit their website and use their services from there. So there is not much to separate these companies based on this parameter.
Wages
Instacart shoppers can make up to 25 dollars an hour but mostly the range of earnings is assumed to be between 7 dollars and 20 dollars with 11 dollars being the average earning. Postmates claims that their drivers can earn as much as 25 dollars an hour and if not that then they at least stand to make 4 dollars per order fulfilled. Both companies allow you to keep the tips which is an additional income for you. So by merely comparing these numbers, Postmates looks to be a better payer as completing 3 orders in an hour can help you make more than the average pay of an Instacart driver. So unlike what happened in the Instacart vs DoorDash vs UberEats comparison, Instacart does not come up as the second best app as it did against UberEats, the parent company of Postmates. Also Read: Sam’s Club One Day Pass: Shop Without a Membership
How much does Instacart pay?
Based on where you are working the pay may differ from city to city. It’s not just the city but also the number of items, the type of items, delivery distance, and tips that make up the pay. You are working as an independent contractor for the company so it’s not that straightforward. Various performance-related stuff can see you earn more than your counterparts. An Instacart driver’s pay can on average be close to 11 to 14 dollars an hour. However, the highest you can make in an hour is 25.59 dollars while the lowest can go to 7.25 dollars per hour. Considering you put in an 8-hour shift you can bring home more than 100 dollars a day. Also, you can work a second job while working for Instacart if you wish to and want to earn more. So yearly you have the potential to bring in around 40,000 to 60,000 dollars as an Instacart driver. If you work as an Instacart driver in New York then you stand to make 25.59 dollars an hour which is the highest possible pay. Working in Queens or Brooklyn brings the figure down to 23.12 or 23.07 dollars per hour. On the other hand, working in Canada brings you an average of 15.75 Canadian dollars an hour but it can vary depending on the location you work at. You are paid every week when working for Instacart. While service region and location determine the pay your task also plays an important part. You can choose to be a shopper or a delivery person and you can be working part-time or be an independent contractor working for the company. All these details make a difference to your pay and determine the amount you bring home.
