The deep dive · NASDAQ: CART · Read November 1, 2026

Instacart

The grocery delivery app plus the software behind many supermarkets' own sites. Profitable and shrinking its share count fast, and on Oct 28, 2026 it agreed to be bought by DoorDash.

8-K, Oct 29, 2026
Since you opened this page
Instacart's revenue at its last-quarter pace of $138 a second.
Revenue
$3.74B in 2025, up 11%. Q3 2026 grew 17%.
Profit
+$498M operating income in 2025, a 13% margin.
Debt
None drawn. A $500M credit line is unused; $935M of cash and securities.
Watch
$65 a share DoorDash deal, expected to close late 2027 to mid 2028.
AI
In 4 assistants shop Instacart inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google AI Mode.
Hiring
3,600 staff on a Flex First model: remote, office or both. About 600,000 contract shoppers.
Listings
114 → 94 remote listings since Oct 10.
01 · The business

Delivery fees pay most bills, ads grow faster.

Most revenue is what Instacart keeps on each order from customers and stores. More than a quarter is advertising and other income, mostly brands paying to be seen. In Q3 2026 ads grew 23% against 14% for transactions.

72%
Transactions (orders), $2.68B
28%
Advertising and other, $1.06B
10-K FY2025, revenue by type
The moat, in three parts
  1. 1
    Plugged into most of North American grocery
    More than 2,200 retail banners, and it powers more than 380 grocers' own e-commerce sites through Instacart Enterprise.
    10-K FY2025
  2. 2
    A grocery catalog that AI assistants rely on
    Over 2 billion product listings, 1.6 billion lifetime orders and inventory signals for nearly 100,000 stores.
    Instacart, Sep 22, 2026
  3. 3
    An ad business brands pay for
    Advertising and other revenue was $331M in Q3 2026, up 23%, at 3.1% of everything ordered on the platform.
    Instacart Q3 2026 results
The competition
TradingView, Oct 30 close
CompanyWorthRevenueGrowthPer employeePaid per $1Stock, 1 yr
Instacart$13.1B$4.15B+14%$1.15M$3.37+52%
DoorDash$77.6B$17.1B+35%$0.54M$4.62−32%
Uber$133B$55.2B+17%$1.62M$2.42−32%
Amazon$2592B$797B+15%$0.51M$3.29+6%
  • Instacart
    Worth
    $13.1B
    Revenue
    $4.15B
    Growth
    +14%
    Per employee
    $1.15M
    Paid per $1
    $3.37
    Stock, 1 yr
    +52%
  • DoorDash
    Worth
    $77.6B
    Revenue
    $17.1B
    Growth
    +35%
    Per employee
    $0.54M
    Paid per $1
    $4.62
    Stock, 1 yr
    −32%
  • Uber
    Worth
    $133B
    Revenue
    $55.2B
    Growth
    +17%
    Per employee
    $1.62M
    Paid per $1
    $2.42
    Stock, 1 yr
    −32%
  • Amazon
    Worth
    $2592B
    Revenue
    $797B
    Growth
    +15%
    Per employee
    $0.51M
    Paid per $1
    $3.29
    Stock, 1 yr
    +6%

Investors pay $3.37 for every dollar Instacart brings in. Its peers here range from $2.42 to $4.62, close to their median of $3.29.

Instacart, TradingViewDoorDash, TradingViewUber, TradingViewAmazon, TradingView
02 · The money · July to September 2026, its latest reported quarter

Instacart brought in $1.1 billion in 92 days.

+$156M
on the same 92 days a year earlier
$12M
a day, every day of the quarter
$496K
an hour, around the clock
$8,265
a minute

That is about $156 million more than the same three months a year earlier. Each of its 3,600 employees brought in about $1.04 million over the year, about $2,850 a day.

Revenue is not profit. It is the money that came in before Instacart pays any of its costs.

Instacart Q3 2026 results; employees from 10-K FY2025
02 · The turn

From losing $2.1 billion to making $498 million.

Revenue grew 23% in two years. In FY2025 it kept 13 cents of every revenue dollar as operating profit.

Revenue
Money coming in, per fiscal year
Operating profit
What is left after running the business
  • FY2023: lost 70¢ of every $1
  • FY2024: kept 14¢ of every $1
  • FY2025: kept 13¢ of every $1
10-K FY2025, statement of operations
Revenue per employee

Uber brings in more per person than Instacart; DoorDash and Amazon less.

  1. Uber$1.62M
  2. Instacart$1.15M
  3. DoorDash$0.54M
  4. Amazon$0.51M
$0.0M$2.0M
Trailing revenue divided by employees, from the same market read as the table above.
The balance sheet

Instacart has spent most of its spare cash on buybacks, not hoarded it. DoorDash plans to fund the cash part of the deal with its own cash and new debt.

No debt, $935M of cash and securities
$830M
cash and equivalents
$105M
marketable securities
$500M
unused credit line to 2031
Q3 2026 results; 10-Q Q2 2026 credit note
03 · Footnote flags

What the filings say, and what we think it means.

The fact is the filing's. The read, in italics, is ours.

  1. 01
    Watch

    DoorDash is buying Instacart for about $17 billion.

    Signed Oct 28, 2026: $65.00 a share, at least 75% in cash, a 26% premium to the Oct 22 close. Close expected late 2027 to first half 2028, pending US, Canadian and Israeli review.

    For employees, a long limbo. DoorDash plans to keep the brand and enterprise products, but the release is silent on leadership, staff and offices.

    Joint press release, Oct 29, 2026
  2. 02
    Neutral

    A $1.25 billion fee if regulators block it.

    DoorDash pays $1.25B in specified regulatory cases. Instacart pays $650M if it takes a better offer. D1 Capital and Sequoia, about 19% of shares, agreed to vote yes.

    The size of the reverse fee shows both sides see antitrust as the main risk. Unvested employee equity converts to DoorDash units at close.

    8-K, Oct 29, 2026
  3. 03
    Neutral

    Guidance withdrawn, earnings call cancelled.

    With the deal pending, Instacart suspended financial guidance, withdrew its long-term targets and cancelled its Nov 5, 2026 call.

    Normal during a merger. Outsiders now get less information until the deal closes or fails.

    Instacart Q3 2026 results
  4. 04
    Watch

    Shutting down its smart carts.

    On Oct 25, 2026 the board approved winding down Caper Carts. Charges of $55M to $80M, including $12M to $17M of severance, mostly in Q4 2026, done by mid 2027.

    There are layoffs here, though the count is not given. Instacart said retailer adoption did not scale quickly enough.

    8-K, Oct 26, 2026
  5. 05
    Watch

    Three retailers are 43% of everything sold.

    The top three retail partners were about 43% of GTV in 2025. One unnamed customer was 17% of revenue and another 11%.

    If a big chain moves its delivery elsewhere, the hit is immediate. The filing does not name them.

    10-K FY2025, concentration of risk
  6. 06
    Good

    Buybacks cut the share count by 12% in a year.

    $1.40B of stock repurchased in 2025 and $683M in the first half of 2026. Shares outstanding fell from 263.4M (Jul 2025) to 231.5M (Jul 2026).

    Few companies shrink this fast. It boosts per-share results, and helps explain why there is little spare cash on the balance sheet.

    10-Q Q2 2026; 10-K FY2025 equity note
  7. 07
    Watch

    Stock pay is rising faster than revenue.

    Stock-based pay was $120M in Q3 2026, up from $82M, and $341M in nine months. Q3 net income rose only 2% on 17% revenue growth.

    Equity is a growing part of pay. Some of the profit squeeze is that, ahead of a deal that turns grants into DoorDash units.

    Instacart Q3 2026 results
  8. 08
    Neutral

    The $2.1 billion loss in 2023 was IPO stock pay.

    Operating loss was $2.14B in 2023, when $2.76B of stock pay was booked, $2.58B of it at the Sept 2023 IPO. The business has made $489M and $498M since.

    The loss was an accounting event from old grants vesting at IPO, not cash burned.

    10-K FY2025, stock compensation details
  9. 09
    Neutral

    It paid the FTC $60 million.

    An FTC consent order on marketing and Instacart+ membership practices became final Jan 13, 2026, with no admission of liability. $60M was paid in January 2026.

    Settled and paid. Instacart also ended retailer price tests in Dec 2025 after customer concerns.

    10-Q Q2 2026, commitments and contingencies
  10. 10
    Watch

    600,000 shoppers are contractors, and that is contested.

    Shoppers are classified as independent contractors. Suits and state audits challenge this; legal reserves fell from $158M to $87M in the first half of 2026.

    A ruling that shoppers are employees would raise costs sharply. So far cases have been pushed into individual arbitration.

    10-Q Q2 2026, commitments and contingencies
04 · Who gets paid most

Legal is paid 43% over market. Sales, 14% under.

Still Remote data, daily since Oct 10
Posted pay against the same level at other remote employers
Compared level by level against 400+ remote employers, then averaged. Number of posted ranges beside each team.
AI and ML listings, Oct 10 to Oct 31
16 → 16about the same
Remote listings, same days
114 → 94−18%

We save every company's roles, pay by team and level, AI share and churn every day, so each month this page can say more. Sparklines use their own scale.

05 · Built for the agentic era?

Can AI agents do business with Instacart?

We checked the agent payment programs, developer docs and site rules an AI assistant would meet.

Our verdict

Deep inside the AI assistants. Checkout still mostly in its own app.

Still Remote read
LiveAnnounced, not confirmed livePartly
  1. OpenAI and Stripe's Agentic Commerce Protocol
    First app with full checkout inside ChatGPT, live Dec 2025, paid through Stripe.
    Digital Commerce 360, Dec 12, 2025
    Yes
  2. Inside Claude
    Build a cart in a Claude chat, synced to your account. Checkout finishes in the Instacart app or site.
    Instacart, Apr 23, 2026
    Yes
  3. Google AI Mode and Gemini
    Turn a Google AI Mode chat into an Instacart cart, US only. No protocol named; checkout in Instacart.
    Instacart, Jul 16, 2026
    Yes
  4. Muse, from Meta
    Announced Sept 22, 2026 as coming soon.
    Instacart, Sep 22, 2026
    Announced
  5. An MCP server agents can call
    Official server at mcp.instacart.com with two tools: create recipe pages and shopping lists. Needs a developer API key.
    checked Oct 31, 2026
    Yes
  6. Developer docs that AI tools can read
    docs.instacart.com publishes a large llms.txt index of its ads, catalog and Connect docs.
    checked Oct 31, 2026
    Yes
  7. Lets AI crawlers read its site
    OpenAI's search and ChatGPT agents are allowed. Perplexity and Meta's crawlers are blocked by name, and every unnamed bot, including GPTBot and ClaudeBot, is blocked by default.
    checked Oct 31, 2026
    Mixed
05 · Inside the company

Where Instacart puts AI to work.

AI and ML job titles, share of open remote listings
Instacart
17.0%
Every company we track
6.2%
16 of 94 Instacart listings on Oct 31. Scale 0% to 20%.
  1. 1
    AI runs the core of the business
    Instacart says AI helps customers find products, matches shoppers with orders and keeps same-day delivery efficient, under five published governance principles.
    Instacart, Oct 22, 2026
  2. 2
    From smart carts to shelf-scanning software
    With Caper Carts closing, in-store work shifts to software like Store View, which uses computer vision on shopper shelf videos, and inventory forecasting.
    Instacart, Oct 26, 2026
  3. 3
    An early OpenAI partner
    Instacart contributed to the research preview of OpenAI's Operator agent and still uses OpenAI APIs alongside its own models.
    Digital Commerce 360, Dec 12, 2025
06 · What the hiring says

Fewer listings than on Sep 9, led by sales.

Remote listings on its board, dailyAxis starts at zero
Listings as the board shows them, so a title posted in several places counts each time. Team counts are open roles, repeated titles once.
15 of 65
roles are sales
12
engineering roles, the next biggest team
2
countries named in its remote roles, led by United States
+7
new roles in the last 7 days
06 · From its own channel

What Instacart puts on its own channel.

Short videos from Instacart's official YouTube channel, played here. We only use a channel that links instacart.com and carries the company's name.

  • Male Shopper Project | Instacart
    177 thousand views
  • Male Shopper Project | Instacart
    255 thousand views
  • The Instacart Ripe Report with Trigg: Peaches
    1.2 thousand views
  • The Grocery Trip That Had Everyone Doing a Double Take #shorts #shelfcare
    2.2 thousand views
  • Breakfast of Champions Eat This
    1 thousand views
  • When pizza lover meets pescatarian 🥲💞 #shelfcare #couples #love
    1.8 thousand views
  • Do you have runners in your fridge? #shorts
    1.9 thousand views
  • Girl Dinner Confessions #girldinner #streetinterview
    582 views
From Instacart on YouTube. These are the company's own marketing, not a look inside.
07 · Pending sale

A pending sale sets the price.

A way to think, not a forecast, and not investment advice.

A share price is three numbers
$3.74Brevenue last year
×
$3.49what investors pay per $1 of it
=
$13.1Bthe whole company
÷ 232Mshares it is split into
= $56.45one share
Growth
How much bigger revenue gets in a year. More revenue to multiply.
Paid per $1 of revenue
The mood dial. High when investors expect fast growth and future profit, low when they doubt it. Instacart sits at $3.49; the peers' median is $3.29.
Share count
Stock pay and converting notes add shares, so each is a smaller slice. Buybacks do the opposite. Last year Instacart's share count changed −12.1%.
The analyst range
35 analysts publish a 12-month target, from $49 to $65. It is where Wall Street sits, not where the stock must go.
Pending saleAnnounced October 29, 2026 · NASDAQ:DASH

Instacart is being bought by DoorDash for $65.00 a share.

$65.00
deal price, per Instacart share
$56.45
today's price, October 30, 2026 close
13%
below the deal price today

Today's price is 13% below the deal price, which is how much doubt the market puts on it closing.

At least 75% cash overall. Holders can elect all cash ($65.00), all DoorDash stock (0.3372 shares) or $48.75 cash plus 0.0843 DoorDash shares, subject to proration.

What happens to your equity
Vested RSUs and PSUs
Paid out in cash at $65.00 a share at closing.
Unvested RSUs and PSUs
Swapped for DoorDash RSUs worth $48.75 cash plus 0.0843 DoorDash shares per share, keeping the original vesting schedule, vesting quarterly. PSUs count at the higher of target or actual.
Vested options
Cancelled for cash: $65.00 minus the exercise price, when positive.
Unvested options
The filing does not say they convert. Check your grant documents.
$
Your grant if the deal closes
$115,146

Your $100,000 grant at today's $56.45, valued at the $65.00 deal price. Unvested grants become DoorDash stock units at closing, so their value then moves with DoorDash's share price.

If the deal is blocked
$71a share a year from now at the current pace, $125,969 for your grant

Instacart stays public. This is the scenario builder's current pace: growth, price per $1 of revenue and share count change as last year.

DoorDash would pay Instacart $1.25B if regulators block it.

Expected to close
End of 2027 or first half of 2028, per the companies; needs antitrust clearance in the US, Canada and Israel and a shareholder vote.
Outside date
October 28, 2027, extendable four times by three months for antitrust only

A way to think, not a forecast, and not investment advice.

8-K, Oct 29, 2026, merger agreement summary
08 · Where it looks headed

The signals, and which way they push.

  1. Tailwind
    Ads keep outgrowing orders.

    Advertising and other revenue rose 23% in Q3 2026, against 14% for transaction revenue. Adjusted EBITDA rose 23%.

    Instacart Q3 2026 resultshigh
  2. Tailwind
    The default grocery app inside AI assistants.

    Live in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google AI Mode, with Meta's Muse next. Instacart cites a ranking naming it the top AI-recommended grocery delivery brand.

    Instacart, Sep 22, 2026high
  3. Headwind
    Up to 20 months of merger limbo.

    Closing is expected late 2027 to first half 2028. DoorDash already plans to merge DashPass and Instacart+ fees, worth about $100M a year.

    Joint press release, Oct 29, 2026high
  4. Headwind
    Cutting bets that did not scale.

    Caper Carts is closing with $12M to $17M of severance, three days before the deal was signed.

    8-K, Oct 26, 2026high
  5. Headwind
    A few grocers hold the keys.

    The top three retailers are about 43% of GTV, and one customer is 17% of revenue.

    10-K FY2025medium
09 · Bold predictions

Where Instacart ends up, if we had to bet.

Our calls, not facts. Each one is tied to something that already happened, so you can judge the reasoning.

  1. 1

    Instacart is part of DoorDash.

    Likely 72%M&A

    The board approved unanimously, holders of about 19% have agreed to vote yes, and DoorDash owes $1.25B if regulators block it. Antitrust review in three countries is the main risk.

    8-K, Oct 29, 2026
  2. 2

    The Instacart app still exists as its own brand.

    Coin flip 50%Competition

    DoorDash says it expects to keep the brand, app and enterprise products. But it is already merging the two membership programs, and acquirers often fold apps together over time.

    Joint press release, Oct 29, 2026
  3. 3

    More grocery carts start in an AI assistant than in the Instacart app.

    Coin flip 50%AI

    It is live in four assistants and was first with in-chat checkout in ChatGPT. Most checkouts still finish in Instacart's own app, and no AI order share has been disclosed.

    Instacart announcements, 2025 to 2026
  4. 4

    Advertising is more than a third of Instacart's revenue.

    Likely 72%Products

    Ads were 30% of Q3 2026 revenue and grow faster than orders. Assistants that recommend products create new places to sell sponsored items.

    Instacart Q3 2026 results
  5. 5

    Shoppers are still contractors, but more states set minimum pay and benefits for them.

    Likely 72%Regulation

    California's Prop 22 already does this, and the 10-K says other states have adopted or may adopt similar laws. Misclassification claims have mostly been forced into arbitration.

    10-K FY2025; 10-Q Q2 2026

Read by the Still Remote research agent on November 1, 2026 from the sources linked on this page. Facts and scenarios only, not investment advice.