Instacart Charging Customers Different Prices for Same Products, Study Finds

How much does a carton of eggs cost? Depends on who you are. A new study produced in collaboration with policy group Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports, and More Perfect Union found that people who purchased the exact same product from the exact same store at the exact same time were charged different prices—sometimes up to nearly 25% more—when placing the order on Instacart.

The study tapped 437 volunteer shoppers in four cities who were put in groups that were synced up virtually to add items from a specific grocery store into their Instacart shopping carts at the same time. They then reported the prices that appeared for those researchers to determine if people were being charged different prices for the same goods.

The result was a pretty resounding “Yes.†According to the study, nearly three-quarters of all grocery items tested in the experiment produced multiple prices across shoppers, including some products that showed five different prices for the same product. Again, these are items being purchased from the same store at the same time. Groundwork Collaborative highlighted one example where a dozen Lucerne eggs sold for $3.99, $4.28, $4.59, $4.69, and $4.79 on Instacart at a Safeway store in Washington, D.C.

On an item-by-item basis, that price difference may not seem like much—though the study found that some items cost as much as 23% more for some shoppers. But it adds up fast when someone is exposed to that price variance over a large purchase or multiple shopping trips. Researchers reported that the final total of the Instacart shopping carts varied by an average of 7% despite every item and condition being identical. The researchers noted that a household could pay up to $1,200 more per year for groceries if exposed to the higher price brackets on every purchase.

The study shows that consumers are being charged different prices based on conditions they can’t see, but it doesn’t show exactly how Instacart decides how to pick those prices. Asking Instacart doesn’t provide much clarity. According to Consumer Reports, the company confirmed the study accurately reflected its pricing strategies, which it claims to only do at 10 partnering grocery retailers that it chose not to name.

“Just as retailers have long tested prices in their physical stores to better understand consumer preferences, a subset of only 10 retail partners—ones that already apply markups—do the same online via Instacart. These limited, short-term, and randomized tests help retail partners learn what matters most to consumers and how to keep essential items affordable,†an Instacart spokesperson told Consumer Reports in a statement.

While Instacart didn’t name the retailers they have partnered with for this program, the study did name where they performed their tests. One retailer was Target, and they found varying prices on items sold through Instacart from the retailer. Target told Groundwork Collaborative that it has no business relationship with Instacart and “does not directly share any pricing information with Instacart or dictate what Instacart prices appear on their platform.†Instacart acknowledged to the publication that it scrapes Target’s prices and adds an upcharge to offset “operating and technology costs.†So Target was seemingly not one of the 10 retail partners, but shoppers there were still exposed to price variance. Instacart claims it has ended pricing experiments at Target.

Gizmodo reached out to Instacart for comment and additional details on how it makes its pricing determinations, but we did not receive a response at the time of publication.

It certainly seems like the pricing discrepancies are an example of surveillance pricing, where consumers are served different prices based on information the platform knows about them. The study didn’t find any clear correlation that would link certain shopper demographic data and the prices they were presented, and Instacart told Consumer Reports that it doesn’t use any personal or demographic data from users in its pricing experiments and instead explained that customers are randomly assigned to price groups.

However, the company did say that food brands (not Instacart itself) can use behavioral data of consumers to offer discounts or promotional offers. That data is made available via Eversight, an “AI-powered pricing and promotions platform†that Instacart acquired in 2022. “Retail partners set and control their prices on Instacart, and we work closely with them to align online and in-store pricing wherever possible. Instacart is always transparent about pricing,†the company told Groundwork Collaborative.

So Instacart’s varied pricing is allegedly part of an experiment that randomly assigns shoppers to different pricing groups, but brands whose goods are available on Instacart can use the company’s data-driven pricing platform to serve different prices based on different demographic data. For the end user, that likely feels like a distinction without a difference, as they are ultimately seeing different prices based on conditions that are outside of their control.