Apps like Instacart
(Alternatives & Competitors) to Make Money Shopping
Elisabeth Samuel is a Business Administration undergrad who loves to write about ways to make money as a Women. She loves to showcase her abilities as a small business owner and share her experiences on how she paid for college using money she made selling on ETSY and thrifting antiques and reselling them. Elisabeth now writes about Money Making and Saving tips on Digital Consumer and enjoys occasionally creating new money making craft ideas, as well as finding different ways to make money online using various services and websites.
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Online grocery delivery services have become a blessing for urban people in recent times.
Apps like Instacart made their lives a lot better since they won’t have to visit the market for groceries after a busy, hectic day.
Of course, not all the delivery services are as reliable as Instacart, but there are a few efficient grocery delivery services that are on par with Instacart.
Before we go on to discuss these Instacart alternatives, let us tell you a bit about Instacart.
As of now, they’re the top online grocery platform in all of North America.
Instacart has affiliated with over 65,000 stores and 800+ retailers, so the users can choose from a wide variety of products.
We’ve found a few other apps that come close to Instacart regarding their overall performance.
Time to have a look at them!
Here’s the Best Alternatives & Competitors of Instacart:
Shipt
Shipt, like Instacart, is one of the top grocery service providers in the world.
They’re owned by the Target company, but their service includes groceries from a massive number of local stores.
Examples of such stores can be CVS, Jewel, Kroger, Costco, Safeway, etc.
You can use their delivery service from over 400 cities in the US.
Following Instacart’s footsteps, Shipt also comes with a membership program, where you can join them for a yearly fee of $99 and get different discounts and offers from time to time.
Their monthly membership will cost you around $14 per month, should you choose not to avail of their annual membership.
The membership will let you get free deliveries on any order over $35 too.
Perhaps the most appealing part about Shipt is that they provide same-day delivery on most of their products — a somewhat rare feature these days.
Moreover, you get to schedule the delivery times in a span of an hour, should you take the option.
The company does regular promotions and gives discounts to their members every now and then.
Their vast connection with many retailers and other stores makes them a solid alternative for Instacart.
However, Shipt won’t let you use coupons, and their store loyalty card is still on a basic level.
Moreover, it’s not as available or as popular as Instacart.
Overall, we can say that for urban people, Shipt can actually be a decent option for an alternative to Instacart.
Amazon Fresh
Yes, Amazon sells groceries too! Jokes apart, this multipurpose online website has actually extended to online grocery delivery with their Amazon Fresh app, and they’ve already made quite a name for themselves.
It might be confused with Whole Foods, but they’re different, and Amazon Fresh is unique in its own way.
This service from Amazon gets orders from customers and delivers the products from their local Amazon warehouses directly to your doorsteps in specially designed ‘temperature-controlled’ containers.
Interestingly enough, if you already have an Amazon Prime membership, you won’t have to pay any additional charge for using Amazon Fresh!
The Amazon Prime membership will cost you around $119 every year, and if you want monthly subscriptions, you’ll have to pay around $12.99 per month.
Like other top online service providers, Amazon Fresh also offers free deliveries, but only if the cost of the product is over $35.
Anything below that and the delivery cost will be added based on your location.
Amazon Fresh also allows same-day delivery for most of their products, and you get to schedule the exact delivery time in a given two-hour window too!
The problem with this service is that they don’t give you any manufacturer coupons.
Moreover, this service hasn’t expanded much yet, it’s available in 15 cities only.
That being said, if you reside in one of these cities and already have an Amazon Prime membership — this can be a fantastic option for you.
FreshDirect
FreshDirect is what we can call a ‘premium’ grocery delivery service in the US. Found in 2002 by James Dorgan, Jason Ackerman, and Joseph Fedele, FreshDirect is easily one of the very first online grocery service providers in the world.
The company now has over 3000 employees and offers different services like catering, restaurant delivery, etc.
What makes FreshDirect different from similar services is that they have a unique marketplace to pick prepared meals or cooking ingredients.
Depending on the location, FreshDirect users can order food and food ingredients from farmers and/or local restaurants.
FreshDirect generates around $600 million in terms of revenues on a yearly basis.
It’s safe to say that they’re one of the very best alternatives to Instacart, although they charge more than them in terms of delivery cost, which is $12.99 in general.
The Express Delivery Service launched by FreshDirect back in 2020 created quite a buzz among their users.
According to this new service, customers will get home deliveries and can get their product within 60 minutes if they pay a bit extra.
These are offers that Instacart failed to provide.
The company is constantly trying to expand their business, as they’ve already planned to build MFCs (Micro-Fulfillment Centers) near the East Coast to boost their business.
Cornershop
Cornershop is probably the most surprising name on the list.
They’re nowhere as big as Instacart or FreshDirect, in fact, they’re still considered a startup.
But after Uber bought them out in 2020, the company has every reason to compete hard with the other prominent online grocery providers.
They’re originally a Chilean upstart that offers grocery delivery alongside on-demand food items.
Another interesting fact about this company is that they’re the only one that had a direct feud with Instacart.
Yes, back in July 2020, Instacart filed a lawsuit against them for stealing their licensed images.
Although that case hasn’t been resolved yet, it’s safe to say that with the financial backing and technical support of Uber, Cornershop will certainly get better with time.
It didn’t take a long time for Cornershop to turn into Instacart’s arch nemesis, but as long as the customers are getting big discounts from both of them — we should be enjoying this rivalry!
Walmart+
Walmart is one of the most popular chain shops all over the world, and its grocery pickup service has been on for many decades.
However, their contactless grocery delivery through Walmart+ has enlisted them as online grocery service providers, and they’re doing a fine job with it.
With Walmart+, all you have to do is pick the delivery option instead of the ‘pickup’ option, add your address, and the groceries will come at your doorsteps.
The service of Walmart+ is quite similar to Amazon Fresh, as you’ll have to be a member to avail of their services.
Walmart’s members will have to pay $98 on a yearly basis or $12.95 on a monthly basis.
The members have the chance to receive unlimited deliveries on any order above $35.
For orders below that price, you’ll have to pay somewhere around $7.95-$9.95.
They also have let you have a free trial of 15-days and provide same-day deliveries.
Google Shopping
Google Express was not a very successful venture, per se.
But instead of scrapping the whole plan, Google instead refurbished the whole idea and came up with Google Shopping, a one-stop delivery service for groceries.
With this site, the users get to find and compare the overall prices of different grocery items from renowned shopping stores and vendors.
Google is doing quite well with this because of its efficient and smart search engine.
They can actually combine the search results of their users and come up with decent options to enhance the experience of the users.
Google also recently added shopping information in google maps for different e-grocers like Albertson and Instacart.
They’ve signed a deal with Albertsons too, so you should be able to use Google Shopping more efficiently in the near future.
Thrive Market
Thrive Market is another unique addition to the list.
They’re more like an online marketplace for delivering healthy and mostly organic products.
This company, like Amazon Fresh, also requires their users to be members and then use their services.
The reason why people love Thrive Market is that they provide around 50% off on retail prices — something others can’t do.
They have affiliated with 4000+ best-selling brands of food, home essentials, or personal care stuff.
But that’s not their most unique feature.
They’re well-known for selling a wide variety of completely dairy-free, gluten-free, and GMO-free products.
You can try out their free trial to check out their service.
And if you choose to go with them, then you’ll have to be an official member.
Instacart and Thrive market both are pretty convenient options when it comes to online grocery shopping, but we’d say that Instacart is a more swift option because you won’t have to register in order to get products.
Moreover, Thrive Market is more like a marketplace, so their delivery service isn’t up to mark, and you might not get same-day deliveries.
Conclusion
Instacart is still the first choice for a lot of people in the US because of its swift and simple service, but if you want to explore new options, you sure can!
We hope our list of the apps like Instacart was of help to you.
Best of luck with your online grocery shopping!
