Instacart earnings statement: $12.51 an hour gross, $5.33 net

An Instacart earnings statement splits each batch into batch pay, promotions and tips, and leaves out miles, unpaid waiting time and tax. Add those to the median shopper’s hour and $12.51 gross becomes about $5.33.

The numbers

Assumptions: the gross figure is the Gridwise median for 20,538 Instacart shoppers in 2025 (batch pay, tips and bonuses, before expenses). One batch an hour with Gridwise’s median $5.39 tip. Costs are 8 miles an hour (our assumption) at the IRS’s 76¢ standard mileage rate for July to December 2026. Tax is 15.3% self-employment tax, plus an assumed 12% federal income tax on net income above the tips. No state tax. All figures are rounded to the cent.

The three lines on every batch

Instacart’s shopper earnings page says that after each batch, the summary in the Earnings section of the Shopper app breaks your total into batch pay, promotions and tips. Each line follows different rules.

Four details the statement doesn’t spell out:

1. Boosts and heavy pay have no lines of their own. Both sit inside batch pay. Heavy pay is “always at least $2” and applies when items weighing 8 lb or more add up to 50 lb or more. You can’t check it separately. You can check that the batch pay on the statement matches the batch pay on the offer.
2. There is no “adjustments” category. If a customer cancels after you’ve started, Instacart says you’re paid for your time.
3. Shoppers offered the same batch at the same time see the same pay, so a low offer is about the batch, not about you.
4. Instacart says declining a batch carries no penalty. A low offer you skip never appears on a statement.

A three-step check for each batch

Once a week, put your offer screenshots or notes next to the statement.

1. Make sure the batch pay on the statement is at least the batch pay on the offer. If it’s lower on a batch you completed as accepted, that breaks Instacart’s own rule, and you should raise it with support.
2. Compare the tip with the tip on the offer. A difference has four possible causes:
   • The customer raised it. Customers can increase a tip for up to 14 days after delivery.
   • The customer lowered or removed it within the first 2 hours. After 2 hours they can’t lower it.
   • It was a percentage tip, and replacements or refunds changed the order total.
   • The customer removed it without reporting a problem with the order. In that case Instacart covers the tip up to $10.
3. Check promotions against what the app showed when you accepted. No amounts are published, so your own record of the offer is the only thing to compare against.

A hypothetical example of the percentage-tip effect: a customer sets a 10% tip on an $80 order, so the offer shows $8.00. Two items worth $10 in total get refunded. If the percentage is applied to the new $70 total, the statement shows $7.00.

When the money arrives, and what moving it costs

The cashout fee adds up over a year. We assume five cashouts a week, every week:

• 5 × 52 = 260 cashouts
• At $0.50 each: 260 × $0.50 = $130 a year
• At $1.50 each: 260 × $1.50 = $390 a year
• $130 ÷ $5.33 net an hour = about 24 hours of work
• $390 ÷ $5.33 net an hour = about 73 hours of work

A cashout in the first few minutes after delivery doesn’t include the tip yet, so getting the tip early too means paying for a second cashout. Waiting until the 2-hour mark gets both in one.

The Shopper Rewards Card is a Mastercard business debit card with no annual fee, and Instacart now describes it as available to US shoppers. It pays 1% to 3% cash back on gas and EV charging, depending on your Cart Star tier (3% base for Diamond, 1% for everyone else), up to $100 a month. A hypothetical $150 a month of gas at 1% earns $1.50, which barely changes the hourly rate. The first 8 Allpoint ATM withdrawals each month are free, and each one after that costs $3.50. Instacart also says it “may charge a payout fee at any time with notice,” so check the current terms in the app.

Worked example: a four-hour Saturday

Assumptions, numbered so you can swap in your own:

1. Gross is $12.51 an hour (Gridwise 2025 median, including bonuses).
2. One batch an hour. Gridwise’s median per batch ($12.79) is close to its hourly median, so this is a fair working figure.
3. Tips are $5.39 a batch (Gridwise median).
4. 8 miles driven per hour of shift, including the drive out and back. This is an assumption, not data.
5. 76¢ a mile, the IRS rate for miles driven July 1 to December 31, 2026, stands in for the full cost of running the car.
6. Self-employment tax is 15.3% of the full net. This simplifies the actual Schedule SE calculation.
7. Federal income tax is 12% on net income left after the tips deduction. This ignores the standard deduction, so if your total income for the year is low, your actual income tax may be lower or zero.
8. No state or local income tax.

The arithmetic:

• Gross: 4 × $12.51 = $50.04
• Of which tips: 4 × $5.39 = $21.56
• Of which batch pay and promotions: $50.04 − $21.56 = $28.48
• Miles: 4 × 8 = 32
• Vehicle cost: 32 × $0.76 = $24.32
• Net before tax: $50.04 − $24.32 = $25.72
• Self-employment tax: $25.72 × 15.3% = $3.94
• Income-taxable after the tips deduction: $25.72 − $21.56 = $4.16
• Income tax: $4.16 × 12% = $0.50
• Net after tax: $25.72 − $3.94 − $0.50 = $21.28
• Per hour: $21.28 ÷ 4 = $5.32

The statement for that Saturday would show $50.04. The one-cent gap from the $5.33 in the opening table comes from rounding each line separately.

Income tax stays small because of the no-tax-on-tips deduction. Qualified tips, up to $25,000 a year for tax years 2025 to 2028, come off income tax whether or not you itemize. The final rules published April 13, 2026 list “app or platform-based delivery person” under occupation code 804, and tips paid through an app count. The deduction has three limits:

• It doesn’t reduce the 15.3% self-employment tax.
• You can’t deduct more than your net income from the work.
• You need a valid SSN.

What the statement doesn’t show

• Miles. The statement has no line for distance. For 2026, the IRS rate is 72.5¢ a mile for January 1 to June 30 and 76¢ from July 1 to December 31. Keep a mileage log, because the deduction depends on it.
• Unpaid time. Pay is per batch. Waiting for an offer, driving to a busy area and driving home after the last delivery earn nothing. Divide your pay by the total time you were logged in, not just the time with a batch.
• Phone, data and insurance. The statement doesn’t count your phone as a cost, even though you can’t work without it. Ask your insurer whether your personal auto policy covers delivery driving. Instacart’s Shopper Injury Protection covers US full-service shoppers’ own accident injuries (up to $1 million in medical costs), but Instacart’s page on it was last updated in 2021.
• Tax. Nothing is withheld, so every dollar on the statement is pre-tax.

What changes the answer

Miles per hour move the result most. Holding gross at $12.51, the rate at 76¢ and the same tax assumptions:

At 10 and 12 miles, income tax drops to zero in this model. Net income is below the tips, and the deduction can’t exceed net income. Self-employment tax still applies, so the only thing reducing the tax bill is that there’s little income left.

Other things that move the number:

• Miles driven January to June use 72.5¢, so 8 miles costs $5.80 and net becomes $6.71 an hour.
• Tips: $5.39 ÷ $12.79 = about 42% of the median batch. A week of low tippers or removed tips hits the hourly rate harder than any change to batch pay.
• New York City: since January 26, 2026, grocery delivery apps including Instacart have been covered by the city’s delivery-worker minimum pay. It’s $22.13 an hour before tips from April 1, 2026. In response, Instacart limits how many shoppers can be online at once, sends one batch offer at a time and tracks an acceptance rate, so the higher rate can come with less time online.
• California: Prop 22 guarantees 120% of the local minimum wage for time spent on an active job, plus $0.37 a mile in 2026. Tips don’t count toward it. Instacart’s own California page still shows an outdated $0.30 a mile.
• Seattle: the 2026 minimum for app-based workers is $0.47 a minute plus $0.80 a mile, or $5.34 per offer, whichever is higher. The city’s page doesn’t name the companies covered, so check whether it applies to Instacart before counting on it.
• Store and region: pay and available batches vary by retailer and location. For a chain-by-chain look, see how Wegmans batches compare on Instacart.

Compared with

Compare your local minimum wage with $5.33, not $12.51. A wage arrives with no car costs to subtract, and the employer pays half of the payroll tax. The same cost-and-tax method applied to other apps is in the Instacart shopper net-pay breakdown, the Uber Eats math and the DoorDash per-delivery math.

From weekly statements to the 1099

• For tax years starting after 2025, Form 1099-NEC is required only once you earn $2,000 or more (it used to be $600), per the IRS 1099 instructions. You still have to report all gig income, with or without a form. The form must reach you by January 31.
• According to Stripe’s guide for Instacart shoppers, forms for 2023 onward are in the Instacart Shopper app or the Shopper Help Center, not Stripe. Forms for 2021 and 2022 are in Stripe Express, if you set up an account and opted in to e-delivery at the time. To download one, log in, choose the year, click View Form and enter the last four digits of your TIN.
• Stripe can’t access or resend Instacart forms, so missing forms are a question for Instacart support. Deactivated shoppers should contact support using their account email.
• Tax details are reviewed and edited in the Shopper app. Switching between an SSN and an EIN goes through Instacart support.
• Instacart “may issue an IRS Form 1099 indicating the approximate retail value of certain Cart Star rewards,” so your 1099 total can include value that never appeared as cash on a weekly statement.
• Instacart doesn’t document a full-year earnings export, so record each week’s total as it comes in. Then you can check the form against your own numbers when it arrives.
• Self-employment tax of 15.3% applies once net self-employment earnings reach $400. Students claimed as dependents must also file once they hit that figure. Estimated tax payments are generally required if you expect to owe $1,000 or more. Quarterly due dates are April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15, moved to the next business day when one falls on a weekend or holiday.
• No official Instacart income-verification letter could be confirmed. If a landlord or lender asks for proof of income, ask which documents they accept. Your 1099 and bank deposit records are real documents you can show. Skip paystub-generator sites.

This is arithmetic, not tax or legal advice. A tax professional can confirm how these rules apply to your own return. Instacart also says it can’t give tax advice.

Sources

• Instacart: shopper earnings
• Gridwise: how much Instacart shoppers make (2025 data)
• IRS: standard mileage rates
• IRS: no tax on tips deduction
• IRS: 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC instructions
• Stripe: 1099 tax forms for Instacart shoppers

Verdict in one number

$5.33 an hour. That’s the median Instacart hour after 8 miles of driving and federal tax, and it’s the figure to compare with other work, rather than the $12.51 a statement shows.