4K
Menu
Look up a company

Instacart

Travel

74

out of 100. Number 30 of 512, counting from the worst.

  • Arbitration 17 of 20, bad
  • Renewals 13 of 20
  • Data sharing 17 of 20, bad
  • Price & terms 10 of 15
  • Data retention 9 of 15
  • Other findings 8 of 10, bad

Where Instacart does well

  • Honest markup disclosure ('may not be the lowest available prices').
  • Fee hikes wait until membership renewal.
  • Arbitration carve-outs (small claims, home county, email opt-out).
  • Explicit sale/sharing table rather than hidden language.

Exactly one 30-day window, forever; your lawyer can't do it for you, and it never re-opens.

The fine print

6 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.

  1. Exactly one 30-day window, forever; your lawyer can't do it for you, and it never re-opens.

    You may opt out of this Arbitration Agreement within 30 days of first accepting these Terms… does not reset if we update them… Opt-outs submitted by an attorney on your behalf, or as part of a consolidated, mass, or coordinated submission covering multiple accounts, are not effective.

    Instacart ToS §7.4

  2. Mass-harm claims get funneled to a single arbitrator instead of being heard individually or as a class.

    those Demands will be administered in coordinated batches, with one arbitrator and one set of administrative fees per batch.

    Instacart ToS §7.2.9 (25+ similar demands, same counsel)

  3. Silent trial conversion, near-zero refunds, dead-card billing — fees 'fully earned upon payment and non-refundable'.

    UNLESS YOU CANCEL, YOUR INSTACART+ MEMBERSHIP WILL AUTOMATICALLY RENEW… YOU AUTHORIZE US TO CHARGE ANY ACTIVE PAYMENT METHOD ON FILE FOR EACH RENEWAL TERM

    Instacart ToS §3

  4. Your card details and gender are sold for targeted ads.

    sold/shared … for cross-context behavioral advertising: identifiers, payment card information, gender, purchase history, session replays, geolocation, and inferences — to Advertising and marketing partners / Analytics providers.

    Instacart Privacy Policy §§4–5 (CCPA table)

  5. Third parties can replay everything you type.

    Session replays include users' clicks, mouse movements, scrolls, and keystrokes/key touches during those sessions.

    Instacart Privacy Policy §1.2

  6. Their worst case is ~$100, and you pay their legal bills.

    the greater of $100 or the amounts paid by you to Instacart during the 12 months before the claim / defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Instacart… from… Disputes with third parties.

    Instacart ToS §§6.2–6.3

How these were found

ToS and Privacy Policy via verbatim OpenTermsArchive mirrors (instacart.com blocked fetches). ToS 'Last updated: May 7, 2026'; Privacy 'Last updated: January 15, 2026' (mirror crawled Sep 6–10, 2026).

These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.