Instacart pays in-store shoppers and full-service shoppers weekly on Wednesdays for the previous Monday to Sunday’s work.
Full-service shoppers can use Instant Cashout if eligible, which allows them to get paid about 30 minutes after completing an order. Tips given through the app take longer to process through Instant Cashout, but cash tips are not subject to Instacart control and are available to use immediately.
This might sound a bit complicated and confusing, so let’s look at all of these roles and payment methods in a bit more detail.
What Is Instacart and Why Does It Pay You?
Instacart is a service that allows customers to do their grocery shopping from the comfort of their own homes.
They select the items they want to buy using the company’s app or website, and a personal shopper picks them up and delivers them to the customer’s home.
You can make money through working for Instacart by taking a role as one of these personal shoppers. There are two types of roles you can take. One is as an in-store shopper and the other is as a full-service shopper.
Both of these roles include collecting the shopping items, but they have very different contracts, which we will learn about in a bit.
Read also >> Do Instacart Shoppers Get Free Membership? (Benefits + More)
How Long Does Instacart Take to Pay You?
How long Instacart takes to pay you depends firstly on what type of contract you have with them and then secondly on what method you choose to get paid by.
Let’s have a look at these differences to understand which one will apply to you and which is best suited for your needs.
As an Instacart Employee
If you are an in-store shopper, you are considered an Instacart employee and will get paid based on the agreement in your employment contract.
At the time of writing, the common payment schedule that is reported by in-store shoppers is weekly, with the wages usually arriving on a Wednesday.
Instacart actually pays weekly wages at the beginning of each week, but they usually take 3 days to process, which is why if you are working for Instacart, you are most likely to receive them on Wednesdays.
Because in-store shoppers are considered proper employees of Instacart and can be hired out of many locations throughout the United States and Canada, it is possible for this to vary based on your site. For this reason, you should always check your contract to confirm that this will be the case for you.
Weekly Direct Deposits for Full-Service Shoppers
Full-service shoppers are considered independent contractors rather than employees of Instacart, but the company has traditionally offered these people the same payment schedule as their in-store employees.
This means that if you are a full-service shopper for Instacart, you will have your payments issued on Mondays for any batches you have completed within the previous 7 days – the last Monday to Sunday.
Because of the 3 days it typically takes to process this money, you can expect to receive it the next coming Wednesday.
Instant Cashout
Instacart began rolling out their new Instant Cashout payment option in 2019, successfully covering all of the United States before the end of that same year.
With Instant Cashout, full-service shoppers can withdraw their earnings from Instacart as soon as they are credited for completed batches. This usually takes about half an hour but can take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes.
There are a few requirements that full-service shoppers have to fulfill in order to use Instant Cashout.
The first is having a debit card that the company can use to make instant payments. Not all debit cards are supported, so you will need to check with your bank whether yours is suitable.
You must also have already completed 5 batches of orders in order to be eligible for Instant Cashout.
This is a one-time requirement, so you do not need to complete 5 new orders every time you want to use the service. You simply will not be able to use it while you are brand new.
Instant Cashouts can only be requested when you have more than $5 to pay out, and there is a $0.50 fee for each request you make.
Can You Withdraw Tips From Instacart Using Instant Cashout
In theory, you can withdraw tips from Instacart using the Instant Cashout method, but you will have to wait longer for them to be available.
The company has introduced this restriction to allow customers to adjust the tips they offer after the order is complete.
The time that you have to wait for your tips to be available to withdraw via Instant Cashout seems to vary wildly.
Official and informal sources both report cooldown periods of 24 hours, 3 days, and 1 week variously across different times.
Because this changes so frequently, it is best not to calculate your tips as part of your expected income for Instant Cashouts.
Cash Tips
Any cash tips you receive from customers when you deliver their orders do not need to be put through the system.
In other words, you do not need to report them to Instacart and are therefore not bound by any waiting times. The money is yours to do with as you please immediately.
This makes cash tips the fastest way to earn money through Instacart.
Does Instacart Pay If No Orders?
Whether you get paid by Instacart when there are no orders depends on what type of role you have with them. Let’s compare them.
Does Instacart Pay Full-Service Shoppers If There Are No Orders?
If you are a full-service shopper with Instacart and you get no orders for a week, you will not get paid anything for that week.
Full-service shoppers are considered independent contractors and will only get paid based on actual jobs that have been completed.
Does Instacart Pay In-Store Shoppers If There Are No Orders?
In-store shoppers are Instacart employees and are paid an hourly wage. If you are an in-store shopper and on a shift, you will continue to get paid your hourly wage even if you do not have any orders to fulfill.
What Is the Busiest Day for Instacart?
The busiest day for Instacart is Sunday, although Saturday is a close contender and busier than Sunday in some locations.
The mornings and early afternoons on weekends have been found to be the busiest times for these days.
Monday has been reported as the busiest weekday, with Monday evenings being relatively busy, though not as much as weekend mornings.
If you are working during the week, evenings have been found to be significantly busier than mornings and early afternoons.
This pattern reflects the fact that a lot of people who use Instacart are working professionals, so the busiest times are those during which they would be available to collect their groceries at home.
Can Instacart Be a Full-Time Job?
Some people treat Instacart as a full-time job, but that does not mean that it is suitable for everyone. There are a few factors to keep in mind.
Some of these are within your control and others are not. Let’s look at them.
Can You Work as an In-Store Shopper for Instacart Full-Time?
If you are planning to work as an in-store shopper for Instacart, you will get the job security of a full-time job insofar as you will be paid by the hour.
This means that if you show up for work and it is a quiet day, you will still get paid.
In-store shoppers for Instacart can only work a maximum of 29 hours every week, and the IRS defines a job as being full-time if it consists of at least 30 hours per week, so by legal definition, this will not be a full-time job.
Can You Treat Being a Full-Service Shopper for Instacart as a Full-Time Job?
If you want to work as a full-service shopper for Instacart and are wondering whether you can make a full-time job out of it, it will depend on a lot of things, but your availability and location are the most important.
If you are only available to work office hours, you are very likely to run into the problem of not having enough orders available to collect while you are available.
You will need to be prepared to work weekends and weekday evenings to have a better chance of having as much work available as you are willing to do.
You might find that even if you work these peak times, there are not enough orders for you to take. If you live in an area where very few customers use Instacart or where there are far more shoppers than customers, you can be left without orders, which in turn means you cannot earn anything even if you have set that time aside to work.
Conclusion
We have learned today that other than cash tips, which are truly instant, when looking at how long it takes for Instacart to process payment, you can be waiting anywhere from an average of 30 minutes for Instant Cashout to 9 days for Wednesday’s weekly direct deposit from the previous week’s Monday.