Instacart settles FTC suit for $60M; ends price tests
Instacart is resolving allegations of deceptive business practices from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and ceasing to conduct price testing on its platform.
The grocery technology company has agreed to pay $60 million in refunds to consumers to settle FTC allegations that it engaged in "numerous unlawful tactics that harmed shoppers and raised the cost of grocery shopping for Americans."
Under terms of the settlement, Instacart will be required to cease what the FTC says have been deceptive practices. These include:
- Offering "free delivery" to customers on their first order while they still have to pay a mandatory "service fee" for the delivery which the FTC says adds as much as 15% to the order cost and was not clearly disclosed to consumers.
- Advertising a "100% satisfaction guarantee" for late deliveries or unprofessional service but typically only offering a small credit that can be used toward a future order, with the refund option hidden from its self-service menu for customers to report problems.
- Not adequately disclosing that the free trial enrollment process for Instacart+ would charge consumers for memberships at the end of their trials. As part of the settlement, consumers who were charged for Instacart+ without their express informed consent will receive refunds.
Instacart will also be prohibited from making misrepresentations concerning the costs of delivery services and satisfaction guarantees and must also clearly and conspicuously disclose the terms and obtain express informed consent for transactions involving subscription models where consumers are automatically charged unless they actively opt out.
"Instacart misled consumers by advertising free delivery services — and then charging consumers to have groceries delivered—and failing to disclose to consumers that signed up for a free trial that they would be automatically enrolled into its subscription program," said Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in an official release. "The FTC is focused on monitoring online delivery services to ensure that competitors are transparently competing on price and delivery terms."
Instacart ends all item price tests
In a separate decision unrelated to the FTC suit, Instacart said that after listening to customer feedback it has stopped running price tests on its platform. The company said in a corporate blog post that it ran tests using software from its Eversight AI pricing subsidiary with a “small number of retail partners” that resulted in different prices for the same item at the same store for some customers.
Retailers are no longer able to use Eversight technology to run item price tests on Instacart, meaning if two customers are shopping for the same items, at the same time, from the same store location on Instacart, they will always see the same prices.
Retailers will continue to set their own prices on Instacart and may choose to vary the price of items on a store-by-store basis, but Instacart will no longer support any item price testing services. The company said the tests were not dynamic pricing or surveillance pricing and were never based on supply or demand, personal data, demographics, or individual shopping behavior.
[READ MORE: How dynamic pricing helps brick-and-mortar retailers]
"Trust is earned through clarity and consistency," Instacart said in the blog post. "Customers should never have to second-guess the prices they’re seeing. Ending item price tests on our platform is an important step to ensure Instacart remains a place where families can shop with confidence and get the groceries and everyday essentials they need from the retailers they know and rely on."
A report released Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, by Consumer Reports and non-profit progressive advocacy groups Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union, alleged that AI-based pricing experiments conducted by Instacart had charged prices up to 23% higher for some customers ordering the identical products at the same stores and times as other shoppers, potentially costing a family of four as much as $1,200 a year.
