It was good before the pandemic - FSS - Peer Mentor Instacart Employee Review

Batch pay and promotions are top notch, especially here in Olney. I've worked in St. Louis, MO, Sparta, IL, Carbondale, IL and Mount Vernon, IL. My favorite has been Olney. I won't reach Diamond status like I did in St. Louis, but the rewards are better in the smaller communities. Instacart cares about their drivers.

Batch pay could be better.

Fun going out and talking to people. You will interact with people everyday. You control how much you get paid. Lots of flexibility in the time between accepting an order and traveling to the store and beginning to shop. It isn't pedal to the metal to get to the store like DoorDash is. You can also cancel batches after accepting as long as you keep your rate under 15%. This is different from DoorDash where your rankings will suffer if g.t. 2% cancellation rate.

There's a learning curve and it takes a while to learn each chain of stores' items. Once you become proficient at one store, the algorithm will lowball your offers relative to other less-experienced Instacart shoppers. Overall, Instacart shoppers likely get paid similar or less than the store's regular employees.