What happened

An investigation by Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative and others found that Instacart shoppers in multiple U.S. cities were shown different prices for the same products from the same store at the same time, often with several distinct price points for a single item. 

Across hundreds of real shopping sessions, about three-quarters of tested items showed price variation, with differences averaging around 7–13% and in some cases reaching roughly 20–23% higher for certain customers’ carts.

The pricing is powered by Instacart’s AI-based tool, which runs randomised tests to see how much different shoppers will pay before they stop buying a product.

Analyses estimate that, at these fluctuation levels, a typical family of four relying on Instacart could end up paying around an extra 1,200 dollars per year in grocery costs, effectively turning ordinary customers into unwitting test subjects in a large-scale pricing experiment. 

Why it happened

Instacart and participating retailers use the AI system to segment demand and measure “price sensitivity,” aiming to raise revenue by a few percentage points per sale without, in their view, meaningfully hurting shoppers. The company says the tests are short term, randomised, limited to about ten retail partners that already mark up online prices, and do not use personal or demographic data or real-time surge-style dynamic pricing.​

However, the experiments were not clearly disclosed to shoppers at the point of sale, and price differences were invisible unless people compared screens, exposing a lack of meaningful transparency and informed consent. Weak external oversight of algorithmic pricing, combined with broad contractual leeway for platforms and retailers to adjust online prices, allowed this system to operate at scale before the public understood it was being tested on them.