Same Store, Different Price: What a New Investigation Found About How Grocery Apps May Be Charging You More
Update (February 2026): Since this investigation was published in December 2025, Instacart has announced it is ending all price testing on its platform. Reuters reported that the FTC initiated a formal investigation into Instacart's practices. Members of the U.S. Senate have stated they are opening their own investigation. State authorities in California and Illinois have contacted More Perfect Union to indicate they are challenging the company's practices. Instacart's stock price fell in the aftermath of the report. The original investigation summary follows below.
Imagine two people sitting in the same room, on their phones, opening the same grocery app, selecting the same store, adding the exact same 20 items to their cart. They submit at the same moment. Their totals come back — and they're different.
That's not a hypothetical. That's what a five-month investigation by More Perfect Union, Consumer Reports, and Groundwork Collaborative reportedly found when they tested Instacart's pricing across hundreds of participants. Their findings raise serious questions about how grocery delivery apps set prices — and what that might mean for Canadian shoppers.
How the Investigation Worked
The project started with a researcher studying Instacart's workforce. She'd observed different pay for nearly identical work and wondered: if this applies to workers, what about consumers?
The team — which included journalists, community organizers, a research director, and over 400 volunteers — ran a series of structured experiments. The process was deliberately controlled:
- Everyone opened Instacart at the same time
- Everyone selected the same store
- Everyone added the same 20 items
- Where possible, everyone selected pickup to remove delivery fee variability
- Screenshots were taken and submitted; the team verified every entry
This wasn't a casual test. The data was cross-checked, verified, and analyzed by Katie Wells, Director of Research at Groundwork Collaborative.
What They Found
The findings were, by the investigation's own account, unexpected.
Cart totals varied by about $10 on the same 20 items at the same store at the same moment. Some shoppers were charged around $114; others nearly $124.
Nearly three out of four products had different prices across participants in their experiments.
Eggs alone showed five different price points. Wheat Thins had four. Peanut butter had three. The spread on eggs was 41 cents across a single store at a single moment in time.
Most strikingly, the variation didn't appear random. Shoppers seemed to be sorted into distinct price groups — where if you were charged more for one item, you were charged more across the board. One test showed four price groups; another showed seven. Everyone within a group paid the same prices; everyone across groups paid different ones.
The Mechanism: What Is Instacart Actually Doing?
Instacart's initial response was that retailers set all prices. But the investigation complicated that picture.
When the team contacted Target — one of the stores that appeared in their experiments — Target said they don't work with Instacart at all (Target owns Shipt, a competing service). When the team brought this to Instacart, Instacart acknowledged that they actually do manage Target's prices on the Instacart marketplace, and that they run tests to determine how much they can charge on top of Target's regular prices.
The investigation also surfaced two specific Instacart programs worth knowing about:
Eversight. In 2022, Instacart acquired Eversight, a company that markets itself as "AI for everyday price performance." According to the investigation, Eversight runs constant pricing experiments that are not disclosed to consumers, promising clients 2% to 5% profit increases.
Smart Rounding. This one came to light through an accidentally forwarded internal email from a Costco vice-president. Smart Rounding is described in Instacart's own 2023 shareholder letter as "a machine learning-driven tool that helps retailers improve price perception and drive incremental sales." The investigation reported that for some major grocery partners, this program has led to millions of dollars in additional annual revenue.
Patents. The investigation reviewed Instacart patents describing infrastructure that could track behavioral characteristics — buying frequency, purchase history, coupon usage, loyalty program participation — and use that data to sort shoppers into groups for pricing purposes. A separate promotional patent describes calculating individual "headroom": how much more a specific consumer could spend on a product, and on groceries overall.
Instacart has denied using personal or behavioral data for price segmentation, calling relevant patents broad and pre-dating the Eversight acquisition. The investigation acknowledges it could not directly observe the algorithm — only what the prices showed.
The Broader Context: This Isn't Just About One App
The investigation situates Instacart within a larger trend.
Len Sherman, who studies pricing at Columbia's Business School, described the practice as "algorithmic price discrimination" — where companies hand pricing over to AI systems designed to find the maximum profitable price for each consumer or consumer segment. He noted this is "almost impossible" to observe from outside.
Lina Khan, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, reviewed the investigation's findings. She described the potential outcome as "another big form of wealth transfer from ordinary Americans to massive corporations." She also raised a concern specific to how delivery platforms operate: when one company sets prices for multiple grocery retailers who should be competing against each other, it could function as a form of price coordination or collusion — even without explicit agreement between the retailers themselves.
Khan noted that state governments have already moved to regulate algorithmic pricing in housing. She said grocery is a natural next area for that conversation.
What This Means for Canadian Shoppers
Instacart operates in Canada. It's one of the primary delivery and pickup platforms used by Canadian households in major cities, and many of the same technology systems — including Eversight — are part of the Canadian product.
There's no Canadian-specific data in this investigation, and the findings don't prove that any particular Canadian shopper is being charged more. What the investigation does show is that the infrastructure for variable algorithmic pricing exists, that at least one major grocery platform has built tools specifically designed to find the maximum price the market will bear, and that this process is not visible to consumers.
The practical implication for anyone using a grocery delivery or pickup app: the price you see may not be the price someone else sees, and checking unit prices before adding items to a delivery cart — just as you would in store — is worth the extra step.
Where to Watch the Full Investigation
More Perfect Union published the full video investigation on December 9, 2025. It's worth watching directly — the team does a careful job of showing what was observed, what was tested, and where the evidence runs out.
Watch the full investigation on YouTube →
The pinned comment on the video contains More Perfect Union's update on Instacart ending price testing and the subsequent regulatory and legislative responses. Consumer Reports, a partner in the investigation, also published additional coverage with context on the Costco findings.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Does this affect Canadians, or is this only a U.S. story? A: Instacart operates in Canada and the same technology platforms are in use here. The investigation was conducted in the United States, so no Canadian-specific pricing data was gathered. But the underlying systems — Eversight, Smart Rounding, the algorithmic pricing infrastructure — are not limited to the U.S. market.
Q: Is variable pricing on grocery apps illegal? A: In the United States, it is not currently illegal, though the FTC launched an investigation into surveillance pricing. In Canada, algorithmic pricing as a general practice is not prohibited, though price discrimination and certain deceptive pricing practices are covered under the Competition Act. This remains an evolving regulatory area.
Q: Can I tell if I'm being charged a different price than someone else? A: Not easily. The nature of this system, as described in the investigation, is that there's no signal to the consumer that prices have been adjusted. The most useful check is comparing unit prices across items rather than assuming that the price you see reflects a fixed market rate — and comparing across stores or platforms where possible before completing a purchase.
Q: Does Instacart admit to any of this? A: Instacart acknowledges running pricing experiments (described as testing to find "optimal" price points) and confirmed managing prices for at least one retailer (Target) independently of the retailer's input. They deny segmenting users by personal or behavioral characteristics. The investigation could not independently verify the mechanism behind the price groups it observed.
Vynn shows prices from participating retailers with unit pricing and freshness timestamps — so you can compare before your trip, not after. Available Spring 2026. Join the waitlist.