My first Instacart paycheck 💸 🛒

I have completed my first full week of shopping for customers through Instacart. As an Instacart driver, I am paid by the batch, but I also receive tips which is the larger portion of my pay. I was unsure how things would go initially, this is how my first day went.

Since losing my Instacart virginity, I have quickly caught on to how it all works. My speed at the various stores has increased dramatically already. I'm starting to get an idea of which orders are actually worth my time. The key is lots of items and low mileage, at least for me that is what I shoot for. If I notice that the customer is an unusually good tipper, then I'm quick to accept one of those batches also.

I didn't overwork myself during this first week. I worked Mon-Fri and committed anywhere from 2-6 hours each of those days. In total it was just over 20 hours and some days were much more productive than others. In the coming weeks, I hope to work even more than that, but never over 30 hours unless I am just having a really boring week. I don't want to get back to feeling overworked and doing 40+ hours like most people these days.

I plan on doing a weekly Instacart Financial Report like this one, so if you enjoy this kind of content be sure to follow me if you aren't already doing so.

I'm going to be breaking down each day of work individually. Luckily, the Instacart Shopper app makes that extremely easy to do. Let's go ahead and get things started.

Monday, January 9th

My first day of giving this gig a shot. I wouldn't say that I was nervous, but I didn't have full confidence just yet. It didn't take me long to get in a groove though, I ended up working about 4 hours this day.

I made about $13.75/hr on this day.

I think the app was trying to avoid giving me orders from multiple customers at once, which I think is smart. It did a great job of gradually introducing me to the more difficult batches that pay more.

My tips were less than my batch pay, which now I realize is a bad thing. I needed to do a better job of accepting the batches that were with customers who tip higher.

Tuesday, January 10th

Day number two and I aimed to knock out four orders once again. I spent about 30 minutes less than Monday working but made basically the same amount of money. This to me smells like progress.

I made about $15.70/hr on this day.

I think I did a good job of not accepting anything that would pay less than $10, but a bad job of getting any batches over $20. Again, I think the app was trying to make sure I didn't get overwhelmed and mess up since I was still new.

My tips were once again less than my batch pay, but I had a feeling that the stat would flip once I completed enough orders to be considered fully trained.

Wednesday, January 11th

This was a shorter work day for me as I didn't have the free time I usually do. Family dinner plans cut into my available working time, but I still found a way to spend 2.5 hours out shopping for people.

I made about $14.57/hr on this day.

One thing I was very happy to finally do was complete my first double order. This is where you shop for two separate customers at one store. I use one cart and baskets inside of it to make sure I don't confuse the two orders. It works well, but it would be a lot easier to just push around two carts at once.

This was the first day that my tips were higher than my batch earnings. This is going to be something that always fluctuates, but anytime tips are higher I think it was a good day overall.

Thursday, January 12th

This was the day that I worked the most total hours, an exhausting 6 hours. I would not like to work this much every single day, but I think I can manage it a time or two each week.

I made about $10.84/hr on this day.

This was my worst day in terms of making the best use of my time. I did pretty well overall, but my third order left me a $0 tip and that just wrecked my chances of having higher hourly pay. I assumed the customer was the type of person to change their tip after they've rated the service, but I guess that instead, she was just a cheap ass. I talked about this story a few days ago in my unique Instacart stories blog, she was the birdseed woman. I never again will accept a batch with a $0 estimated tip, lesson learned.

Somehow despite the $0 tip, my tips were still. higher than my batch earnings. If it weren't for that one horrible order, this would have most likely been my best day of the week.

Friday, January 13th

I saved the best for last and I did not do that on purpose. Friday was an excellent day for me. I only had to work about 4.5 hours and earned nearly $80 by the end of it. Shoutout to the two people who left me a $25 and $15 tip. I wish everybody was this giving because I sure appreciate it.

I made about $17.83/hr on this day.

Shopping early in the morning seems like by far the best time to do it. There aren't many people out at that time and traffic is as close as it'll get to non-existent. I haven't tried late at night yet, that may be good for the same reasons. Honestly, though, I hate having to drive in the dark so I will probably just keep working in the morning and afternoon depending on what else I have to do that day.

My tips were more than double my batch earnings for this day. I really hope that I have more days like this one. If I had worked as much as I did on Thursday, most likely would have had my first $100 day. I know that will come soon enough though.

End of week hours and pay

My weekly pay was close to $300 and I barely worked over 20 hours. I absolutely love being able to work as little or as much as I like. Being able to just flip the switch on the app and all of a sudden get to work beats the routine of a regular 9-5 by many miles.

I made about $14.19/hr on average this past week.

I am very confident that next week I will increase my hours, hourly pay, and total earnings. My goal is of course to surpass $300 since I was so close this time. I think that I could get close to $500 if I put in the time and make sure to accept the best orders.

Doing it again next week

Saturdays and Sundays are said to be the highest-paying days within Instacart. I love how much information the app provides shoppers, I'm big on stats. It looks like some days through the week also have increased pay. I haven't figured out exactly why and I assume it'll change each week.

I probably won't be able to work much on the weekends ever, but if I ever do it'll be very interesting to see if the pay really is noticeably better or not.

I hope you have enjoyed this insider look at what kind of pay is possible while working for Instacart.