![]() Costco membership includes numerous perks-vacation and rental-car deals through Costco Travel, to name just two. With Instacart Express, you can order same-day deliveries from dozens of affiliated grocers. ![]() Keep in mind that membership with both Instacart Express and Costco offers other benefits. A Costco spokesperson, presented with those findings, explained that was because delivery and service fees are built in to member pricing.īut once that pesky $5 Instacart service fee was added in, the scales tipped decisively in favor of Costco members.Īn Instacart spokesperson confirmed the Instacart fees but declined to comment further. We found that the price of the food itself was slightly more expensive for Costco members than for Costco non-members. To determine which was the better deal, we factored in the Instacart Express membership (including a one-time $15 promotion) and the Costco Gold Star membership. We shopped the same market basket of food periodically over several weeks this fall for Costco members and non-members. After those two weeks, however, you must pay the service fee. Instacart charges no delivery or service fees on orders made in the first two weeks of your membership. As an Instacart Express member, you pay no additional delivery fees on orders of $35 or more. To save money on deliveries, Costco non-members can join Instacart Express, which costs $149 a year. Non-members, on the other hand, pay Instacart a $5.99-per-order delivery fee and a per-order service fee of $5 in most places ($7.50 in New York City). They don't pay extra unless they opt to tip the driver. Either way, the minimum order is $35.įor Costco members, service and delivery fees are baked into the food prices they pay. Either way, the food is gathered and delivered by Instacart shoppers. Costco members order through Costco's website or app. Non-members can do it by using the website or an app from Instacart. How you place a same-day delivery order for Costco fresh food depends on whether you're a member or not. ![]() Compared with AmazonFresh, which also delivers fresh groceries in many markets, Costco fresh food delivery was a pretty good deal. Costco's delivered parcel of food was less expensive than a comparable basket of items from AmazonFresh-which didn't offer us same-day delivery, as Costco did.If your main reason for using Instacart Express was for its Costco deliveries, you'd be better off paying $60 for Costco's basic, Gold Star membership. But Instacart's additional, per-delivery service fee-$5 in most places-makes delivery to non-members more costly. Costco non-members who subscribe to Instacart Express would pay slightly less than Costco members for this particular basket of food.Costco says those higher prices reflect the cost of service and delivery unlike with other delivery services, you pay no additional fees beyond the price of the food, assuming an order of at least $35. Costco's member pricing for delivery was 31 percent higher, on average, than what it charged members in its warehouse (see chart below).But when it comes to giant bottles of bleach and bulk disinfectant wipes? They actually lose efficacy if stored too long, so unless you run a cleaning service, probably not the best buy for you.For our particular market basket of fresh food, we found: For household items like toilet paper, if you have a place to store the dozens of rolls, go for it. A ginormous bag of Skinny Pop will likely go stale before you get to the bottom, but tiny single-serve bags won't. (Yes, even if the price for two gallons of milk is the same as one quart from your local grocer - painful, we know.) This means the freezer section is your friend, and so are individually-wrapped snacks. if you won't consume it all before the expiration date, you've got to skip it. What are the chances of one person drinking two gallons of milk in a week? That's the key when it comes to perishables. You don't need to be a family of six to make Costco work for you - the warehouse store can be a smart choice for singles and couples, provided you're making the right decisions when you shop.Īs tempting as many of the fresh food items can be, it's best to avoid anything that will spoil quickly. ![]()
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