Instacart Terms of Service

This is Instacart's Terms of Service, the legal agreement you accept when using its grocery delivery and pickup platform, covering everything from how your orders are processed to your legal rights if something goes wrong. The single most important thing to know is that you are agreeing to resolve any disputes with Instacart through private arbitration rather than in court, and you are waiving your right to join a class action lawsuit — but you have 30 days to opt out of this requirement. You should also know that any content you upload (such as reviews, recipes, or images) can be used by Instacart to train its AI systems, permanently and royalty-free.

This document constitutes Instacart's Terms and Conditions (last updated October 28, 2025) governing use of Instacart's technology platform, websites, mobile applications, APIs, and AI-powered generative experiences, entered into between users and Maplebear Inc. (d/b/a Instacart), a Delaware corporation. The most significant obligations include mandatory binding arbitration with class action waiver (Section 17), broad user content licensing to Instacart including for AI/ML training, prohibition on users employing Instacart outputs to train competing AI models, and user assumption of financial responsibility for dynamic pricing, fee surcharges, and pre-authorization holds exceeding confirmed order totals. Notable deviations from industry standard include an explicit prohibition on reverse engineering that extends to tracking inputs and outputs to mimic the platform, a perpetual royalty-free license over user-submitted content for AI training purposes, and a retroactive arbitration clause covering claims that arose before the effective date of the Terms. The document engages CCPA/CPRA (California Consumer Privacy Act, Cal. Civ. Code §1798.100 et seq.), FTC Act Section 5 (unfair or deceptive practices), and potentially COPPA given age-restriction provisions; the mandatory arbitration clause with class action waiver is subject to scrutiny under California unconscionability doctrine (Discover Bank v. Superior Court) and federal consumer protection enforcement. Material compliance considerations include the adequacy of opt-out notice for the arbitration agreement, the lawfulness of retroactive arbitration application, and the breadth of the AI training content license relative to GDPR Article 6 lawful basis requirements for EU-adjacent users.