DoorDash-Instacart Deal Puts Online Grocery Pricing Under the Microscope

Grocery prices on Instacart's platform varied by as much as 23% between customers shopping the same store — and that disclosed price test, killed after an investigation by Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative at the end of 2025, is the backdrop against which DoorDash is now bidding to buy Instacart.

The proposed combination has reopened the industry's oldest wound: how to make grocery e-commerce profitable for retailers and affordable for customers at the same time. Industry experts, antitrust lawyers and advocacy groups are split on whether the marriage ultimately raises or lowers prices for online grocery shoppers.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which also opposed the failed Kroger-Albertsons merger, is firmly against this one. "With billions of consumer data points and more power in the market, the squeeze will be on for families looking to put food on the table, especially for homebound shoppers who have virtually no other option," UFCW International President Milton Jones said in a Nov. 2 statement, calling the deal "a nightmare for shoppers and workers alike."

What do antitrust lawyers expect?

Regulatory friction is a real possibility, antitrust attorneys said. "Because it threatens to further reduce choice on both sides of the U.S. food home-delivery services market, the deal portends downward pressure on margins for food sellers and upward pressure on costs for buyers," Barry Barnett, a partner handling antitrust cases at Susman Godfrey, wrote in an email.

Both companies are also included in the Federal Trade Commission's recent inquiry into algorithmic pricing and pay practices — a probe that follows legislative efforts to restrict how companies use consumer data to set prices. Timing, as they say, could be better.

What do DoorDash and Instacart promise?

The companies argue scale means savings. Instacart Chief Commercial Officer Ryan Hamburger said the deal would lower costs for the grocery industry and shoppers alike.

"We feel very deeply that this combined ecosystem will allow us to further scale the investments in the technology and lower that cost to serve on the delivery side through greater efficiencies [and] greater scale. … That's going to be a win for all of us, and that can only really happen if and when we combine forces with DoorDash," Hamburger said. He added that the two companies would reinvest cost savings into lower fees for retailers and consumers.

DoorDash CEO Tony Xu echoed that on the Nov. 4 earnings call: the deal "will enable faster delivery. It will enable more affordable prices, which in turn will generate more sales for every grocer and retailer [partner]."

Both companies have already been pushing price parity — matching online prices to in-store prices. Instacart CEO Chris Rogers, speaking at Groceryshop this year, said the company's data shows retailers that adopt price parity see online sales grow 10 percentage points faster than those that mark up products. DoorDash discusses price parity with retailers too, Mike Goldblatt, vice president of grocery and retail partnerships, said at the same conference.

Will scale actually close the profitability gap?

E-commerce has been the growth engine in food retail while in-store growth slows, Bobby Gibbs, a partner at Oliver Wyman, said in emailed comments. "Finding ways to drive cost out through scale is very appealing. However, we've seen that just scaling to the point of network density isn't enough to close the profitability gap of online and in-store commerce," he wrote.

Memberships could help. Gibbs noted the most mature e-commerce offerings link to memberships, and the companies said DashPass and Instacart+ subscribers would pay one membership fee instead of two after the deal closes.

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said the combination "reflects an online grocery market that is becoming far more competitive and cost intensive" and that "scale is now a prerequisite for success." He doubts fees will rise: "DoorDash is competing with two of the biggest and most accomplished ecommerce players in the world — Amazon and Walmart — so it cannot afford to deteriorate service or do anything to alienate shoppers."

That competitive framing is the companies' central defense. Hamburger said Instacart and DoorDash compete against Walmart and Amazon for shoppers' online dollars — not against other retailers. "If you leave Wegmans.com, it's not because you're overwhelmingly coming to Instacart or DoorDash. [It's] because you're overwhelmingly going to Amazon or Walmart, and it gets back to consumers starting to choose on price and affordability," he said.

The threat is measurable. Brick Meets Click data released in June found Walmart approaching a 40% share of total U.S. e-grocery sales, with Amazon also gaining ground.

Lower delivery fees could encourage more frequent orders and improve delivery economics, said Carlos Castelán, a consultant at Catalant. But he flagged the open question: "The question is how much of those savings gets passed along, particularly as consolidation could reduce competition. Ultimately, I think the deal could benefit both grocers and consumers, but pricing and execution will determine whether that happens."

For grocers, the practical takeaway is straightforward. If regulators clear the deal and the companies pass savings through, online grocery economics improve. If they don't, grocers and shoppers alike will find out what a two-player delivery market charges. Hamburger's stated goal — "to create that ecosystem for our retailers to really leave no doubt to the end consumer as to why they are shopping with that retailer" — is now a promise the FTC, the UFCW and the price of a weekly shop will all get to test.