Instacart shoppers say the highest-earning orders are getting more extreme, with demands like 72-mile drives

• Instacart cut base pay for its shoppers last month, and some are looking for other jobs.
• Shoppers say the highest-earning orders on the app are increasingly not worth the pay.
• Orders with hundreds of items or delivery addresses 50 miles away have become common.

Many Instacart shoppers focus on shopping and delivering the highest-earning orders — think weekly grocery runs for big families or a stock-up trip to Costco.

But lately, the highest-paying orders require shopping for hundreds of items or driving over an hour to deliver them, if not both. The change is especially pronounced, shoppers say, in the wake of Instacart's decision to cut base pay on orders to $4, down from its previous minimum of $7. 

There are still orders that shoppers can claim for higher payouts of $10 or more, Instacart said in a blog post announcing the pay cut last month. "Instacart may pay more for batches based on the size and complexity of each order," the post reads.

But some shoppers say that "complex" can be a high bar. One shopper in Virginia told Insider that she recently passed on an order with a $36 payout. It would have involved buying a handful of items at a Food Lion grocery store, then driving them 72 miles to the customer — a trek that the shopper estimated would've taken her at least an hour and a half. 

One of the items in the order was ice cream, according to the worker. "After an hour-and-a-half drive, that ice cream would've been milk," the shopper told Insider. "The customer would've definitely given the shopper a one-star review." 

Instacart told Insider on Monday that shoppers have control over which batches they choose to shop, and that it pays according to the complexity of each order. "We know that not all orders are created equal, and we want to make sure shopper earnings reflect the effort needed to fulfill each batch," Daniel Danker, chief product officer at Instacart, said.

Instacart shoppers have been sharing screenshots of orders offered to them over the last week that show similarly complex tasks: In Georgia, an order with an $11.50 payout called for buying 84 items at a Kroger store, then driving them to the customer 11 miles away. Outside of St. Louis, Missouri, an order that paid almost $48 asked shoppers to pick out 73 items at an Aldi, then drive them almost 69 miles away into neighboring Illinois.

High mileage, low payoff for Instacart drivers

On Reddit, one shopper shared a grocery order in Iowa for 197 items and a 55-mile drive. The pay? About $35 — less than the 65.5 cents per mile that the IRS allows taxpayers to deduct as a business expense.

"I have no words," the poster wrote.

In the past, high-paying orders have been one way for Instacart shoppers to maximize their earnings. One Utah shopper told Insider earlier this year that she was able to make $200 on Sundays early in the pandemic by shopping and delivering just a few orders at Costco, for example. Since then, the shopper said, such high-earning orders have become more scarce, and competition for the ones that remain has gotten more intense. 

As a result of Instacart's lower pay, some shoppers have said that they are looking for traditional jobs or considering working for other services such as DoorDash.

Are you an Instacart shopper with a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@insider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501.