DoorDash’s average order is about $34. Instacart’s is $115 — the grocery math behind its blockbuster $17B buyout

DoorDash customers spent nearly $34 billion across 993 million orders in the third quarter, the company said. That works out to about $34 per order. Instacart, which reported the same morning, handled 91.4 million orders worth $10.5 billion in gross transaction value, or GTV — that’s the industry’s term for everything a customer pays at checkout, from the groceries themselves to taxes, fees and tips. It comes to about $115 per order, up from roughly $110 a year earlier.

On those numbers, the average Instacart order carries more than three times the dollars of a DoorDash order. One caveat: DoorDash’s figures cover its businesses worldwide, and its order count includes deliveries it handles for merchants’ own websites and apps, which its spending total leaves out. That means its true average on its own apps runs somewhat higher.

A $115 grocery order versus a $34 one

Instacart actually keeps a smaller slice of each checkout dollar — a figure investors call the take rate — compared to DoorDash. Instacart’s revenue equaled 10.4% of GTV last quarter, while DoorDash’s $4.6 billion in third-quarter revenue works out to roughly 13.5% of what its customers spent.

To break it down: Instacart brought in about $12 in revenue per order. DoorDash brought in under $5.

DoorDash has spent the past year chasing those bigger baskets. In September 2025, it announced that nearly 2,700 Kroger stores would go live on its app with the grocer’s full assortment, a move the Times said sent Instacart’s stock tumbling. Amazon moved onto the same turf, expanding same-day delivery of perishable groceries to more than 2,300 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2025.

To be clear, that $17 billion price tag for Instacart is well below its peak. Private investors valued the company at around $39 billion about five years ago, fueled by the pandemic-driven grocery delivery frenzy. Instacart went public at $30 a share in September 2023, and both DoorDash and Uber considered buying it over the years, including back in 2021, but those talks fell apart, according to the Times.

What the DoorDash-Instacart deal could mean for your grocery bill

For most households, groceries are the bigger food expense. The average U.S. household spent $6,224 on food at home in 2024, compared with $3,945 on food away from home, a category that includes restaurant meals, takeout and delivery, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

If the deal closes, you’re looking at America’s biggest online grocery platform, and they’ll set the fees for your food orders. Instacart works with more than 2,200 retail banners representing nearly 100,000 stores, according to its release. That comes as many shoppers are already rethinking how they buy groceries.

Regulators are asking how those prices get set. On Wednesday, a day before the deal was announced, the FTC ordered nine airlines, ride-hailing and delivery companies, including DoorDash and Instacart, to explain whether they use personal data to charge different customers different prices, a practice often called personalized or “surveillance” pricing. The orders also cover how gig workers’ pay is set. The companies have 45 days to respond, and the study is separate from any merger review.

The acquisition itself still needs regulatory and shareholder approval, according to Instacart, which suspended its financial guidance and canceled its Nov. 5 earnings call while the deal is pending. In the release, Instacart CEO Chris Rogers called the third quarter the company’s best as a public company and pointed to how much grocery shopping still happens offline. “Online grocery is still an underpenetrated category,” he said.