Want to know how to create an app like Instacart for your grocery delivery business? The online grocery delivery sector is quickly expanding, intending to save time and make food shopping more fun. From energy drinks to fresh vegetables, you can all deliver straight to your home with a few taps on your mobile phone.
The grocery delivery projected market volume in the United States is US$257.50bn in 2024. The global market is expected to experience significant growth, with a projected increase of 12.74% from 2025 to 2028. This growth is anticipated to culminate in a market volume of approximately US$1271.00 billion by the year 2028.
Many grocery store owners are motivated to start online grocery delivery businesses like Instacart. For this purpose, you can either build a grocery delivery app customized per your business requirements or opt for an Instacart clone app that helps you reach new heights.
Discover the step-by-step approach to help you create an Instacart app clone and boost your sales and revenue.
What is Instacart Clone App?
Instacart clone app is a ready-made grocery delivery solution that helps you launch your grocery delivery app effortlessly. The clone app comes with pre-built features and functionalities that you can customize according to your business needs.
You can grow your grocery delivery business like a Foodpanda clone with a customizable Instacart clone app solution that provides the most exceptional features, such as order tracking, order management, and more.
The Instacart app clone’s primary aim is to help grocery delivery business owners streamline their tasks and provide convenience to people to get their groceries at their doorstep. With the help of the Instacart app clone, you can make ordering and delivery as straightforward and convenient as possible.
Supercharge your deliveries with Enatega.
Launch your Business with the Instacart Business Model
To launch a successful business like Instacart, you must know about their business model. Instacart uses three components that are essential for its business model.
Retail Partners: The supermarket stores identified on the app under their corporate names are Instacart’s retail partners. They are responsible for maintaining inventory up to date and ready for delivery.
Customers: Customers are those who place grocery orders using the Instacart app. They have the option to order groceries from their chosen retailer.
Delivery Persons: They are the delivery contractors who buy goods and deliver via Instacart.
How Does Instacart Work?
Instacart works as a grocery delivery platform that connects customers with personal shoppers. Customers log into the app to place an order. After placing an order, Instacart will connect customers with a personal shopper residing in their area to shop and deliver their order to their residence or arrange for a pickup at the store. Customers can easily track and schedule their orders.
The Instacart marketplace offers an extensive selection of over 1,400 retailers and reputable local grocers for customers to choose from. Therefore, customers can easily shop from their favorite markets.
How Does Instacart Make Money?
This question is in almost every person’s mind who works in the grocery delivery sector. Knowing the different income sources for business owners is necessary for generating income.
For your understanding, let’s look at how Instacart makes money.
Delivery Fees: On the first order, Instacart offers free delivery. However, after that, there are fees that customers have to pay for their order.
Commission Fees: Instacart charges commissions from retailers that use their platform.
Service Fee: Every order must include a 5% service fee.
Premium Membership Fee: Customers who want to become members of Instacart Express must pay a membership fee of $149. They get amazing deals and free delivery for orders over $35.
Benefits of the Instacart Clone App
Creating the clone app gives you a competitive edge in the food delivery market. It helps you in several ways like you get more customers and boost your sales and revenue.
Despite these, it also provides some other benefits that will be profitable for your business, which include:
Ease of Use
One of the main benefits of creating the grocery clone app is that your customers can easily place orders online for groceries. This eliminates the need for physically visiting a grocery store, saving valuable time and effort.
The app allows customers to place orders from anywhere and at any time, providing them with the flexibility to shop according to their schedules. They can avoid waiting in long queues or dealing with crowded stores, enhancing their overall shopping experience.
Cost-Effective
An Instacart clone app is a cost-effective and time-saving solution for grocery stores not to build the app from scratch. This grocery app clone solution allows businesses to enter the market quickly. You simply duplicate the functionality of the original app, adding the features of your choice, and your app is created.
Scalability
The clone apps are designed to be scalable, accommodating the growth of your business, which is another major advantage to store owners. As your customer base grows, the app can meet the increased demand without compromising performance.
Business Automation
The Instacart app clone helps automate the business operations that you handle manually. It will automate the customer reach and query-solving procedure. By automating the business operations, you will cater to your customers instantly and get more profitable sales. Also, if your business expands, automation would be necessary.
Discounts and Offers
Offering deals and discounts to customers is easy using the food delivery clone app. For example, New Year is near and you want to start giving offers and discounts to customers. You will have to add the banner on your app or website so that your customers know and place orders more. It is the most effective way to draw in new clients while enhancing the experience for existing ones.
Earn Money in Multiple Ways
It is one of the best benefits that the grocery clone app provides. Making an Instacart clone app can earn you money in the following ways, such as:
- Membership fees
- Advertisement charges
- Commission per order
- Charges on order cancelation
- Same-day delivery charges
How to Build an Instacart Clone App?
Creating the Instacart app clone is an excellent opportunity to grow your business and fulfill customer demands. However, to build a top-notch app, you need to do proper planning.
Here is a step-by-step guide to help you create the best Instacart clone app.
1. Market Research
Before doing research, you cannot create an app like Instacart. You have to do thorough research and gather all the information about Instacart like:
- What features do they offer?
- What gaps do you need to fill with your app?
- What are their strengths?
- What are your target audience’s needs?
- What are the latest market trends?
With this information, you can create a better app that sets you apart from the crowd and you can meet your customer needs.
2. Choose the Right Features
If you plan to make an app like Instacart, must ensure it has the features that make it great. The success of the grocery delivery app relies on the features you incorporate.
Here are some great features of the Instacart clone app that improve the overall usability of the application.
Customer App
| Features | Description |
| Easy sign-up | A user can register using their email and password. They can also log in with their social media profiles like Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc. |
| Advanced search and filter | The customer can filter out the grocery products by price, category, etc. This feature saves their time in finding the desired product. |
| Schedule delivery | It helps the customers schedule their order deliveries at their convenience. |
| Track order | Customers can track their orders and know the estimated arrival time of their grocery products. |
| Access multiple stores | The app users can access multiple stores from their location. Also, they can buy grocery products from multiple stores. |
| Rating and feedback system | Adding this to your Instacart app clone allows customers to share their feedback and rate the services according to their experience. |
| Order history | Your customers can view their order history by week, date, time, etc. It can help them to place the same order again in the future. |
| Wide variety of stores | Customers can access a wide variety of stores on their mobile phones. |
| In-App payments | This feature allows customers to pay for their orders via a mobile app. |
Store App
| Features | Description |
| Inventory Management | The store owner can manage and keep track of all the things via an app. |
| Accept or Reject the Order | The Instacart clone script allows you to accept or reject orders according to the availability of inventory. |
| Order History | The store owners can also check the order history of their delivered and pending orders. |
| Check Customer Details | From the app, they can view useful information about the customer for sending deals, promotions, and offers. |
Rider App
| Features | Description |
| Login/Registration | By using this feature, the rider can register with your easy-to-use Instacart clone app solution. It allows the rider to earn money with it instantly. |
| Accept/Reject Orders | The rider has the option to accept or reject an order based on their availability. It can be helpful in case of an emergency. |
| Multiple Orders | The riders can accept multiple orders if they have the same or nearby delivery location. |
| Call Customers | Calling customers is a highly effective method that helps them in finding the exact customer location. |
| GPS Navigation System | This feature of the whitelabel Instacart clone app solution helps riders view the customer’s location exactly. |
| Earning Report | Riders can check their earnings on the rider app and filter them out by time, week, date, year, etc. |
Admin Panel
| Features | Description |
| Manage Users | The admin can manage users from the on-demand Instacart clone app solution. They can add, remove, and update the user. |
| Manage Stores | Admin can add, edit, search, and remove the store in the Instacart app clone website and app. |
| Promo codes | Promo codes can be generated by the admin using the admin panel. It helps to bring more customers to your Instacart app clone. |
| Language Management | The admin also manages the app in different languages, such as English, Arabic, and more. |
3. Select the Technology Stack
Choose the right technology stack for your open source Instacart clone script. It impacts the success of your grocery delivery app. With the newest technology and appealing features, you can easily create a unique app similar to Instacart.
Below are the technologies that you use to create the Instacart app clone.
Front-end Development
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: These are the core technologies for building the user interface (UI) of the app.
React or Angular: JavaScript frameworks used to develop the interactive components of the front end.
Mobile App Development
React Native: Cross-platform frameworks that allow developers to build mobile apps for Android and iOS using a single codebase.
Java or Kotlin (for Android): If you choose to develop natively for Android, Java or Kotlin can be used.
Swift or Objective-C (for iOS): If you choose to develop natively for iOS, Swift or Objective-C can be used.
Back-end Development
Node.js: Used for building efficient and scalable server-side applications.
Express.js: A popular Node.js framework for building web applications and APIs.
Django or Ruby on Rails: Server-side frameworks that provide a structured approach to building web applications.
Database: Technologies like MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB are commonly used for data storage.
API Development
RESTful APIs: Architectural style used for designing networked applications. The app may use APIs to communicate with the back-end server and retrieve data.
GraphQL: An alternative to RESTful APIs that provides a more flexible and efficient approach to data fetching and manipulation.
Payment Integration
Stripe or Braintree: Payment gateways that provide APIs for processing online payments securely.
Geolocation
Google Maps API: This API provides geolocation services, including real-time location tracking, mapping, and route optimization.
4. Start the Instacart Clone App Development
Start the Instacart app clone development phase after selecting the tech stack. Design the UI/UX interface that is easy to navigate, aesthetically pleasing, and aligns with the overall user experience.
Work on the front-end and back-end development. Implement the features and make sure the website looks good and its features work properly.
5. Testing
Now, test the app after development. Testing your app is an integral part of the app development process. To check for errors in an app, you can perform different types of testing, including manual testing, exploratory testing, and automation testing. Make the app bug-free, so your customers use it without any hassle. You can test it on real devices and see what your app users would see.
6. Deployment
Deploy the app on Google Play Store and App Store. Follow all the guidelines and complete the submission process. Make sure you follow all the development guidelines and principles to ensure your app is compatible with the Google Play Store and App Store.
Cost of Developing the Instacart Clone App
The cost of developing the ready-to-use Instacart clone app solution depends on several factors, such as app features, complexity, number of platforms, and more.
Here is a rough breakdown of the app development cost.
| Cost Component | Description | Estimated Cost |
| App design | UI/UX of the app | $3,000-$25,000 |
| App development | Frontend development | $8,000-$75,000 |
| Backend development | Server setup, database management, and APIs | $8,000-$80,000 |
| Quality assurance | Fix bugs for a smooth user experience | $5,000-$20,000 |
| Project management | Ongoing support | $2,000-$10,000 |
| Miscellaneous cost | Hosting, domain, and unexpected expenses | $2,000-$25,000 |
The cost of building a grocery delivery app like Instacart will range from $28,000-$235,000. This cost can also be increased and decreased according to your requirements.
Enatega offers a free trial of their grocery clone app that helps you make an informed decision. You can also check our pricing on the website and get a clear idea.
FAQs
- Is there another app like Instacart?
GoPuff, Shipt, and FreshDirect are the best apps that work like Instacart.
- What is the Instacart app used for?
The Instacart app is used to deliver groceries to your doorstep from grocery stores. The app provides users with an expansive array of choices, featuring a selection of retailers and trusted local grocers.
- Does Instacart make a profit?
Instacart earns money by charging money from its partners. Several well-known brands partner with Instacart and provide services to their customers.
4. Who pays you on Instacart?
Every consumer of Instacart receives a weekly direct deposit into their bank account.
5. Why do people like Instacart?
Instacart is well-known among people due to these reasons:
- On-time delivery
- Wide variety of products
- Provide home delivery
6. How long does Instacart take?
Instacart delivers the order in 30 minutes to small distance areas. For long-distance delivery areas, they deliver the order in 30 to 60 minutes.
Supercharge your deliveries with Enatega.
Conclusion
Venturing into the online grocery delivery market with an Instacart clone app can be highly profitable. It can help you grow your business online and attract more customers.
So, if you want to build an easy-to-use Instacart clone app solution for your grocery business, hire experts from a trusted Instacart clone app development company to guide you through the development process and create a top-notch clone app.
You can book a demo with Enatega, discuss your requirements, and get the best app on time.
About the author
Hudaibia Khalid is the creative force behind the blog—a maestro of words and ideas. Her distinctive style not only imparts wisdom but also leaves an indelible mark, transforming each post into a captivating journey through her unique perspective on the world.
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