Ordering $80 worth of groceries online doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll pay $80 plus a simple delivery charge. Service fees, higher online item prices, small-order charges, subscriptions and other costs can make grocery delivery considerably more expensive than shoppers initially expect.
Federal regulators have noticed. The Federal Trade Commission has spent much of 2026 examining how online food and grocery delivery services disclose prices and fees, following an enforcement action that resulted in a proposed $60 million consumer-refund settlement with Instacart in late 2025. The agency is also examining personalized pricing more broadly, including situations in which companies could potentially use consumer data to decide what an individual shopper is willing to pay.
