Home › For Instacart Shoppers
The Mileage, Expense & Tax App for Instacart Shoppers
Shopping for Instacart is really two jobs — you're a personal shopper inside the store and a delivery driver outside it — and the app pays you as an independent contractor for both. What it doesn't do is keep the records the IRS lets you use to lower your tax bill. The drive from your house to the first store, the hop between a double batch's stores, the reposition back to a busier zone: none of it shows up anywhere in your Shopper app, yet every one of those miles is deductible.
Ava Ledger records your real day. Background GPS logs each business mile and prices it at the 2026 IRS rate of 72.5 cents; even a casual shopper putting 6,000 untracked miles on their car each year is leaving about $4,350 unclaimed. Ava turns that into a dated, IRS-compliant log without you touching a spreadsheet.
Batch pay, tips, and promos — one clean income record
Instacart earnings come in fragments: base batch pay, customer tips (which can change after delivery), peak boosts, and referral promos. All of it is taxable self-employment income. Ava consolidates the fragments into one running income total, matched against your expenses, so you always know your true hourly rate after gas — not the optimistic number on the batch screen. Shop other apps too? Everything merges into one record; see the multi-app gig workers hub for how cross-platform tracking works.
Write-offs that fit the job
Insulated bags and coolers that keep ice cream frozen, the phone plan that runs your batches, parking near busy stores, cart escalator wear on your car — the tools of shopping have real costs. Log them in Ava and they're categorized into proper tax buckets immediately, ready for your Schedule C alongside the mileage deduction.
No April surprises
Owe $1,000+ for the year and the IRS expects quarterly estimated payments — April, June, September, January. Ava watches your net earnings and keeps your set-aside number current (the common rule of thumb is 25-30% of net). When it's time to file, one tax-ready report covers your income and every deduction, and your tax preparer can view it directly with secure read-only access.
Your whole side-hustle HQ
Reminders so you never miss a car registration or insurance renewal, invoicing for any private clients, and an AI assistant for the admin you keep postponing. Compare what's included in the single plan — or if delivery driving is your main lane, check the DoorDash Dashers page and Lyft drivers page.
Keep more of every batch
7 days free. $69/month for your first 3 months, then $99/month — everything included.
Get Started FreeTracks while you shop. Cancel anytime in one click.
Frequently asked questions
Does Instacart track my mileage?
Only partially. The app estimates delivery distance on a batch, but your drive to the store, moves between stores, and repositioning between batches go unrecorded — and those are deductible. Ava logs all of it automatically.
Are my Instacart tips taxable?
Yes. Batch pay, tips, and promos all count as self-employment income and belong on your Schedule C. Ava tracks the full picture so nothing is under- or over-reported.
What can Instacart shoppers write off?
Business mileage is usually the biggest. Add insulated bags and coolers, phone and data plan, parking fees, and the business portion of car costs. Ava files each into the right tax category as you go.
How do I get my 1099 from Instacart?
Instacart delivers tax forms electronically (via its payments partner) early in the year if you meet the threshold. Ava's year-round records mean the form just confirms numbers you already have.
How much should shoppers save for taxes?
Setting aside roughly 25-30% of net earnings covers income tax plus the 15.3% self-employment tax for most shoppers. Ava's live tax estimate shows your personal number, not a guess.