Instacart: cancellation problem

Cancel Instacart+ under Your Instacart+ membership. Annual members get a refund only within the first 5 days and only if they placed no orders with it.

ACredibility A · last verified 2026-10-12 · 100% official or government sources

What does this mean?

Grade A (high: almost everything comes from official pages read directly). 100% of 11 sources are the organization's own pages or government sites.

All Instacart contacts Open in the interactive directory JSON

Collect

cancellation confirmation email
date of cancellation
any later charge

Steps

App: Account > Your Instacart+ membership > Cancel membership > Continue > Confirm cancellation. Website: menu > Your Instacart+ membership > Cancel membership.
AppCancel Instacart+ (Your Instacart+ membership > Cancel membership) App: Account > Your Instacart+ membership > Cancel membership. Web: menu > Your Instacart+ membership > Cancel membership Sign-in required
Keep the confirmation email. If charged after cancelling, contact support.
PhoneInstacart customer support +1-888-246-7822
If Instacart does not refund a charge made after cancellation, dispute it with your card issuer.

Facts you can cite

Policy
Annual Instacart+ members can cancel within the first 5 calendar days of the paid membership for a refund only if no orders used the membership; other cancellations get no refund, and benefits continue to the end of the billing period. Charges may apply up to 6 hours before renewal.
Source: instacart.com, verified 2026-10-12

Rules in force

Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA) negative option requirements
15 U.S.C. 8401-8405
A seller that charges consumers online through a negative option feature (for example an automatic renewal or a free trial that converts to paid) must clearly disclose all material terms before taking billing information, get the consumer's express informed consent before charging, and provide simple mechanisms to stop recurring charges. The FTC enforces ROSCA.
Source: law.cornell.edu, verified 2026-10-12
3 citable points
- Policy
  Before obtaining the consumer's billing information, the seller must provide text that "clearly and conspicuously discloses all material terms of the transaction".
  Source: law.cornell.edu, verified 2026-10-12
- Policy
  The seller must provide "simple mechanisms for a consumer to stop recurring charges" on the consumer's credit card, debit card, bank account or other financial account.
  Source: law.cornell.edu, verified 2026-10-12
- Process
  A ROSCA violation is treated as a violation of an FTC rule on unfair or deceptive acts or practices, and the FTC enforces ROSCA with its FTC Act powers and penalties. Report violations to the FTC.
  Source: law.cornell.edu, verified 2026-10-12

Rules not in force (do not cite)

FTC "Click-to-Cancel" amendments to the Negative Option Rule (2024) Vacated
16 CFR part 425 (2024 amendments, published November 15, 2024)
Vacated in full by the Eighth Circuit on July 8, 2025 (Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC, 142 F.4th 1060). The FTC removed the 2024 text effective February 12, 2026 and restored the pre-2024 prenotification rule. A new rulemaking is only at the ANPRM stage (March 13, 2026), with no proposed text as of 2026-10-12. What remains in force: ROSCA (rules/rosca-negative-option), Section 5 of the FTC Act, and state automatic renewal laws (for example rules/ca-automatic-renewal-law, rules/ny-automatic-renewal-law).
Not in force. Do not cite it as current law.

If that fails, escalate

Go up one step at a time. Keep the reference numbers and dates from each contact.

Customer service
AppReport a problem with an order (app Get help, or website Report a problem) App: select the order > Get help. Website: select the order > Report a problem Sign-in required
Customer service
PhoneInstacart customer support +1-888-246-7822
Card or bank dispute
Fair Credit Billing Act billing-error and purchase-dispute rights (Regulation Z)
Electronic Fund Transfer Act error resolution and unauthorized-transfer liability (Regulation E)
State agency
Your state’s attorney general. Find it in the list of state agencies (also as JSON: states/<code>.json, for example states/ny.json).
Arbitration
MailNotice of dispute (Legal Department) Instacart, ATTN: Legal Department, 50 Beale Street, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94105
Signed written notice, then at least 60 days to resolve it before arbitration.

Watch out

Order problem reports and Instacart+ cancellation need the customer signed in.
Orders placed through a retailer's own app or website are handled by that retailer, not Instacart.

Let your AI agent handle this

Escalate Anything is a free, open-source MCP server for Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Codex and other AI apps. Your agent gets this playbook, keeps a case log with reference numbers and follow-up dates, and drafts each message for you to approve.

1. Set it up (needs uv):

uvx escalate-anything setup

2. Ask your agent:

I cancelled Instacart on [date] and they still charge me. Use Escalate Anything to stop it and get refunded.

Source code, other install options and the Claude Code plugin