You pay Costco $65 or $130 a year for one reason: warehouse prices. Then you tap an app, the rotisserie chicken and paper towels show up at your door, and you assume you got the same deal as shopping at the warehouse.
You probably didn’t.
Getting Costco delivered has never been easier.
As of last month, DoorDash delivers from every Costco in the U.S., according to The Associated Press, and Uber Eats has expanded its Costco delivery nationwide after years of serving just 17 states. That’s on top of Costco’s Same-Day service, which Instacart has handled for nearly a decade.
Three apps. One warehouse. And on all three, the price you see may not be the price on the shelf. Here’s what’s going on, and how to keep the convenience from eating your membership savings.
1. Costco admits it charges more for delivery
Give Costco credit for honesty, at least in the fine print. On its Same-Day delivery page, the company says that items cost more than in your local warehouse because the price has to pay for Instacart’s service and delivery fees.
It also says the same items cost less if you walk in and buy them yourself.
So the fees aren’t missing. They’re baked into what each item costs. There’s a $35 minimum order, too.
What Costco doesn’t tell you is how much more. It admits the markup but never puts a number on it, so you have no easy way to know what that chicken costs a few miles away.
How big can the gap get? When Consumer Reports put it to the test in 2018, it bought nine popular fresh foods both ways near Yonkers, N.Y. The delivered basket cost $113.48. The same items in the warehouse cost $86.77. That’s a markup of about 31%.
Some items were worse. Salmon that cost $8.49 a pound in the store cost $12.39 a pound delivered, about 46% more. Those prices are eight years old, so don’t count on today’s exact figures, but the structure hasn’t changed. The fee is hidden in the price tag.
2. DoorDash: Lower fees with DashPass, but not no fees
DoorDash’s new Costco deal covers every warehouse and more than 4,000 products, according to the company. You have to link an active Costco membership to order.
What the announcement didn’t mention was price. DoorDash told ConsumerAffairs that what you pay for an item, and the deals you see, may not match what’s on offer inside the warehouse.
Then come the fees. DoorDash’s help center says its service fee is 15% of your subtotal on most orders in some markets, and varies with distance and order size in others. Its DashPass subscription cuts that service fee on eligible orders. It doesn’t eliminate it.
DashPass also has a catch. The company says the benefits only kick in once your order meets the store’s minimum.
3. Uber Eats: The store sets the price
Uber is unusually plain about how this works. In a September blog post, the company says stores have full control over the prices on its app, and that some stores mark up their items.
On top of that, Uber says its delivery fee typically runs from $0 for Uber One members on eligible orders up to $7.99, and it charges a service fee that shrinks as your order gets bigger. Uber One costs $9.99 a month or $96 a year.
Uber’s math says that membership pays for itself after about two grocery orders a month. Maybe. But remember who’s doing the math.
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4. You and your neighbor may not even see the same price
Here’s the part that should make you check every receipt.
In a December 2025 report, Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative, as part of a larger project with More Perfect Union, described how 437 volunteers checked prices on the same items on Instacart.
Roughly 3 out of 4 items they checked showed up at different prices for different shoppers, some by as much as 23% per item. Costco was one of the chains where the investigators found evidence of price experiments.
Instacart told Consumer Reports it had already stopped the tests at Costco and Target.
The fallout kept coming. Reuters, citing sources, reported that the Federal Trade Commission sent Instacart a civil investigative demand about its pricing tool, and later that month the Associated Press reported that Instacart had ended item price testing altogether.
Instacart disputed Consumer Reports’ estimate of how much those tests cost families. Separately, the AP reported that Instacart will refund customers $60 million to resolve FTC claims that it advertised free delivery that wasn’t free and buried its service fees. Instacart denied wrongdoing.
The lesson isn’t that every delivered price is a scam. It’s that the price on an app is whatever the platform and the store decide it is, and you’re the only one checking.
5. How to keep delivery from eating your savings
None of this means delivery is never worth it. If you can’t drive, can’t lift a 40-pound case of water or simply can’t spare two hours, paying extra may be a fine trade. Just make it a choice, not a surprise. Here’s how:
- Price-check your regulars. Next time you’re in the warehouse, snap photos of the shelf tags on the 10 things you buy most. Compare them to the app. Now you know your real markup.
- Order big and less often. Minimums, delivery fees and tips hit every order. One large order a month costs less in fees than four small ones.
- Do the subscription math. DashPass, Uber One and Instacart+ only pay off if you order often enough. Instacart+ members also get lower item prices on Costco Same-Day, according to Costco.
- Buy heavy, shelf-stable items by delivery and fresh food in person. The worst markup in the 2018 Consumer Reports test was on salmon, about 46%.
- Check the receipt, every time. If you’re charged more than the price you saw when you ordered, contact the app’s support right away.
Even Costco seems to know delivery isn’t cheap. In the three Albuquerque, N.M., warehouses where it offers curbside pickup, it charges warehouse prices plus a flat $10 fee per order — and says pickup adds an expense to its low-cost, limited-markup business model.
That’s the most honest pricing in this whole story: You can see exactly what the convenience costs.
The bottom line
You joined Costco to pay less. Delivery apps let you pay more without noticing. That’s not a reason to swear off them. It’s a reason to know your numbers.
If you want to squeeze more out of your membership instead of handing it to an app, read “Costco’s Biggest Money-Saver Isn’t Inside the Warehouse” and “14 Secret Costco Perks That Pay for Your Membership Fee.”
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