Instacart Announces Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results

GTV grew 14% year-over-year and total revenue grew 14% year-over-year

GAAP net income of $111 million; Adjusted EBITDA of $313 million, up 19% year-over-year

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Instacart (NASDAQ: CART) today released financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2026.

"Our business is performing incredibly well. We've meaningfully accelerated our growth over the past three quarters, including a strong Q2 where we grew GTV 14% year-over-year. We're attracting and engaging more customers across our marketplace and enterprise platform, which creates more value for retailers, brands, and shoppers," said Chris Rogers, CEO. "We're continuing to improve the customer experience on our leading online grocery marketplace, accelerate adoption of our enterprise technologies with retailers, and expand the breadth and depth of our advertising ecosystem. Together, these capabilities reinforce one another and give us further confidence in our runway ahead."

"Our Q2 results reflect broad-based strength across our platform and our operating model. In particular, we delivered double-digit GTV and total revenue growth, with advertising and other revenue up 16% year-over-year, once again outpacing GTV growth," said Emily Reuter, CFO. "We're continuing to drive efficiencies and reinvest in growth, all while continuing to deliver strong net income and expanding Adjusted EBITDA and operating cash flow year-over-year. We're also well on track to return the majority of free cash flow to shareholders via share repurchases in 2026."

Second Quarter 2026 Financial Highlights

Operational Highlights

Third Quarter 2026 Financial Outlook

Our guidance continues to reflect the most up-to-date data available at the time we report earnings.

Starting with our Q3 2026 financial outlook below, we've widened our GTV and Adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges to reflect our increased operating scale. We expect to land within the GTV and Adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges we provide, with the midpoint being our best estimate of where we expect to land.

Our GTV outlook represents 14% year-over-year growth at the midpoint and we continue to expect GTV to outpace orders growth. Our Adjusted EBITDA outlook represents 19% year-over-year growth at the midpoint.

For fiscal 2026, we remain committed to steady annual Adjusted EBITDA year-over-year growth at a rate that outpaces GTV growth. We continue to expect this rate of expansion to moderate year-over-year as we reinvest to accelerate across our multiple growth engines and lap some of the more significant operating expense efficiencies realized in 2024 and 2025.

We have not provided the forward-looking GAAP equivalent to our Adjusted EBITDA or a GAAP reconciliation as a result of the uncertainty regarding, and the potential variability of, reconciling items such as stock-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, certain legal and regulatory accruals and settlements, and reserves for sales and other indirect taxes. Accordingly, a reconciliation of this non-GAAP guidance metric to its corresponding GAAP equivalent is not available without unreasonable effort. However, it is important to note that these reconciling items could have a significant effect on future GAAP results.

Webcast and Conference Call Information

Instacart management will host a conference call to discuss the company's results at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time (5:00 p.m. Eastern Time) today. An audio webcast of the conference call will be available on the company's Investor Relations website at https://investors.instacart.com/.

About Instacart

Instacart is a leading grocery technology company that partners with more than 2,200 retail banners – representing nearly 100,000 stores – to transform how people shop for the groceries they need from the retailers they trust, while creating flexible earning opportunities for shoppers. Through the Instacart Marketplace, Instacart Enterprise platform, and Instacart Ads ecosystem, the company powers ecommerce, fulfillment, in-store technology, AI offerings, and advertising for partners. For more information, visit www.instacart.com/company. Maplebear Inc. is the registered corporate name of Instacart.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release and the accompanying oral presentation contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including without limitation statements regarding our financial outlook, including GTV, Adjusted EBITDA, transaction revenue, advertising and other revenue, cost of revenue, and orders, trends in our business and industry, our plans and expectations regarding growth, products, features, and partnerships, including expansion of our capabilities, services, and solutions, the expected benefits of AI and our AI offerings, our strategic priorities, investments, and initiatives, including international expansion, the expected benefits of a recent acquisition, our ability to drive sales and growth for our partners, and activity under our share repurchase program. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as "anticipate," "believe," "contemplate," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "target," "toward," "will," or "would," or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions.

The forward-looking statements contained in this press release and the accompanying oral presentation are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause actual results or outcomes to be materially different from any future results or outcomes expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors include, but are not limited to, our ability to forecast our performance; our ability to attract and increase engagement of customers, retailers, brands, and shoppers; the increasing scale, scope, and complexity of our business; evolving and uncertain macroeconomic conditions; our ability to achieve and maintain profitability and profitable growth; competition; and legal and regulatory developments; as well as other risks described from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K or quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC.

You should not rely on forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. We have based the forward-looking statements contained in this press release and the accompanying oral presentation on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Key Business Metrics

We use the following key business metrics to help us evaluate our business, identify trends affecting our performance, formulate business plans, and make strategic decisions:

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We use the following non-GAAP financial measures in conjunction with GAAP measures to assess performance, to inform the preparation of our annual operating budget and quarterly forecasts, to evaluate the effectiveness of our business strategies, and to discuss our business and financial performance with our board of directors. We believe that these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information to investors about our business and financial performance, enhance their overall understanding of our past performance and future prospects, and allow for greater transparency with respect to metrics used by our management in their financial and operational decision making. We are presenting these non-GAAP financial measures to assist investors in seeing our business and financial performance through the eyes of management, and because we believe that these non-GAAP financial measures provide an additional tool for investors to use in comparing results of operations of our business over multiple periods with other companies in our industry.

Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA as a Percent of GTV, and Adjusted EBITDA Margin. We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss), adjusted to exclude (i) provision for (benefit from) income taxes, (ii) interest income, (iii) other (income) expense, net, (iv) depreciation and amortization expense, (v) stock-based compensation expense, (vi) payroll taxes related to stock-based compensation, (vii) certain legal and regulatory accruals and settlements, net, (viii) reserves for sales and other indirect taxes, net, (ix) acquisition-related expenses, and (x) restructuring charges. We define Adjusted EBITDA margin as Adjusted EBITDA as a percent of total revenue.

Adjusted Cost of Revenue and Adjusted Cost of Revenue as a Percent of GTV. We define adjusted cost of revenue as cost of revenue excluding depreciation and amortization expense and stock-based compensation expense.

Adjusted Operations and Support Expense and Adjusted Operations and Support Expense as a Percent of GTV. We define adjusted operations and support expense as operations and support expense excluding depreciation and amortization expense, stock-based compensation expense, and payroll taxes related to stock-based compensation.

Adjusted Research and Development Expense and Adjusted Research and Development Expense as a Percent of GTV. We define adjusted research and development expense as research and development expense excluding depreciation and amortization expense, stock-based compensation expense, and payroll taxes related to stock-based compensation.

Adjusted Sales and Marketing Expense and Adjusted Sales and Marketing Expense as a Percent of GTV. We define adjusted sales and marketing expense as sales and marketing expense excluding depreciation and amortization expense, stock-based compensation expense, and payroll taxes related to stock-based compensation.

Adjusted General and Administrative Expense and Adjusted General and Administrative Expense as a Percent of GTV. We define adjusted general and administrative expense as general and administrative expense excluding depreciation and amortization expense; stock-based compensation expense; payroll taxes related to stock-based compensation; certain legal and regulatory accruals and settlements, net; reserves for sales and other indirect taxes, net; and acquisition-related expenses.

Adjusted Total Operating Expenses and Adjusted Total Operating Expenses as a Percent of GTV. We define adjusted total operating expenses as the sum of adjusted operations and support expense, adjusted research and development expense, adjusted sales and marketing expense, and adjusted general and administrative expense.

We exclude depreciation and amortization expense and stock-based compensation expense from our non-GAAP financial measures as these are non-cash in nature. We exclude payroll taxes related to the vesting and settlement of certain equity awards; certain legal and regulatory accruals and settlements, net; reserves for sales and other indirect taxes, net; acquisition-related expenses; and restructuring charges as these are not indicative of our operating performance. 

Free Cash Flow. We define free cash flow as net cash provided by (used in) operating activities less purchases of property and equipment, including capitalized internal-use software.

Non-GAAP financial measures are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for comparable GAAP financial measures and should be read only in conjunction with our condensed consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP. Our presentation of non-GAAP financial measures may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies, which reduce their usefulness as comparative measures. In addition, other companies may not publish these or similar measures. Further, these measures have certain limitations in that they do not include the impact of certain expenses that are reflected in our condensed consolidated statements of operations. We encourage investors and others to review our business, results of operations, and financial information in their entirety, not to rely on any single financial measure, and carefully consider our results under GAAP, as well as our supplemental non-GAAP information and the reconciliation between these presentations, to more fully understand our business. Please see the tables included at the end of this press release for the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(unaudited, in millions)

December 31,

June 30,

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

(unaudited, in millions, except share amounts, which are reflected in thousands, and per share amounts)

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

(unaudited, in millions)

KEY BUSINESS METRICS AND RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP RESULTS

(unaudited, in millions, except percentages)

RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP RESULTS

(unaudited, in millions, except percentages)

RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP RESULTS (CONTINUED)

(unaudited, in millions, except percentages)

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/instacart-announces-second-quarter-2026-financial-results-302845378.html

SOURCE Maplebear Inc. dba Instacart