Instacart Carrot Ads: white-label retail media technology, pricing model and alternatives

Carrot Ads lets a retailer run retail media on its own storefront without building an ad business from scratch. The retailer gets Instacart's ad formats: sponsored products, display, shoppable display and shoppable video. It also gets Instacart's advertisers. Instacart said in November 2025 that Carrot Ads combines its ad tech, analytics and demand from "over 7,500 CPG advertisers" (company claim, Instacart, 6 November 2025).

For brands, the appeal is reach without new contracts. A campaign built in Instacart's Ads Manager can extend to Carrot Ads partner sites. Instacart's own marketplace ad business is covered separately at Instacart Ads.

Partners range from regional grocers to apps. Hy-Vee, Sprouts and Thrive Market are named; so is Uber Eats, which sells grocery sponsored items through Carrot Ads (Uber Advertising has the details). On 22 September 2026 Gopuff said it would use Carrot Ads to power ads on its own US storefront as it joined the Instacart Marketplace (Instacart, 22 September 2026).

Instacart runs the ad decisioning and reporting; the partner supplies the storefront traffic and product catalogue, often already hosted on Instacart's ecommerce technology. Measurement is the strongest point. Since November 2025 the Media Rating Council's accreditation for impressions, clicks, click-through rate and viewability covers Carrot Ads placements on partner sites, across desktop, mobile web and apps in the US and Canada. That gives brands the same audited metrics on a small grocer's site as on Instacart's marketplace. What MRC accreditation covers, and what it does not, is set out in retail media measurement standards explained.

Example. A regional grocer with an Instacart-built website switches on Carrot Ads. A cereal brand already running sponsored products on Instacart extends the campaign to the grocer's site from Ads Manager. The grocer earns a share of the ad revenue and reports accredited metrics, without hiring an ad sales team.

Instacart has not published Carrot Ads rates. At launch it described "new monetization capabilities, including revenue share models" for retailers (PR Newswire, 23 March 2022). A retailer should ask what share it keeps, who owns the advertiser relationship, and whether the terms depend on also using Instacart's storefront or fulfilment. Those answers set your take rate.

Strengths

• Demand on day one. Thousands of CPG advertisers already buy Instacart.
• Accredited metrics. MRC accreditation now extends to partner sites.
• Low build effort. For grocers already on Instacart's storefront technology, ads are an add-on.
• Proven at app scale. Uber Eats and Gopuff use it.

Limits

• A competitor's platform. Instacart sells groceries to the same shoppers through its own marketplace.
• Ownership is changing. If the DoorDash deal closes, Carrot Ads will belong to a delivery company that also runs its own ad network, DoorDash Ads. DoorDash says it expects to keep Instacart's "enterprise technology products" (DoorDash and Instacart, 29 October 2026); it says nothing specific about Carrot Ads terms.
• Opaque terms. Revenue share percentages are not public.
• Grocery focus. Formats and demand lean heavily toward CPG and food.

• Revenue share percentages and minimum terms.
• The current partner count. Instacart said 240+ in November 2025; an April 2026 IAB paper co-written by an Instacart scientist cited 310+ grocery ecommerce sites, as reported by PPC Land, 29 October 2026. The two may count different things.
• Carrot Ads revenue. Instacart reports advertising for the whole company only.
• Whether Gopuff's Carrot Ads storefront ads are live.
• Any change to Carrot Ads plans after the DoorDash agreement.

1. Instacart, "Instacart Receives Expanded MRC Accreditation for Carrot Ads" (6 November 2025). https://company.instacart.com/pressreleases/instacart-receives-mrc-accreditation-for-carrot-ads
2. PR Newswire, "Instacart launches Instacart Platform with new advertising, fulfillment and insights solutions for retailers" (23 March 2022). https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/instacart-launches-instacart-platform-with-new-advertising-fulfillment-and-insights-solutions-for-retailers-301509373.html
3. Instacart, "Instacart and Gopuff Announce New, First-of-Its-Kind Partnership in the U.S." (22 September 2026). https://company.instacart.com/pressreleases/instacart-and-gopuff-announce-new-first-of-its-kind-partnership-in-the-u-s-
4. DoorDash, Inc. and Maplebear Inc., joint press release on the definitive agreement, Exhibit 99.1 (29 October 2026). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1792789/000114036126041111/ef20084547_ex99-1.htm
5. PPC Land, "Instacart ad revenue gains 23% to $331m in quarter before DoorDash deal" (29 October 2026). https://ppc.land/instacart-ad-revenue-gains-23-to-331m-in-quarter-before-doordash-deal/