The team-up
DoorDash brings the biggest restaurant delivery network in the US; Instacart brings the grocery run from the stores you already shop. They don’t compete — they split the week. Teamed up, food simply arrives, cooked or not.
The combo’s power is the single habit: one membership logic, one courier network mindset, and no meal decision that ends in a drive across town.
What each partner brings
- DoorDash brings dinner. If a restaurant delivers, it’s probably here — the deepest bench in food delivery, at national scale.
- Instacart brings the pantry. Groceries from your actual stores, at your door in hours — the weekly shop without the weekly trip.
The combined stack, end to end
Friday night is DoorDash. Sunday’s shop is Instacart. The gap between “we have nothing to eat” and eating closes to about an hour in both directions, and the membership math starts to beat owning a second car’s worth of errands.
Dimension grades
- What it does — 95. Restaurant delivery plus full grocery delivery — effectively the whole consumer food supply, delivered.
- What it costs — 89. Delivery fees and markups stack on both sides; the combo saves time at a real, visible premium over cooking and shopping yourself.
- How fast it delivers — 95. Same-hour in both directions in most metro areas — the fastest combined food stack here.
- Who it’s for — 94. Busy households and professionals who have decided their time is worth more than the fees.
Where the combo still falls short
- Neither fixes grocery picking quality — a stranger still chooses your avocados.
- Rural coverage thins out fast on both networks.
- Restaurant prices plus grocery markups mean the convenience tax hits every single meal, not just the lazy ones.
Verdict
A 94, and the easiest combo on this page to imagine actually shipping — the two services already flirt with each other’s territory. As a stack it owns delivered food, full stop.
← Back to Food rankings · All What If team-ups · Veridata Score (combo): 94/100 · Solo scores — DoorDash: 86/100 · Instacart: 83/100 · Members: DoorDash · Instacart