There are a handful of nuisances that come with grocery shopping: crowded parking lots, wandering the aisles to find the items you need, maybe flagging down an employee if you need help, and long checkout lines. If you dread the task because of these inconveniences, you may be the perfect candidate for grocery delivery. That way, you can keep your house stocked up without stepping foot outside. After all, it's time and energy saved for other things.
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Of course, you'll have to pay delivery fees, but sometimes the convenience is well worth the extra few dollars. Plus, with a grocery delivery service, you can search for exactly what you need from the comfort of your own home. Many services also tie up with neighborhood markets, allowing you to support local businesses while avoiding the shopping trip.
To find the best grocery delivery service, I tested a flurry of popular options such as Amazon Fresh, Gopuff, Instacart and Walmart+ as well as some smaller upstarts such as Misfits Market and Hungryroot to see which operations excelled with variety, quality brands, fair prices, and easy and timely delivery.
If it's just fruits and veggies you're after, these are the best places to get produce delivered, but to knock out the entire list (or most of it) in one place, these are the best online grocery delivery services of 2026.
Best grocery delivery services in 2026
Pros
- Good selection of fresh and shelf-stable groceries
- Competitive prices
- Free delivery for Prime members
Cons
- There were some grocery items we couldn't find
- Shipping fees for non-Prime members
Amazon Fresh has a massive selection of groceries at low prices to choose from and speedy delivery for Prime Members. You'll find just about anything you'd see at your local supermarket. Because Amazon owns Whole Foods you'll also have access to that store's proprietary brand, 365, which has quality goods at below-average prices. The Amazon Fresh website is well organized and the ordering platform is easy to use. You can schedule deliveries for the same day in most cases.
A few food categories are somewhat limited: I couldn't find fresh chicken thighs, for instance, which are a staple on my weekly grocery list. For seafood, there was no option for fresh shrimp, so you'd have to choose frozen. The fresh produce selection is solid, but mostly, it's just the staples you'd expect and nothing more. All the food I ordered arrived looking fresh, with no spoiled or overripe fruits and vegetables.
Amazon Fresh also offers a wealth of household products, so you can bang out most of your typical supermarket run in one delivery. In addition to delivery, Amazon Fresh offers in-store pickup for certain ZIP codes.
Pros
- Tons of discounts and deals
- Same-day delivery
- Delivery from pharmacies, pet stores and home supply stores available
- Free delivery on orders over $35
Cons
- Not as great of a selection of small, local grocery stores
- The website and app aren't the best
Target-owned Shipt is similar to Instacart, offering personal shoppers who will secure your desired list from local supermarket chains and wholesale outlets, including Target. Shipt focuses more on discount area retailers, including Costco, so you'll find plenty of deals and bulk savings.
Besides the wealth of low prices, another big draw for using Shipt is having groceries delivered same-day, sometimes as quickly as an hour. Other services require you to schedule delivery times days in advance. This is great if you're not the best at planning your weekly routine and often need groceries in a hurry.
You can also tack on far more than groceries, especially if your order is from Target. Need a pound of potatoes, a table lamp and a smartwatch? Shipt can bring it all to your door.
Pros
- Can pause or cancel your subscription at any time
- Competitive prices
- Subscription gives you free delivery on all Walmart.com orders, not just groceries
- Easy to schedule a time slot
Cons
- Monthly or annual membership required for all of the benefits
- Perishables are not available for delivery in New York City
To get the most bang for your buck, shopping for groceries at Walmart is most useful when you sign up for Walmart+. Although you can order groceries without it, Walmart+ offers free delivery from the store and competitive prices. Although it is not as readily available in NYC as Amazon Fresh, it is available for the majority of the US and is most likely the better option for smaller communities and more rural towns in the US. Students will also receive 50% off the annual price.
Because you are shopping a specific store (whichever is closest to you) you typically have access to everything you need, including produce, meat and non-perishable items. If you do not have a Walmart near you for grocery delivery, you can choose shipping instead, but that will limit you to non-perishable items.
Pros
- Includes multiple stores from your local area
- A larger total selection of grocery items than most services
Cons
- Real-time shoppers require your attention for replacements
- Generally more expensive than other services
- Fewer deals and sales
Instacart is a local grocery delivery service and operates differently than the first two on our list. This third-party service hires shoppers to head to a local store of your choosing, buy the items and deliver them to your door. The good news is you'll get to order from your favorite local grocery store. Instacart is available for most grocery chains -- Publix, Aldi, Stop & Shop and Costco -- but the store options will vary depending on your location. You can view the estimated delivery time for each store before choosing one.
The downside is that you have to pay attention and check the app for messages from your shopper while they're shopping in case certain items are out of stock. The shopper will typically send photos of potential replacements in real time for you to approve or reject. It can be a little bit stressful and time-consuming, but it's still a time-saver over going to the store yourself. You can also track the grocery delivery in real-time via the mobile app to see when it will arrive.
Instacart also marks prices up on most groceries, sometimes as much as 14%. And there's a delivery fee and suggested tipping associated with each order, making it one of the more expensive options on our list. In addition to delivery, Instacart offers in-store pickup for online orders at some stores.
Pros
- Good for ordering pantry and protein staples
- Wide selection of ethically responsible products
- Eco-friendly packaging and shipping
Cons
- No fresh produce or dairy
- Must buy into a membership to browse
For a monthly or yearly membership fee, Thrive Market members can shop via the platform primarily for pantry and frozen staples, which come with a low-price guarantee. The platform also includes other household staples such as beauty, bath and body, vitamins and supplements and even wine. We found that the selection at Thrive was more than sufficient to provide a lot of great options for pantry staples, including its own proprietary brand of more than 700 items, snacks, and especially frozen proteins and meals. The specialty items here support 90+ lifestyle and dietary needs, so there is something for everyone.
Pros
- Low prices and no membership fees
- Cheap shipping starts at $6 depending on your location with free shipping for orders over $70
- Good selection of ethically responsible products
- Eco-friendly packaging and shipping
Cons
- Inventory is inconsistent
- Some produce arrives a little past its prime
- Must actively curate your order each week
If you don't mind the occasional oddly shaped orange or citrus that's fully usable but has a bit of browning on the peel, Misfits Market offers low prices on produce. Misfits may have made a name by selling cheap, ugly produce that is deemed unfit for grocery store shelves, but it's evolved into a full-service grocery operation with meats, fish, baking supplies and pantry staples.
The convenient subscription service doesn't require you to pay any subscription fees and has cheap shipping. The one catch is that the inventory changes fairly drastically from week to week. That's how it keeps prices low, but it also means you'll have to actively curate orders or you might receive items that you don't like.
Pros
- Creative and simple recipe suggestions
- Unique and interesting groceries
- Fun and easy interface
Cons
- A bit more expensive than some other services
- The overall grocery selection is limited
- Requires a subscription and minimum weekly order
Hungryroot is a grocery subscription service that makes weekly suggestions based on a quiz you take to gauge your eating habits and dietary preferences. One of this service's unique features is that it offers simple and flexible meal ideas with the necessary groceries to make them. It's somewhere between a meal kit and a grocery delivery service and is great for those looking for breakfast, lunch and dinner inspiration.
The online grocery market stocks a good amount of quality, organic and specialty items including meat, seafood, produce, snacks and pantry items, but you won't find as many options as vendors such as Amazon Fresh or FreshDirect.
Once the initial suggested list is formulated, you can remove any grocery items and add others based on a credit system. I priced out a full list from Hungryroot and compared it to an average grocery store. By my calculations, Hungryroot is about 8% to 10% more expensive. The interface and ordering platform are intuitive and even fun to use.
Pros
- Great selection of groceries
- Quality meats and fresh produce
- Competitive prices on par with midrange grocery stores
- Timely delivery and good customer service
Cons
- Only available in the Northeast
- The occasional missing item from an order
With competitive prices, great selection and timely deliveries, FreshDirect is actually my favorite grocery delivery service to use, but because it's currently only available in the Northeast, it's hard to tap as the No. 1 overall pick.
FreshDirect has a wide-ranging selection of fresh produce, meats, fish, prepared foods, pantry items and home and paper products. There are definitely fewer total items than in a brick-and-mortar supermarket but I found just about everything I would normally buy on a trip to the grocery store. FreshDirect stocks plenty of organic and specialty items at similar prices to Stop & Shop or Wegmans.
FreshDirect's website is easy to navigate and deliveries are almost always on time, in our experience. Customer service is also great and if anything is missing or damaged, they'll replace it in the next delivery or credit your account, no questions asked.
Pros
- One of the speediest grocery delivery services around
- Good selection of paper goods, household products and pharmacy staples
- Some specialty items
- Fair prices and no extra charge for fast delivery
- Delivers booze in certain cities
Cons
- Limited options for most grocery items
- Very little fresh produce
- Limited meat and dairy options
- Inventory is inconsistent
Gopuff isn't the one-stop-shop for groceries that some of these other outfits are, but it has one big thing going for it and that's speed. Gopuff stocks mostly the essentials, including snacks, dry goods, household products, paper goods and pharmacy staples, and can have them to your door in as little as 30 minutes (sometimes even around 15 if all goes well) and almost always less than an hour.
Gopuff is a great option if you need staples and need them fast but it won't replace a run to the grocery store and has fewer options than say, FreshDirect or Instacart. You will find a scant selection of fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products and what you do find is stocked fairly inconsistently. Gopuff has a large delivery footprint, operating in more than 650 US cities via 500 regional micro fulfillment centers.
How we test grocery delivery services
To test each grocery delivery service, we placed an order from each with various, typical groceries including produce and meats (when available), dry goods, snacks and paper products. We noted how intuitive each ordering platform was and how good the selection was for various categories.
We also took notice of delivery options as some grocery services allow for same-day and next-day delivery while others require you to schedule in advance. When the groceries arrived, we noted how well the items were packed, if everything was included and how fresh -- or not fresh -- the meats, produce, cheese and other perishable items looked.
Fresh produce is the one thing you still may want to buy in person
While most of the fresh fruits and vegetables we received were fine, there was the occasional bruised tomato or apple. If you have a local market with a good selection of produce, you may want to pop in for those items and have the rest of your list delivered.