Shipt Instant Pay: How It Works, Restrictions, Troubleshooting, and More

Instant pay is one of the two payout options that Shipt offers to its Shoppers and Drivers (read about the differences between the roles): you can choose to be paid weekly via direct deposit or as often as daily via Shipt’s instant pay feature.

Instant pay is offered thanks to Shipt’s partnership with Stripe, and it’s a nice perk that provides a convenient way to get your hard-earned cash when you need it fast (Instant Pay is not used for reimbursements from Shipt, only earnings). But there are some drawbacks to instant pay: there’s a $0.49 fee applied to all transactions, and there are restrictions as to how often you can use it and how much you can withdraw. 

Here, we’ll go over everything you need to know about Shipt instant pay: how it works, how to use it, what its limitations are, and what to do if it’s not working. 

How to cash out on Shipt

Using Shipt Instant Pay is easy: just open your Shipt app and select the hamburger icon at the top right of the screen. That will bring you to this screen: 

Sensitive financial information blacked out to protect the privacy of our Gig Pros.

Next, tap the withdraw button as indicated in the image above. That will bring you here: 

Sensitive financial information blacked out to protect the privacy of our Gig Pros.

Enter the amount you want to withdraw and hit the transfer button. You’ll be prompted to select how you’d like to receive your money. If you select a debit card, you’ll receive your money instantly, and if you select a bank account, you’ll receive it within 2-3 business days. 

If this is your first time using Instant Pay, Shipt will guide you through the process of connecting your debit card. Simply follow the on-screen instructions, and you’ll be good to go. Keep in mind that you won’t have the option to use Instant Pay until after you’ve received your first direct deposit payment. 

Shipt Instant Pay lets you get paid the same day, but there’s a fee

By default, Shipt Shoppers and Drivers get paid every Friday for work completed the previous Monday through Sunday via direct deposit to their bank account. 

However, there are some circumstances in which you won’t want to wait around for the weekly payday — for example, maybe an unexpected bill just came through, and you don’t have the cash on hand to pay for it. In those situations, Shipt’s instant cashouts can be a lifesaver. 

There’s one downside though: for every instant cashout you make, you’re charged a $0.49 fee. It’s a pretty modest cost, but if you were to cash out every day, you’d be paying almost $15 in processing fees in a month. Over a year, that’s $178.85. 

Weekly direct deposits, on the other hand, are always entirely free of charge. For that reason, it’s good to keep track of how often you do instant withdrawals so you don’t end up paying more in fees than you anticipated. 

There are a few other Instant Pay restrictions to keep in mind

Here are some other limitations you should know about:

There’s a limit on how often you can cash out from Shipt

You can only use Instant Pay once per 24-hour cycle. The cycle resets at 8 p.m. ET, so you can cash out a maximum of twice per day, but only if you do so once before and once after 8 p.m. 

For example, you could cash out once at 7 p.m. and then again at 9 p.m. on the same day, but you can’t cash out at 8 a.m. and again at 6 p.m. on the same day. Similarly, you can’t cash out at 9 p.m. and then again at 4 p.m. the next day. 

To make things simpler, you can think of the limit as one cashout per day. That’s not quite accurate, but it’s close enough for most purposes. 

Shipt imposes a withdrawal limit on Instant Pay transactions

You can’t withdraw more than $500 at once using Instant Pay. You can withdraw as much as you want across different instant cashouts, but $500 is the limit for any individual withdrawal. 

Of course, there are no limits on regular weekly payments — you’ll always be paid the full amount that’s owed to you each week via direct deposit. 

You must have received at least one direct deposit before using Instant Pay

You can’t use Instant Pay until you’ve received at least one direct deposit payment. Implicitly, that also means that you need to have your bank account connected to your Shipt account, and you must have been on the app long enough to receive a weekly Friday payment. 

So, if you signed up on Saturday and earned $100 on your first day, you won’t be able to use Instant Pay until the coming Friday after your first payment hits your bank account. 

You need to connect a debit card to your Shipt account

To use Instant Pay, you need to connect your debit card to the app. If you’d like to have multiple debit cards connected, you can do that as well — you’ll choose which one to send payment to each time you cash out. 

Once your debit card is connected, you can choose to have instant payments sent to your bank as well. However, this will take longer: debit transfers are instantaneous, but bank transfers take 2-3 days to reach your account. 

How long does it take Shipt to process a debit card?

Under normal circumstances, it should take a few hours to link your card and your Shipt account. If it takes significantly longer, you can reach out to payments@shipt.com for assistance. 

Your available balance on Shipt isn’t always the same as your earnings

Sometimes, you might see a discrepancy between your earnings and your available balance on the Instant Pay screen — for example, your available balance on Shipt might show $0 even though you see earnings in your account. 

There are a couple possible reasons for that. For one, it takes one hour after completing a delivery for your earnings to become available for instant payouts.

Another reason you might see a difference is if your earnings have already been sent out via direct deposit. You can only instantly withdraw money you’ve earned during the current Monday-Sunday payment cycle — once the cycle resets, the money is no longer available for instant withdrawal since it’s already on the way to your bank account. 

In other words, you can’t cash out your earnings from last week, only your earnings from this week, even though last week’s earnings will still show up in your account until the moment they hit your bank account. That delay from when they’re sent out to when they land in your account can lead to your earnings and available balance showing different numbers. 

Additionally, if you’ve received any payment alterations from support, those may not be available either. Catherine Meyers, who has been doing Shipt part time for two years, says, “I've also been in situations where bumps are provided to me by Shopper support for one reason or another, like longer orders or bundle orders being canceled mid-shop, and there seem to be unclear rules over when and how these bumps can be cashed out. Sometimes, it takes a few hours for them to clear, even if the pay for that order has already been made available.”

There’s a one-week waiting period after accepting the Stripe terms and conditions

When you sign up for Instant Pay, you’re required to accept Stripe’s terms and conditions. Once you do so, you’ll have to wait one week before you can make your first withdrawal. 

Your Shipt payment may say “pending” for a few minutes before it leaves your account

In some cases, it may take a few minutes for your money to leave your Shipt account. Once it’s sent, it should be deposited instantly to your debit card. 

If your payment is pending for more than a few hours, consider reaching out to Shipt support at payments@shipt.com. 

There are additional limitations in California

Shoppers and Drivers in California get pay adjustments according to Proposition 22, which guarantees payment of 120% of the local minimum wage for active time. Those adjustments are not available to be cashed out via Instant Pay. 

Catherine says that the pay adjustments are “NEVER available to us as an instant cashout, it's always only available as a direct deposit amount on Friday of the following week. Shipt typically has it calculated by end of day Monday, and it's listed as a separate adjustment under pay. But I've only ever gotten it as a direct deposit.”

What to do when Shipt Instant Pay is not working

Instant Pay provides a pretty seamless experience, but like any technology, there are glitches and snags from time to time. Here’s what to do if there’s a problem.

Go through this eligibility and troubleshooting checklist

There are several rules, restrictions, and limitations on Instant Pay. Run through this checklist to see if any of these apply to you:

• Have you cashed out since 8 p.m. ET last night? If so, you won’t be able to cash out until the cycle resets at 8 p.m. ET tonight. 
• Are you attempting to withdraw more than $500? Instant Pay transactions are limited to $500 — you won’t be able to withdraw more than that at once. 
• Have you received at least one direct deposit payment? You can’t use Instant Pay until you’ve received at least one direct deposit payment from Shipt. 
• Have you connected your debit card to your Shipt account? You must link your Shipt account to your debit card to use Instant Pay. It can take a few hours for Shipt to process your debit card. 
• Are you attempting to withdraw money from a previous earnings cycle? You can only withdraw money that you earned during the current Monday-Sunday cycle. Even if there’s money in your account, you won’t be able to withdraw it if you earned it last week, as it’s already in transit to your bank account for your weekly payment.  
• Has it been at least two hours since the delivery you’re cashing out on? It can take up to two hours for a delivery’s earnings to show up in your available balance. For example, if you completed a delivery 20 minutes ago and are trying to withdraw the money you made from it, you may not be able to do so for another hour and 40 minutes. 
• Has it been at least a week since you agreed to the terms and conditions? There’s a one week waiting period after you agree to the Shipt Instant Pay terms and conditions. During that time, you can’t use Instant Pay.
• Has it been at least an hour since you initiated the transfer? There can sometimes be a delay between when you initiate a transfer and when the money leaves your account. If it’s only been a few minutes, wait a bit and see if the transfer completes. 

If none of these apply to you, there are some other steps you can take. 

Reset your Shipt app 

Sometimes tech just needs a good reset. If you’re experiencing trouble with Instant Pay, try the following:

1. Close out of your Shipt app and reopen it. 
2. Sign out of the app and log in again. 
3. Delete the app and reinstall it. 

Reach out to your bank

Sometimes, the issue isn’t with Shipt, but with your bank. Joshua Merritt, who has over three years of experience working with Shipt, says, “my first payment had to be cleared by my bank for some reason before it showed.”

Contact support

If you’ve confirmed that you’re eligible for an instant withdrawal and the above troubleshooting steps haven’t helped, the next step is to contact Shipt. For payment support, reach out to payments@shipt.com.

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