There are many excellent delivery options available to Canadians, including in-house services and third-party companies. When comparing grocery services, remember to consider fees, the speed of delivery, special perks (like rewards!), and the selection of grocers.
Below, you'll find a close look at the details of these services so you can find the delivery option that best fits your family’s needs.
A closer look at popular grocery delivery service apps in Canada
Here's an overview of the top grocery delivery services available throughout Canada:
| Category | Grocery service | Fees | Minimum order amount | Special features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best overall | Instacart Canada | * $3.99 and up | * $10 | * Same-day delivery available * One-hour delivery available |
| Best for saving money | PC Express | * Between $1 and $13.99 for pickup * Approx. $10 for delivery | * None | * PC Express Pass subscription offers annual savings and other perks * Order as far as 30 days in advance |
| Best for specialty stores | Buggy Delivery App | * $5.99 and up | * None | * Can order from locally-owned shops as well as box chains |
| Best for quality and freshness | Voilà | * $0 and up | * $35 | * Freshness guarantee * Earn valuable Scene+ points |
How we picked the best grocery delivery service
To evaluate grocery delivery services, we analyze over 10 data points to generate a trustworthy Genius Rating. We consider all aspects of a grocery delivery service, including fees, wait windows, variety of stores, customer satisfaction, and promotions, to assess its overall value. Then, the grocery delivery service’s features are rated based on how they stack up against other available options.
Best grocery delivery service 2025 winner: Instacart Canada
Instacart Canada is known specifically as a grocery delivery service, but it actually partners with a wide range of retailers to deliver all sorts of products, such as pet supplies, alcohol, high-end makeup, office supplies, and more. If you need it, odds are that Instacart Canada can deliver it.
- Wide availability
- Same day or advance delivery options available
- Premium membership option
- Low $10 minimum order
- Earn loyalty points with your favourite stores
- Referral bonus and impressive promos for your first order
- Still not available everywhere
- You don’t get to select your own meat or produce
- Instacart Canada prices are higher than in-store
- Have items delivered in as little as 1 hour
- $10 referral offer
- Earn loyalty points with your favourite stores
The best grocery delivery service of 2025 is Instacart Canada. With low wait times, the ability to order in advance, a wide variety of stores, and the option to earn rewards at your favourite retailers, there’s a lot to love.
It also has a sweet referral bonus, which is always a plus.
Here's a bit more information on Instacart Canada's top features:
- Unmatched variety of grocery options: Since it partners with more than 1,400 retailers across North America, customers have an incredible variety of store options. After adding new partners in 2022, Instacart now works with 4,000+ stores across all 10 Canadian provinces.
- Plentiful retail options: One of the best features Instacart Canada offers is the ability to shop from a variety of retailers, not just grocery stores. You can even order from warehouse clubs (Costco, Sam’s Club, etc.) even if you don’t have a club membership.
- Different membership options with valuable perks:
Instacart Canada also offers an elite-style membership program called Instacart+. By paying $9.99/month or $99 for the year, you earn certain perks – such as no delivery fees for orders over $35 and lower service fees.
Best low-priced grocery delivery service: PC Express
In a world where grocery delivery is becoming increasingly popular (for reasons of both convenience and safety), you might wonder what PC Express is all about. It’s not a delivery service at all, really, but an order-fulfillment-for-pickup service. Is this better than just doing your own grocery shopping?
- Available across Canada
- Very inexpensive
- Good mobile app
- You’ll always get your PC Optimum points
- You’re restricted to products available at your local store
- Sometimes substitutions aren’t great
- Earn PC Optimum points
- Pickup fee waived for PC Insiders
- Valuable welcome offers for new customers
PC Express is owned and operated by Loblaws and partners with all other Loblaws entities. It's one of the few grocery delivery services without price markups or hidden fees.
Loblaws offers a few different options for delivery and pickup through its PC Express service, including:
- Curbside pickup
- Transit pickup locations (at select TTC and Ontario GO stations)
- In-store and self-serve pickup
- Home delivery in certain locations
PC Express's best feature, though, is its reasonable fees. The exact price depends on the time of day you choose, but you'll pay between $1 and $5 for pickup and delivery prices range from $5.99 to $13.99.
Best grocery delivery service for ordering from specialty stores: Buggy Delivery App
The Buggy Delivery App is a grocery delivery service with its own Buggy Bucks rewards system, which gets you points as you spend money on the app. You also get the ability to order up to 30 days in advance, and with delivery (sometimes) available in as little as 15 minutes for the service's own Buggy Stores and 1 hour for grocery stores, it’s an interesting service.
- Wide variety of specialty stores available
- Buggy Bucks loyalty program
- Place your order up to 30 days in advance
- Short delivery times
- Customizable “store boxes”
- Very limited service area
- Not all stores are available
- Will only deliver from 1 store at a time
- Complicated and hard-to-find fee structure
- Fast turnaround orders depend on driver availability
- No promotional rates or free trial
- Wide variety of specialty stores available, including the liquor stores and Costco
- Build your own "store boxes" to simplify the ordering process
- Referral bonus available
Another 3rd-party grocery delivery service is Buggy Delivery App, available in multiple Canadian cities. Its service is super speedy – they claim they can deliver within an hour of your order being submitted, or in as little as 15 minutes if you’re ordering from one of their own Buggy Stores.
One detail that sets them apart is that customers can shop from locally-owned stores as well as larger chain retailers. For instance, in the Toronto area, Buggy Delivery App customers can purchase items from the St. Lawrence Market – a large farmers’ market-style venue with a few permanent vendors – as well as from Metro and Fresh Co. grocery store locations.
Although Buggy Delivery App’s fees are higher than most of its competitors, having the option to support local businesses is unique and appealing.
The best grocery delivery service for fresh, high-quality items: Voilà
Voilà offers easy online grocery shopping. Place your order, choose your timeslot, and Voilà delivers at fees starting at $4.99 or free for curbside pickup. You can receive up to $80 off your first 4 delivery orders or $60 off your first 3 curbside orders with promo code VOILAFIRST
- Guaranteed fresh groceries
- Prompt, professional, and friendly delivery service
- Delivery pass for regular shoppers
- Promotions for new customers
- Grocery store prices on the high end
- Delivery isn't available everywhere
- Earn Scene+ points
- Welcome offers for new customers
- 3-month Delivery Pass Trial
- All Curbside Pickups: $0 pickups fees and no minimum order
- Refer A Friend Program
- Curbside pickup available nationwide where participating stores are located
Partnering with Sobeys, Safeway, and IGA grocery stores, Voilà offers both delivery and curbside pickup services throughout Canada. Its freshness guarantee ensures that customers receive only the best quality items – if you're not satisfied, they'll make it right, either with product replacements or refunds.
Voilà's prices are higher than usual, but this makes sense since quality and freshness are so important to its business model. Prices for grocery items are high, that is – pickup and delivery fees are quite reasonable, ranging from $0 for unpopular pickup times to $99.99 for an annual Delivery Pass subscription.
Users also earn Scene+ points on their grocery orders. This is one of the best rewards programs in the country and certainly provides extra value for this delivery service.
How does grocery delivery service work?
The concept of a grocery delivery service is quite simple – the general flow goes like this:
- Create your online account
- Select the items you want to purchase
- Schedule a delivery date and time
- Pay with a credit card or other online method
- Wait for the goods to be dropped off at your door
If users prefer, orders can be picked up at various pre-set locations or at the store itself via contactless curbside delivery. Either way, all of the gathering and bagging is done for you.
Essentially, you pay a service fee to have all the hard work of grocery shopping done for you.
Dealing with substitutions
More frequently than users would like, certain items on your grocery list may be unavailable when your personal shopper is putting the order together. In this case, substitutions may be made.
Most grocery services will ask you on your online order form whether substitutions are acceptable for individual items, and you can check yes or no as needed.
If substitutions do become necessary, your shopper or the service itself will call, text, or email to let you know which items have been replaced with which other products.
Similarly, if an item you’ve requested isn’t available and there are no acceptable substitutions, you'll receive a call, text, or email explaining this. Or, if you’ve requested no substitutions at all, communication from the grocery service will still detail which items were unavailable.
No matter the substitutions, some services only charge the price of the original product requested. If a substitution can't be made, the item will be taken off your order and you won't have to pay for it at all.
Your payment only goes through once your shopper has everything in the cart for you.
What to look out for with a grocery delivery service
Using a grocery delivery service is easy, but there are a few details to consider before committing to one service or the other.
And since there are more delivery options to choose from than you might think, being informed will help narrow down which service is best for your family.
Delivery time slots
Most grocery delivery services in Canada will have at least a half-hour window for delivery or pickup, though sometimes the time slot is longer.
If you’re doing a pickup order instead of delivery, stores usually don’t mind if you run late, since they’ll already have your order ready, but contacting them to let them know when you’ll arrive is recommended. Arriving early means you’ll likely have to wait for the staff to finish compiling your order.
Some services will allow you to order farther ahead than others, while others will offer a quicker turnaround time. If you're in a hurry, checking out the available time slots can help you find a service with flexibility that suits your needs.
Grocery delivery service fees
Each grocery delivery option charges a fee for their services. These fees can vary, often depending on a variety of factors, like:
- Which stores you shop at
- How much you spend
- How heavy your items are
- Ordering alcoholic beverages
- Placing a rush order
- Delivery distance
Most grocery delivery services at least charge a basic service fee with an add-on for the convenience of delivery.
And, of course, applicable sales tax is always added to your grocery order.
Product prices
You may notice that your grocery items cost more when you order them online versus when you shop at the store in person. It’s actually the individual stores that set these amounts, not the delivery service, and they do sometimes increase prices for various reasons.
There may also be in-store sales or promotions not available when ordering online – so that's another thing to keep in mind.
And when ordering an item that's priced by weight, you may not always get the exact weight requested (although employees certainly do their best to get as close as possible).
Store selection
Some delivery services, such as PC Express, only allow you to shop from their own stores. Loblaws owns a variety of shops and you’re able to order from any of them.
Most third-party grocery delivery services in Canada, however, have partnerships with individual stores, including:
- Pharmacies
- Hardware stores
- Office supply stores
- Nbook shops
- Liquor stores
- Corner stores
Each delivery service’s website has a complete list of partnering stores that users can shop from.
Top 3 grocery services in Canada
Below are some of the best grocery delivery services we've reviewed so far.
Want to know how our Genius Ratings are calculated? They start out by breaking a product down into its main components and rating each out of 5 based on how they compare to other products on the market. Once that's done, we average them all together to get the final Genius Rating.
Instacart Canada is known specifically as a grocery delivery service, but it actually partners with a wide range of retailers to deliver all sorts of products, such as pet supplies, alcohol, high-end makeup, office supplies, and more. If you need it, odds are that Instacart Canada can deliver it.
- Wide availability
- Same day or advance delivery options available
- Premium membership option
- Low $10 minimum order
- Earn loyalty points with your favourite stores
- Referral bonus and impressive promos for your first order
- Still not available everywhere
- You don’t get to select your own meat or produce
- Instacart Canada prices are higher than in-store
- Have items delivered in as little as 1 hour
- $10 referral offer
- Earn loyalty points with your favourite stores
Voilà offers easy online grocery shopping. Place your order, choose your timeslot, and Voilà delivers at fees starting at $4.99 or free for curbside pickup. You can receive up to $80 off your first 4 delivery orders or $60 off your first 3 curbside orders with promo code VOILAFIRST
- Guaranteed fresh groceries
- Prompt, professional, and friendly delivery service
- Delivery pass for regular shoppers
- Promotions for new customers
- Grocery store prices on the high end
- Delivery isn't available everywhere
- Earn Scene+ points
- Welcome offers for new customers
- 3-month Delivery Pass Trial
- All Curbside Pickups: $0 pickups fees and no minimum order
- Refer A Friend Program
- Curbside pickup available nationwide where participating stores are located
In a world where grocery delivery is becoming increasingly popular (for reasons of both convenience and safety), you might wonder what PC Express is all about. It’s not a delivery service at all, really, but an order-fulfillment-for-pickup service. Is this better than just doing your own grocery shopping?
- Available across Canada
- Very inexpensive
- Good mobile app
- You’ll always get your PC Optimum points
- You’re restricted to products available at your local store
- Sometimes substitutions aren’t great
- Earn PC Optimum points
- Pickup fee waived for PC Insiders
- Valuable welcome offers for new customers
Editorial Disclaimer: The content here reflects the author's opinion alone, and is not endorsed or sponsored by a bank, credit card issuer, rewards program or other entity. For complete and updated product information please visit the product issuer's website.
FAQ
What is the best grocery delivery service?
Instacart Canada is the best grocery delivery service in Canada. This is mostly due to its reasonable pricing structure, flexible delivery windows, and premium membership perks. Other excellent grocery delivery options include PC Express and Voilà.
How can I order groceries online in Canada?
Canadians can order groceries online either through a third-party grocery delivery service or by using your chosen grocery store's website. Some stores have their own delivery services while others use third-party services, and prices vary accordingly.
How do grocery delivery services work?
First, you select the products you want to purchase, just like any other online shopping portal. Once your cart is ready, you select a time slot for pickup or delivery, and then you'll make your payment.
Which company has grocery pickup AND delivery service?
Both PC Express and Voilà have both delivery and pickup options. Offering curbside pickup options is more difficult for third-party delivery services as they don't typically have their own storefronts. They make up for this with excellent delivery options.
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