Key Takeaways
- On Oct. 28, the FTC ordered DoorDash, Instacart, Walmart and six other companies to explain whether they use personal data to set prices and gig-worker pay, a day before DoorDash agreed to buy Instacart for about $17 billion.
- The orders are part of a study, and they’re unlikely to change DoorDash’s fees or Dasher pay anytime soon.
- DoorDash’s operating margin was about 6% in 2025, and in September it agreed to pay $131.5 million to settle New York City’s probe of Dasher pay.
- At about 26x forward earnings, near its five-year low, the stock already prices in a lot of risk, and the antitrust review of the Instacart deal is the bigger test ahead.
DoorDash (DASH) just agreed to pay about $17 billion for Instacart (CART). Now the Federal Trade Commission wants to see how both companies set prices, and how they pay the people who deliver the orders.
The FTC sent its orders on Oct. 28, the day before DoorDash announced the Instacart deal. Nine companies got them at once, Walmart (WMT) among them. So the scrutiny of Instacart’s pricing now covers DoorDash’s own marketplace and its Dasher pay too.
What the FTC wants to know
The orders went to Walmart and Target, Uber and Lyft, Instacart and DoorDash, and three airlines. For the four gig apps, they ask about worker pay as well as prices.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in the agency’s release that it intends “to scrutinize the opaque methodology” some companies may use to set what consumers pay and what gig workers earn. Each company has 45 days from receiving its order to respond.
The orders don’t say that anyone uses personalized pricing, and Walmart says it doesn’t. “We price the product, not the person,” CEO John Furner said in a September letter to customers. Instacart has also denied using personalized pricing.
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DoorDash keeps very little of each order
For DoorDash, the pricing and pay under review sit right on top of its profit. In 2025, it kept 13.4% of its $102.0 billion of order value as revenue, and less than a penny of each dollar as net income. Dashers earned over $20 billion that year.
Analysts expect that profit to grow fast. Consensus normalized EPS rises from $5.10 in 2025 to $9.91 in 2028.
A request for information shouldn’t move those estimates on its own. But they do assume DoorDash keeps setting fees and Dasher pay its own way.
The margin under those estimates only recently turned positive. DoorDash went from a 14.6% operating loss in 2022 to a 6.1% operating margin in 2025.
Pay rules have already cost DoorDash real money. In September, it agreed to pay $131.5 million to settle New York City’s probe of Dasher pay, and to start paying for time online between deliveries the way the city requires. Its reserve for legal matters, which includes audits of delivery-worker pay, rose to $406 million at June 30 from $263 million at the end of 2025.
A study order is a long way from a rule
Still, these orders only ask for information. Nothing in them makes DoorDash change a fee or a pay rate, and I’d guess any rule that did would take years to arrive.
Plus: much of what DoorDash wants from Instacart is paid for by advertisers and retailers. As Bloomberg’s Natalie Lung said on the Bloomberg Tech podcast, “the advertising and the enterprise part of the business makes up 30% of revenue,” and she called it the real prize in the deal.
The deal review is the bigger test
The deal still needs Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust clearance, approvals in Canada and Israel, and an Instacart shareholder vote, and it isn’t expected to close until late 2027 or the first half of 2028. Consumer Edge card data puts DoorDash at 59% of delivery-app spending in the third quarter, against 18% each for Instacart and Uber Eats. If the deal falls apart, DoorDash could owe Instacart a $1.25 billion break fee in certain cases.
The way I see it, a study order won’t change what DoorDash earns on an order. The stock traded at about 26x forward earnings at Friday’s close. That’s near its lowest in five years and well below the roughly 39x it averaged over the past three, so the market already prices in a lot of worry. I’d hold through the inquiry and keep a close eye on the deal review.
Of course, the FTC could still turn these questions into a case against DoorDash, which would put its fees and Dasher pay on the table. DoorDash’s fourth-quarter report in February is the next chance to hear from management on both the inquiry and the deal.
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Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
