Costco and Sam’s Club Delivery Driver Guide: Tips for Instacart, Spark, and DoorDash in 2026

If you’ve been driving for Instacart, DoorDash, or Spark Driver for any amount of time, you’ve probably caught a Costco or Sam’s Club order pop up on your screen. And if you’ve never done one before, let me be real with you — these are not your average grocery runs. Wholesale store deliveries are a whole different animal, and knowing how to handle them can be the difference between a smooth $30+ payout and a nightmare you’ll be telling other drivers about for months.

I’ve run hundreds of wholesale orders across Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and more. This guide is everything I wish someone had told me before I walked into my first Costco order cold. Whether you’re brand new to shop-and-deliver or you’ve done a few but felt like you were winging it, here’s the real playbook.

Which Apps Send You to Costco, Sam’s Club, and Wholesale Stores?

Let’s start with the basics. Not every app sends drivers into wholesale clubs, so here’s the breakdown before you even think about accepting one of these orders:

• Instacart — The biggest player for Costco orders. Costco is one of Instacart’s largest retail partners in the US. You’ll find Costco shops available in virtually every major market, from Los Angeles to New York to Miami to Phoenix. On Instacart, you’re always doing a full shop — you’re walking the floor, scanning items, and checking out.
• Spark Driver — Walmart’s own delivery platform. Sam’s Club is a Walmart-owned warehouse chain, so Spark Driver handles Sam’s Club orders in most markets. If you’re in Dallas, Houston, or Austin, you’ve almost certainly seen Sam’s Club orders in your queue. Spark orders at Sam’s Club can be either full shop or curbside pickup depending on the order type.
• DoorDash — DoorDash has expanded its Costco partnership in select markets. Availability varies by city, but Chicago, Seattle, and Denver drivers have reported Costco orders coming through DoorDash with increasing frequency in 2025 and into 2026.

The critical thing to understand is that wholesale shop-and-deliver orders are batch orders — you’re shopping an entire customer list in-store and then delivering it directly. That changes everything about how you approach them, from your time estimate to how you load your car.

Parking at Costco and Sam’s Club: What Nobody Tells You

Parking is one of the biggest time-killers on wholesale orders, and it varies wildly by location. If you pull in without a plan, you can waste 15 minutes before you even grab a cart.

Costco Parking Tips by Market

Costco warehouses typically have massive parking lots, but on weekends they turn into a war zone. Here’s what drivers have figured out market by market:

• Los Angeles: Hit the back lots. The main lot near the entrance is always a disaster on weekends and most weekday afternoons. Pull around to the tire center or gas station side — there’s almost always open space and it’s a shorter cart run back to your car.
• Chicago: Weekday mornings before 10am are gold. Chicago Costcos — especially the Niles location and the River North area stores — are manageable before the lunch crowd hits. Avoid Saturdays like the plague. You will sit in a parking lot traffic jam for 20 minutes.
• New York: If you’re working the Brooklyn or Queens locations, budget extra time no matter what. Parking is tight, foot traffic is intense, and you’ll often need to double-park briefly for large loads. Know the local street rules and use your hazards.
• Dallas and Houston: You’re in luck — Texas Costcos generally have sprawling lots and are far easier to navigate than coastal markets. Still, stick to weekday mornings if you can control your timing. Katy Freeway area Costcos in Houston get wild during after-work hours.
• Miami: The Doral and Kendall locations get packed fast, especially on weekends. Try to arrive right when the store opens (usually 10am for members, earlier for executive members) or about an hour before close.
• Phoenix, Denver, Seattle, and Austin: Generally manageable, but always scope out the store layout on your first visit. Find where the cart return zones and designated pickup areas are before your second order — that knowledge will save you on every future visit.

Pro tip: A growing number of Costco locations now have a dedicated staging area near the exit or garden center specifically for Instacart pickup orders. Ask an employee the first time you’re there — it’ll save you 10 minutes of confusion on every visit after.

Sam’s Club Parking: The Curbside Advantage

Sam’s Club is slightly easier to deal with because of their Curbside Pickup infrastructure. Spark Driver orders frequently route through the dedicated curbside lanes, which means you’re sometimes picking up a pre-pulled order rather than shopping it yourself. Always check the order type in the Spark app before you pull in — a curbside pickup and a full shop order are completely different time commitments. A curbside Sam’s Club run can be 15 minutes start to finish. A full shop can take 45.

The Membership Counter: What Every Instacart and DoorDash Driver Needs to Know

Here’s one of the most common mistakes new drivers make: walking up to the entrance at Costco without knowing the check-in process. Don’t be that driver standing at the door looking confused while a line of actual members builds up behind you.

For Instacart drivers, you do not need a personal Costco membership to shop. Instacart has a business relationship with Costco and provides shopper access. When you arrive, approach the membership desk — not the main entrance — and tell the employee you’re an Instacart shopper. Show them your Instacart shopper badge (the physical card) or your in-app shopper verification. They’ll wave you through. It’s quick once you know the process.

For DoorDash drivers on Costco orders, the process is similar. You’ll have a Red Card (Dasher card) and the app will guide you through what you need. When in doubt, go to the membership counter first and identify yourself as a Dasher. Staff at high-volume locations in markets like Los Angeles and Chicago are used to seeing delivery drivers daily.

At Sam’s Club on Spark Driver, curbside check-in is handled through the app. When you arrive at the store, tap “I’m here” in Spark and a Sam’s Club associate will bring the pre-pulled order out to you. For full-shop orders assigned through Spark, check in at the associates’ entrance on the side of the building — not the main membership desk at the front.

Never try to just walk in past the greeter without checking in properly. You’ll get stopped, you’ll have to explain yourself, and in busy markets like Houston and Chicago, sorting it out can cost you 20+ minutes. Do it right the first time.

Dealing with Bulk and Heavy Items: Protect Your Back and Your Vehicle

This is where wholesale store orders can go sideways fast if you’re not prepared. A single Costco order might include:

• Cases of water (40+ lbs each — and customers frequently order multiple cases)
• Bulk paper towels and toilet paper (enormous and awkward, they eat cargo space fast)
• Flat-screen TVs or large electronics in oversized boxes
• Patio furniture, storage bins, and other bulky non-grocery items
• Multiple flats or cases of beverages — beer, wine, sparkling water, juice
• Large bags of pet food (40–50 lb bags are common)

Equipment Every Wholesale Driver Should Carry

If you’re running Costco or Sam’s Club orders with any regularity, a folding hand truck or dolly is one of the best investments you’ll make in your gig career. A solid folding dolly runs $30–$50 at Home Depot or Walmart and will pay for itself on your first heavy water-case run. A couple of moving blankets or cargo area liners are also worth having in the back — they protect your vehicle’s interior and let you stack bulk items more efficiently without things shifting around in transit.

What to Do When an Order Is Too Heavy or Too Large

Every major platform has a reporting mechanism for orders that can’t be safely completed. If an order comes through with 300+ lbs of water and you’re driving a compact sedan, that’s a real problem — for your suspension, your trunk, and potentially your safety. You can contact support through the app, report the issue with specifics, and in most cases the platform will adjust the order, reassign the heavy items, or allow you to unassign without penalty.

Do not push through an order that could damage your car or hurt your back. The long-game math matters here — your vehicle is your livelihood. Check out this detailed breakdown on managing your delivery driver car maintenance budget to understand exactly what repeated heavy loads can cost you over a year of driving.

Alcohol Delivery at Costco and Sam’s Club: Know the Rules Before You Accept

Wholesale clubs carry alcohol in serious bulk — cases of wine, 30-packs of beer, handles of liquor. And customers absolutely order it. This is where you need to have your head on straight before hitting accept, because the rules are strict and the consequences of getting them wrong are real.

The Core Rules on Alcohol Delivery

• You must be 21 or older to deliver alcohol orders. Every platform requires age verification during onboarding and you’ll have confirmed this. If you’re under 21, decline all alcohol-containing orders — no exceptions.
• You must check ID at the door, every time. Doesn’t matter if the customer looks 70 years old — if alcohol is in the order, you verify their ID using the in-app verification tool. Scan it, confirm it, log it. No shortcuts.
• If no one answers or the customer can’t produce valid ID, the alcohol comes back with you. You do not leave alcohol on a doorstep, in a lobby, or with a neighbor. This isn’t just app policy — it’s state and federal law. Return it to the store or follow your platform’s specific protocol for undeliverable alcohol.
• State laws vary significantly and you need to know yours. Texas (Dallas, Houston, Austin) has specific delivery hours and restrictions on what types of alcohol can be delivered and by whom. Florida (Miami) and Illinois (Chicago) have their own separate rule sets. Check your state’s ABC regulations when you start running alcohol orders in a new market.

Should You Take Alcohol Orders from Wholesale Stores?

It depends on your current setup. If you’re multi-apping — running Instacart and DoorDash simultaneously, for example — alcohol orders that require in-person ID checks can slow your whole operation down because you can’t hand off to a secondary batch mid-delivery. If you’re running a single platform in a dense urban area, alcohol orders at Costco can pay very well — customers ordering a case of wine and a 30-pack tend to tip on the higher end because they know it’s a heavy, specialized delivery.

Think through your workflow before you decide whether alcohol orders fit your system. For a deeper look at how to balance multiple platforms effectively, read this: multi-apping in 2026 — how to run DoorDash, Uber Eats, Spark, and Instacart at the same time.

Tips and Pay on Large Wholesale Orders: What to Expect and What to Require

Wholesale orders have the potential to be the highest-paying orders on any platform on any given day. But the tip structure is completely different from restaurant delivery, and if you don’t understand it, you’ll either leave money on the table or waste time on orders that weren’t worth it.

Percentage Tips vs. Flat Tips on Wholesale Orders

When a customer tips as a percentage of their order total, a $300 Costco cart at 15% = $45 in tip alone. Add $8–$15 in base pay and you’re looking at $50+ for one delivery. That’s real money and it’s why experienced drivers specifically look for these orders.

But not every customer tips on percentage. Some leave flat tips that have no relationship to the actual size, weight, or complexity of the order. A $3 flat tip on a 12-item Costco order that includes two cases of water, a flat of sparkling water, and a bulk bag of dog food is not acceptable — and you are absolutely within your rights to decline that order before ever walking into the store.

Here’s a practical minimum for wholesale orders: look for at least $1 per item or a $15–$20 minimum tip, whichever is higher. Costco and Sam’s Club shops take longer to complete, require more physical effort to load and deliver, and often involve complex or high-rise deliveries. Your compensation should reflect that reality. Developing a disciplined filter for which orders to accept is one of the most valuable skills in gig work — this breakdown on how to accept and decline orders as a delivery driver in 2026 will sharpen that instinct.

How Each Platform Pays on Wholesale Orders

• Instacart: Batch pay includes a base pay, an item-count component, and a mileage component. Large Costco shops — 20+ items — typically come with a meaningfully higher base that reflects the complexity. Review the full breakdown before accepting and note the tip separately.
• Spark Driver: Sam’s Club orders are priced by delivery zone and item count. High-volume markets like Dallas and Houston often layer bonuses on top of base pay during peak windows. Watch your Spark app for any active earning boosts when you’re deciding when to go out.
• DoorDash: Costco orders through DoorDash can vary widely depending on how DoorDash has structured the partnership in your specific market. Always evaluate the total payout — base plus tip — against your estimated time before you accept. Don’t assume the base alone makes it worth it.

The Best Times to Run Wholesale Store Orders

Timing is one of the highest-leverage decisions you make as a gig driver, and it matters even more on wholesale orders where the in-store time is a significant part of your total commitment.

• Tuesday through Thursday mornings, 9am to noon: Stores are fully stocked from weekend restocking cycles, employees are less stressed and more helpful, parking is easy, and checkout lines are short. This is the sweet spot for fast, clean Costco and Sam’s Club runs in virtually every market — Dallas, Denver, Seattle, wherever you’re based.
• First of the month: SNAP benefits reload for a large portion of customers on the 1st, which drives a measurable spike in large grocery and wholesale orders. Markets like Miami, Houston, and Phoenix see this clearly. If you’re set up and available on the 1st and 2nd of each month, you can capitalize on this surge in demand.
• Avoid weekends — especially Saturday between 11am and 3pm: Parking becomes a competition, checkout lines stretch deep into the aisles, employees are overwhelmed, and your in-store time can double compared to a weekday morning. The pay on weekend orders rarely compensates for the lost time unless you’re getting a legitimately premium batch.
• Pre-holiday windows: The week before Thanksgiving and Christmas are high-tip opportunities on bulk orders — customers are buying in volume and tend to tip more generously during the holidays. The trade-off is serious store congestion. If you know the store well and have your system dialed in, it’s worth it. If you’re still figuring out the layout, skip the chaos and hit it in January.

Final Thoughts: Are Wholesale Orders Worth It?

The short answer is yes — if you work them smart. A well-timed Costco batch on Instacart can pay $40–$65+ and be wrapped up in under an hour if you know the store layout, park in the right spot, and have your car set up for bulk loads. Sam’s Club curbside orders on Spark in markets like Dallas and Houston can run even faster — 20 minutes from arrival to delivery on a good run.

The drivers who have a bad time with wholesale orders are almost always the ones who walked in unprepared — no dolly, no idea where to park, no sense of what the order was really worth before they accepted it. You now have the full picture. Use it, refine it for your specific market, and go find those batches.