DoorDash Q3 2026: revenue +34% to $4.62B (23% ex-Deliveroo), EPS $1.06, and a $17B Instacart deal

DoorDash's third quarter was its biggest yet on every headline line: revenue rose 34% to $4.62 billion, net income attributable to shareholders rose 91% to $466 million, and diluted earnings per share (EPS, profit divided by the number of shares) rose from $0.55 to $1.06. Two things sit underneath that. About a third of the revenue growth is Deliveroo, the UK delivery company DoorDash bought in October 2025, which is not in the year-ago figures; without it revenue grew 23%. And part of the profit jump is a year-ago currency-hedge loss that did not repeat. On the same day, DoorDash agreed to buy Instacart for about $17 billion, a deal that will change its balance sheet far more than this quarter did.

Q3 2026 results

Marketplace GOV (gross order value) is the total amount customers spent on orders through DoorDash's apps, including taxes, tips and fees. Revenue is the slice DoorDash keeps, which is why net revenue margin, its "take rate", matters: at 13.6% it was slightly below a year ago and up from 13.5% in Q2.

What drove the quarter

Orders, not prices. The release attributes order growth "primarily" to more consumers plus Deliveroo; excluding Deliveroo, orders grew 17% and GOV 23%. GOV grew faster than orders because the average order got bigger. In the US restaurant business, GOV growth "accelerated slightly" from Q2 despite a tough comparison with a strong Q3 2025, while US grocery and retail GOV grew at more than twice the restaurant rate. International GOV growth also accelerated, and DoorDash says Deliveroo's order growth in Q3 was twice what it was in Q3 2025, before the acquisition.

Costs grew slower than revenue, except depreciation. Cost of revenue (couriers' pay, payment processing, support) rose 29% and fell from 6.7% to 6.4% of GOV. Sales and marketing rose 33%, roughly in line with revenue. Research and development rose 41%, mostly personnel and software, as DoorDash builds one global technology platform to replace the separate DoorDash, Wolt and Deliveroo systems. General and administrative rose only 7%, partly because "certain legal, tax and regulatory" costs fell from $48 million to $16 million. Depreciation and amortization nearly doubled, from $169 million to $312 million, largely amortization of Deliveroo's acquired intangible assets (brand, customer and merchant relationships, which accounting writes off over several years without any cash leaving the business).

Below operating income, the year-ago comparison is unusual. Interest income fell from $71 million to $37 million: a year ago DoorDash was holding $3.9 billion in escrow to pay for Deliveroo and earning interest on it. Other income swung from an $81 million expense to a $5 million gain. The Q3 2025 10-Q identifies that $81 million as an unrealized loss on the currency hedge DoorDash took out to fix the pound cost of Deliveroo, settled when the deal closed in October 2025.

What the headline numbers hide

Net income growth overstates operating growth. Pretax income rose $236 million, from $248 million to $484 million (+95%). Operations contributed $184 million of that. The disappearance of last year's $81 million hedge loss, plus this year's $5 million of other income, contributed $86 million, while lower interest income took away $34 million. Strip out other income and expense in both years and pretax income rose from $329 million to $479 million, about 46%. The tax rate also rose, from 2% to 4% of pretax income, so tax did not help. The honest growth figure for the business is the 71% rise in operating income, not the 91% rise in net income.

Adjusted EBITDA is more than double net income, and stock pay is the biggest gap. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, with further company-chosen exclusions) was $1,060 million. The bridge from $465 million of net income is mainly $312 million of depreciation and amortization and $269 million of stock-based compensation and related payroll tax, plus $16 million of legal and regulatory items and $20 million of transaction costs. Stock pay costs no cash but is a real cost to shareholders, paid in new shares. The legal exclusion was small this quarter ($16 million, versus $98 million in Q2), so the adjusted figure is not leaning on that item now.

Cash conversion is strong. Operating cash flow was $994 million in the quarter, about twice net income, and free cash flow (operating cash flow minus spending on equipment and capitalized software) was $787 million. Over nine months, operating cash flow was $2,532 million against $847 million of net income. The difference is mostly non-cash charges: $876 million of depreciation and amortization and $847 million of stock compensation year to date. Free cash flow grew only 9% in the quarter while Adjusted EBITDA grew 41%, partly because capitalized software spending rose; management also repeats that year-end timing of merchant payments will reduce 2026 free cash flow by $700–800 million versus 2025.

Receivables are not running ahead of sales. Accounts receivable were $1,212 million at September 30, up 9% from December, against 34% revenue growth in the quarter.

Buybacks did nothing for EPS this quarter. DoorDash repurchased $1,049 million of stock in the first half and the same $1,049 million over nine months, so it bought back no shares in Q3 (the release counts 6.8 million shares for $1.0 billion through October 28). Diluted shares were 440.3 million, 0.3% fewer than a year ago: the buybacks roughly offset shares issued as employee pay, with nothing left over to lift EPS.

Results versus the company's own guidance. In August DoorDash guided Q3 Marketplace GOV of $33.0–34.0 billion and Adjusted EBITDA of $950 million–$1.1 billion. It delivered $33.94 billion, at the top of the GOV range, and $1,060 million, in the upper half of the EBITDA range. Full-year expense guidance moved slightly: stock-based compensation of about $1.2 billion (was $1.2–1.3 billion) and depreciation and amortization of about $1.2 billion (was $1.1–1.2 billion), including about $450 million of acquired-intangible amortization.

On balance the quarter is flattered: EPS rose 93%, but income from operations rose 71%, and the gap is mostly a year-ago $81 million Deliveroo hedge loss that did not recur. The operating improvement itself is real.

Did last time's read hold up?

Our Q2 2026 report said to watch whether Q3 GOV landed in the upper half of the $33.0–34.0 billion range and whether ex-Deliveroo growth stayed in the low-to-mid 20s, warning that slowing organic growth just as the acquisition boost ended would make the spending plans look less comfortable. Both held: GOV came in at $33.94 billion, and ex-Deliveroo GOV and revenue each grew 23%. Q2's other concern, that legal and regulatory costs were swelling the gap between adjusted and GAAP profit, eased this quarter as those costs fell to $16 million.

The Instacart deal

DoorDash agreed to acquire Maplebear Inc. (Instacart) for $65.00 per share, an equity value of about $17 billion and a 26% premium to Instacart's price before media reports of the talks. Instacart holders can choose cash, DoorDash stock or a mix, but stock is capped at 25% of the total, so at least about $12.75 billion will be paid in cash. DoorDash plans to fund it with cash on hand and new debt, has a 364-day bridge loan commitment from JPMorgan Chase, and says it is targeting a capital structure that keeps investment-grade credit ratings. For scale: at September 30 DoorDash held $5.05 billion of cash, $929 million of short-term and $805 million of long-term investments, against $2.73 billion of convertible notes.

Management's case is that grocery delivery is a fixed-cost, scale business ("Managing inventory inside a warehouse is a fixed cost business"), and that Instacart's volume and its Enterprise software for grocers would lower DoorDash's fulfillment costs. It sees a multi-year path to $500 million or more of annual synergies net of investment, but expects to reinvest more than 100% of synergies in the first year after closing, with positive net synergies only from year two. The deal needs Instacart shareholder approval and antitrust clearance in the US, Canada and Israel; holders of about 19% of Instacart's shares have agreed to vote for it. The expected close, end of 2027 or first half of 2028, implies a long regulatory review.

Takeaway: The business underneath the headline is doing what it did in Q2: organic growth of about 23%, a stable take rate and operating income up 71%. The 91% jump in net income is partly last year's hedge loss falling away. What changes from here is the balance sheet: a company with about $6.8 billion of cash and investments has committed to pay at least $12.75 billion in cash for Instacart, financed with debt, and says it will reinvest all first-year synergies.

Guidance and outlook

For Q4 2026, DoorDash guides Marketplace GOV of $35.4–36.4 billion and Adjusted EBITDA of $900 million–$1.1 billion. Deliveroo was already in Q4 2025, so these comparisons are now like-for-like: the GOV midpoint of $35.9 billion is about 21% above Q4 2025's $29.68 billion, and the EBITDA midpoint of $1.0 billion is about 28% above $780 million. The company will stop reporting ex-Deliveroo figures from Q4. The EBITDA midpoint is below Q3's $1,060 million, consistent with what management described in Q2: seasonally higher courier costs, an annual insurance increase and more spending on the global platform and autonomous delivery in Q4.

Our read: the operating trend is steady, and the Q3 beat on GOV was clean. The 21% implied GOV growth for Q4 is a sensible check on whether organic growth holds in the low 20s once Deliveroo stops flattering the comparison. The bigger question for the next year is cost of capital, not demand: once the Instacart financing is set, interest on the new debt is likely to outweigh the $37 million a quarter of interest income DoorDash now earns, and on management's own timeline (close at the end of 2027 or later, net synergies only from year two) the profit benefit is a 2029-or-later story.

What to watch in Q4: whether GOV reaches the upper half of the $35.4–36.4 billion range, the terms and size of the Instacart debt financing, and whether buybacks resume or stay paused while DoorDash saves cash for the deal.

Source: DoorDash, Inc. Q3 2026 earnings release (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1, filed October 29, 2026). The full Q3 10-Q has not been filed yet, so segment and MD&A detail is limited to the release. Q2 2026 guidance and first-half buybacks are from the Q2 2026 release and 10-Q; the cause of the Q3 2025 other expense is from the Q3 2025 10-Q. Adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow are company-defined non-GAAP measures; see the release for reconciliations.