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Finding the cheapest meal delivery service isn’t always as straightforward as it should be. That’s because the low prices that keep popping up in your feed or on those giant mailers are usually based on some, er, fuzzy calculations.
For starters, those per-serving costs are typically introductory offers that expire after a few weeks or months. Or they might be based on a minimum weekly order that’s far more food than your household would actually consume. Also, how do they determine what counts as a portion size? Your 6-foot-tall, athletic husband and a company’s consulting dietician might have very different opinions on that subject. And let us not forget that time is money; if an entrée requires too much prep time, this particular home-cooked meal model might not be worth it for you in the end.
So if you found your way here in an attempt to figure out whether that seemingly affordable meal kit is actually, well, affordable, you’ve come to the right place. It’s literally my job to try these things and report back. And I’m not alone. Bon Appétit’s editors, writers, and recipe developers also test meal kits and we have plenty of notes. Receipts too.
- Lowest price per serving → EveryPlate, $5.99/serving
- Best for intermediate cooks → Dinnerly, $7.99/serving
- Best for families → HomeChef, $7.99–$9.99/serving
- Best selection → Hello Fresh, $9.99/serving
- Best for snackers and grazers → Hungryroot, $9–$11/serving
- How we tested and figured out whether these kits are actually affordable
While it’s true that advertised meal kit pricing is often deliberately opaque, it’s still entirely possible to get delicious meals, organic produce, and even kid-friendly snacks at or below grocery store prices. Even some luxe and wellness-focused options are competitively priced.
It’s also worth noting that, even if they end up being a bit more than the grocery store, meal kits and prepared meal delivery services will still be cheaper than takeout, even after the introductory offer has expired. They also cater to a variety of dietary needs and restrictions to make meal planning around those factors simpler. Many are very generous with substitutions too. So if you’re on a specific diet or you want more options for quick-and-healthy meals at home—and you don’t want to blow your entire food budget on a pricey kit—keep reading to learn more about the cheapest meal delivery services Bon Appétit editors actually recommend.
How we tested and selected the most affordable meal delivery services
Our editors and contributors are constantly ordering and preparing a wide variety of meal kits and prepared meals to stay current on the best meal delivery services in general. When considering any meal kit company, our testers look at the menu and dietary preference variety, quality of the ingredients inside the boxes and their sourcing, portion sizes, the clarity of the instructions, the overall value, and, of course, the taste of the meals.
For this list of the cheapest meal kits, I also looked at the average price per serving and selected only the options that are available for $10 or less per serving.
But I didn’t stop there.
Some companies are very transparent with their pricing. For example, the vegan meal kit service Purple Carrot makes it easy to figure out that their lowest price per serving is $11 (without any introductory discounts) before you hand over your email address, so they didn’t make the cut for this list. That kind of transparency has historically been the exception, not the rule, though. So when I first put together this list of the cheapest meal kits, I had to at least begin the subscription process to get real numbers.
In addition to relying on my own experiences ordering these meal kits—and the thorough testing and reporting my colleagues do year-round—I signed up or reactivated my account at each service to understand how the numbers really add up. If a service promoted $8.99 meals but I couldn’t get a standard order to reflect that number, you won’t see that company on this list. At Blue Apron, for instance, you have to order at least four meals a week for two or four people to get the price per serving below $9.99, and four kits a week feels like…a lot.
I’m pleased to report that as I write this update in March 2025, I’ve noticed additional meal kit companies being equally transparent with their pricing. It’s not yet an industry standard or anything, but it’s a start.
What else you won’t find on this list: Services that come in under the $10 per serving threshold only during the promotional period. Many brands offer deep discounts or free meals on your first order or a certain percentage off of your first few boxes. GreenChef, for example, is currently offering new customers 50% off the first box (taking the price per standard serving down to $5.99), and then 20% off for two months. But after the end of the promotional period, you'd be paying $11.99 for each serving.
For this list, I only included kits with consistently low prices.
Lowest price per serving: EveryPlate
If you’re looking for a filling, budget-friendly meal kit and you don’t have too many dietary restrictions or preferences, EveryPlate is a good option.
| Average cost per serving: | $5.99 |
|---|---|
| Additional shipping fee: | $9.99 per box |
| Style: | Meal kit delivery service |
| Add-ons available: | Yes |
As I write this update in early March, EveryPlate's winter promotional offer boasts meals as low as $1.99 a serving, but even at full price, this is the most affordable meal kit service we recommend. On average, EveryPlate costs just $6 per serving, making it one of the most affordable meal delivery services out there. The 27 family-friendly weekly meal options offer a decent variety for such a budget-friendly service. Think: chicken sausage and kale soup, griddled onion burgers, ponzu chili steak bowl, sweet and spicy ponzu pork meatballs, or curry in a hurry chickpea flatbreads.
Like most meal delivery services, the default order is two servings of any given meal, and if you’re looking for single-servings, there’s also a “meal kits for one” plan—but if you read the fine print, it’s just the plan for two with a suggestion to use the second serving as leftovers.
Add-ons include proteins like steak, ground beef, bacon, and salmon, plus veggies like broccoli and sweet potatoes. You can also get rice, pasta, soups, sauces, and salad kits, plus a limited selection of desserts.
While EveryPlate doesn’t cater to specific dietary restrictions or preferences, allergen and nutritional information is included with every recipe, so you’ll know exactly what ingredients are in each kit before you set your weekly order. Recipe cards come with each insulated kit and they’re also available online.
EveryPlate offers a student discount, which is 75% off of your first box and 15% off of every box thereafter for a year. The same pricing is available for the “hero discount” (verified medical professionals, first responders, active military, and veterans).
Best for intermediate cooks: Dinnerly
Dinnerly is Marley Spoon’s more affordable sister brand. Where Marley Spoon meals average $10.99 per serving, Dinnerly’s come in at just $7.99—though selecting the “saver” recipes can reduce the price a bit more.
| Average cost per serving: | $7.99 |
|---|---|
| Additional shipping fee: | $11.99 per box |
| Style: | Meal kit delivery service, oven-ready meals |
| Add-ons available: | Yes |
Each meal can supposedly be prepared in five steps or less. That said, as my colleague Wilder Davies and I have experienced, both Dinnerly’s and Marley Spoon’s steps often include quite a few separate tasks. These often aren’t one-dish dinners either, so if you’re hoping that part of the meal kit lifestyle is washing fewer dishes, be sure to peek at the recipe steps when selecting your weekly meals.
Each week, the menu includes 28 standard dinner options with meals like sofrito tofu tacos, keto-friendly chipotle tilapia with roasted broccoli and lime, brown butter steak with lyonnaise sweet potatoes, glazed teriyaki salmon with sesame cucumbers and jasmine rice, and a Mediterranean spiced chickpea mezzo bowl.
Dinnerly allows you to filter recipes by cuisine or dietary preference, and you can also view the attributes of each (low-calorie, kid-friendly, keto-friendly, low-carb, under 30 minutes, vegetarian, dairy-free, etc.) before clicking through to the recipe. When you do click through, you can peek at the ingredients and steps, nutrient and allergen information, and what staples you’ll need to have on hand before you make your weekly menu selections—which you can do up to three weeks in advance.
Dinnerly subscribers can also choose from a wide variety of add-ons, which offer the same great variety as the Marley Spoon Market and include proteins, produce, pastries, pizza dough, shortcut meal kits, premade meals you can heat and eat, desserts, and goodies from brands like Roberta’s Pizza, Spicewalla, Mike’s Hot Honey, and more.
Presumably to make shipping more sustainable, ingredients are all packaged together and not divided by kit. You can opt out of printed recipe cards and cook from the online recipe or Dinnerly app if you want to reduce the materials that get shipped to you.
Dinnerly offers a community heroes discount program with eligibility determined via IDme.
Best for families: Home Chef
Cooking for a crowd and looking for a variety of meals including traditional meal kits and fully prepared meals? Then Home Chef’s Family Menu might be the best affordable meal delivery service for you.
| Average cost per serving: | $7.99 to $9.99 |
|---|---|
| Additional shipping fee: | $10.99 per box |
| Style: | Meal kit delivery service, prepared meal delivery service, discounted family menu option |
| Add-ons available: | Yes |
Most Home Chef meals are priced at $9.99 a serving, though if you just get the weekly minimum orer—two meals twice a week—meals are $11.99 each. However, if you’re cooking for a crowd, you can get better pricing by ordering from Home Chef’s Family Menu.
As of March 2025, the Family Menu meals are prepared in servings of four, and come to $6.99 a serving, whether you order two a week, six a week, or anything in between. Customizing your Home Chef selections by changing the protein or making other swaps may also cost you a few bucks more per serving. And if you want even more, there’s an option to double up your order.
But price is only part of the equation when it comes to finding the best affordable meal delivery services. So to get a better sense of Home Chef’s value, contributor Adam Cambell-Schmitt tried it at home for two weeks.
Overall, he liked the service and found that the dishes were simple and kid-friendly, though they sometimes bordered on too simple. While picky eaters might prefer more basic presentations and flavor profiles, more experienced home cooks might want something more. The premium and “Culinary Collection” offerings like brown butter sage gnocchi and maple-glazed trout were more exciting to cook and eat, but they also cost up to $4 more per serving.
The standard meal kits can often be prepared in 15 or 30 minutes and include preportioned ingredients. You can also choose from fully cooked meal options that are oven-ready and grill-ready, and add-ons include proteins, snacks, soups, salad kits, desserts, and more.
Verified military, first responders, health care professionals and teachers can save 50% on their first box and 10% on future orders. Verified students, select alumni, and government officials can save 50% on their first four boxes.
Best selection: HelloFresh
HelloFresh is one of the OG meal delivery services (despite any claims you might see to the contrary, it’s been around longer than Blue Apron), and though it’s price tag is on the higher end of what I consider “cheap,” it offers far more meal options than its comparably priced competitors.
| Average cost per serving: | $9.99 |
|---|---|
| Additional shipping fee: | $10.99 per box |
| Style: | Meal kit delivery service, quick-and-easy kits |
| Add-ons available: | Yes |
HelloFresh doesn’t have a minimum order value, but you must order at least two servings of two meals a week. At that minimum level it comes out to $11.49 per serving. Beyond that, standard meals cost $9.99 per serving, whether you’re cooking for four or six people anywhere from two to six times a week.
No matter your dietary restrictions or preferences, you’re likely to find at least a handful of meals you’ll want to eat. When making your weekly HelloFresh selections, you can filter the 100-plus menu options by category: Meat and veggie/carb-conscious meals, veggie and plant-based meals, family-friendly meals (that are supposedly kid-tested and picky eater approved), quick-and-easy meals, and pescatarian meals. If weight loss is your goal, there’s also a “fit and wholesome” category with low-calorie and low-carb meal options. Many recipes, like the vegan coconut curry tofu lettuce wraps with bell pepper, cilantro and lime, fall into more than one category.
Bon Appétit staffers who have tried HelloFresh at home have reported that the portions are large and plentiful; they’ve praised the fresh ingredients, including the meat. And in addition to the different meal kits, you can order a variety of add-ons like proteins, snacks, desserts, and smoothies from the HelloFresh Market.
HelloFresh’s Hero Discount Program provides verified medical providers, nurses, hospital employees, teachers, first responders, active duty military, and veterans with 55% off of their first box, plus 15% off for 51 more weeks.
Best for snackers and grazers: Hungryroot
If you don’t like grocery shopping and don’t want to do much in the way of meal prep, Hungryroot may be the meal delivery service for you. Well, except for the fact that it isn’t technically a meal delivery service; it’s more of a high-end grocery delivery service that comes with suggestions for how to easily combine its items into quick-and-easy meals.
| Average cost per serving: | $9 to $11 |
|---|---|
| Additional shipping fee: | $6.99 for orders under $70, Free for orders over $70 |
| Style: | Virtual grocery store with suggested recipes for quick-and-easy meals, high-quality ingredients, plus fully cooked microwavable meals |
| Add-ons available: | Yes |
Because it’s an online grocery store, Hungryroot has plenty of options for your dietary restrictions (dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, tree-nut-free, peanut-free, egg-free, shellfish-free, vegan meals, vegetarian meals, pescatarian meals, high-protein and paleo options, diabetes-friendly meals, etc.) and dietary preferences (sweets or no sweets? That is the question! Or at least one of them). Your answers are logged at sign up via a thorough survey, though you’ll always have the option to adjust your weekly selections.
Due to the structure of this service (a collection of ingredients versus a prepped and portioned meal kit), there isn’t a typical price per meal. Every item, whether it’s part of a “recipe” or a grocery add-on, has a credit value instead of a price. The number of credits you get each week depends on the meal plan you choose (how many dinners, breakfasts, snacks, etc., per box).
For example, the beef short ribs and steamed broccoli “recipe” includes two servings and requires two ingredients: prepackaged Church Brothers broccoli florets (2 credits) and Hungryroot’s fully cooked beef short ribs (5 points). It makes more sense once you get into the system and start clicking around—which is a little tricky because you have to sign up first. But to give you an idea of pricing, I tried a weekly plan that had 60 credits and cost $135.
Depending on what you order, you can generally put together one of the suggested recipes for around $9 to $11. And the more you buy, the less each meal can cost. Dinners can be as low as $8.99 per serving while breakfasts can be as cheap as $3.99 per serving.
Hungryroot is so serious about low prices, they offer price matching through their Best Price Program. So if you order an item from them and then you find it for a lower price at another retailer, they'll credit the difference to your account.
Even if you don’t end up making the suggested recipes, you’ll still be stocking your kitchen with a variety of prepared foods, packaged staples, nutritious snacks, produce, and fresh meat (if you choose—there are plenty of meatless options too). I tend to lean on the service for quick-and-easy breakfast items and snacks for my kids, but the beauty of Hungryroot is you can mix and match whatever you need any given week.
If you love the ritual of chopping and prepping, this may not be the meal kit for you. But if you’re more of a snacker and you have a hard time getting yourself to the grocery store, you’ll probably love it.
Additional reporting and meal kit testing by Adam Campbell-Schmitt, Wilder Davies, Carina Finn, Rachel Gurjar, Karen Yuan, Alma Avalle, and Hilary Cadigan.