The Cheapest Meal Delivery Services That Are Actually Worth Ordering 2024

Looking for the cheapest meal delivery service isn’t as straightforward as it seems; looking at the price per serving listed on the meal kit’s site can feel deliberately opaque. What is a serving anyway? Portion sizes vary. And prices can go up and down depending on the number of meals you order per week. If you ended up here in search of meal kits, I’m guessing you don’t have time to cook your way through all of the affordable options to find out what’s worth ordering and what’s not.

• 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

Truthfully, the meal kit market is a bit oversaturated right now, which means that even some luxe options are competitively priced. But the absolute cheapest meal delivery service might not be right for you if it doesn’t offer the quality or selection you want.

You’ve come to the right place, though, because 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—because that promotional pricing that keeps popping up all over social media isn’t necessarily indicative of what you’re going to end up paying after receiving your first few boxes.

The best and most affordable meal kits will be cheaper than takeout even after the introductory offer has expired—and they cater to a variety of dietary needs and restrictions. 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 the most affordable meal delivery services

Our picks for the most affordable meal kits

If you’re looking for filling, budget-friendly meal kits and you don’t have too many dietary restrictions or preferences, EveryPlate is a great option.

On average, EveryPlate costs just $6 per serving, making it one of the most affordable, actually good 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 still 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 potato. 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 specify your weekly order. Recipe cards are shipped 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.

While Dinnerly doesn’t have Martha Stewart’s official stamp of approval, the Dinnerly recipes are developed in the same Marley Spoon test kitchen, and each meal can supposedly be prepared in five steps or less (though, as my colleague Wilder Davies and I have experienced, both brands’ steps often include quite a few separate tasks).

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 doesn’t allow you to filter recipes by cuisine or dietary preference, but you can 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 might be the best affordable meal delivery service for you.

Home Chef’s advertising has meals starting at just $7.99 a serving, but the actual amount you’ll pay really depends on how many people you’re feeding and how often. You’ll hit the real sweet spot ($6.99 per serving) when you order four servings of two standard meals a week, and achieve the $7.99 price with four servings three times a week. The price goes up from there, whether you order more or less.

For example, four servings of five meals a week comes out to $8.79 per serving, and six servings of six meals a week is $9.32 per serving. And if you order just two servings of two meals a week, it will cost you $12.99 per serving (though adding a third meal takes it back down to $9.99). Customizing your Home Chef selections by changing the protein or making other swaps may also cost you a few bucks more per serving.

Home Chef also requires a minimum weekly order of $50.95 for the Home Chef Plan and $82.91 for the Family Plan, though that total includes the flat shipping fee of $10.99.

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, earlier this year, Bon Appétit and Epicurious 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 meals, the standard dishes may be a bit too basic—especially for an experienced home cook. 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 on the higher end of what I consider “cheap,” it offers far more meal options than its comparably priced competitors.

HelloFresh doesn’t have a minimum order value, but you must order at least two servings of two meals a week and an order that size comes out to $11.99 per serving. Beyond that, standard meals cost $9.99 per serving, whether you’re cooking for two, 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 the provided ingredients into quick-and-easy meals.

Because it’s a virtual grocery delivery service, 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.

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.