Meal Kits Have Gotten Cheap, but Are They Cheaper Than Groceries?

Bloated costs on everything from eggs to olive oil have folks looking for ways to cut costs. Meal kits — once considered a splurge — may not have caused a blip on your thrifty radar. While supermarkets seemingly jack prices up at will, meal kit companies have been more careful when raising consumer costs, since retaining subscribers is key to their survival.

Meal kit services such as EveryPlate, Blue Apron or HelloFresh are known for helping busy people save time and eat better, but I crunched the numbers to find out if any of the top meal delivery services are cheaper than a supermarket haul of the same items.

After looking at several ingredient lists for various recipes, I found that some meal kits are more expensive while others are about the same price as grocery shopping, or in some cases, even cheaper. It depends on the service and, more importantly, the meals you choose.

Here's a breakdown and how I got these figures.

How I did the math

To see how much Blue Apron, HelloFresh and EveryPlate meals cost to make, I priced out the ingredients for two real recipes that are included in a standard subscription. 

When choosing groceries, I used the cheapest version of the same or similar ingredient I could find at Shop-Rite, a budget-friendly grocery store in my area. Because meal kit recipes include only the amount of ingredients needed, I prorated the cost by how much you would actually use for a recipe, not the full price of the bottle, jar, box or bag. 

I chose basic, nonorganic items unless it was otherwise specified in the meal kit recipe. 

How I picked the recipes

If you're looking to meal kits as a value proposition, you'll have to be smart about which recipes you choose. Steak, chicken and fish tend to be more expensive to cook at home than plant-based meals, so I specifically chose recipes featuring those proteins. (I also recommend you take advantage of them if you're signing up for a service).

Not all services include steak recipes without a surcharge, but HelloFresh and Blue Apron do. Blue Apron typically offers at least one fairly high-end beef cut like sirloin steak with no added charge. 

HelloFresh offers one or two beef recipes per week, but they're usually a cheaper cut like chuck steak. Seafood options are limited with a basic HelloFresh, but I found a barramundi recipe on this week's menu in addition to the ranch steak with Caesar salad. 

Budget-friendly services including EveryPlate don't usually offer steak or seafood, which is how it keeps prices low. For my EveryPlate analysis, I chose a cherry beef meatball and pork chop recipe.

Blue Apron presents real value if you choose the right meals

Blue Apron has the most high-end recipes of the three I chose to analyze. I picked a recipe featuring sirloin steak and another with fresh filets of steelhead trout.

When I priced out the groceries to make these meals, they clocked in at $11.26 and $8.23, respectively, with an average price of $9.75 per serving. Both meals proved more expensive to buy at the supermarket than the $8 per-serving cost for the largest (cheapest) Blue Apron plan. 

As good as that sounds, Blue Apron's largest plan is a whopping five meal kits per week with four servings each, and likely practical for most people. If you choose a more reasonably sized plan — let's say three meal recipes with four servings each — the price per serving jumps to $10. That's still cheaper than the cost of buying the groceries, but only by a little. 

Add the $11 weekly shipping cost, and the Blue Apron creeps over the cost of buying groceries, but only slightly. When you consider the convenience a meal kit provides, it's hard to argue that Blue Apron isn't a good value.

HelloFresh was the worst value

HelloFresh might be the most popular meal kit service, but it was also the worst value of the three. I chose a barramundi recipe and chuck steak meal kit to compare with local grocery prices. 

By my calculations, HelloFresh meal kits would cost just $6.55 per serving to buy the groceries and make the meals yourself. That's about $2.50 cheaper than HelloFresh's average meal plan of $9 per serving, and that's all before factoring in your weekly delivery cost of $11. If you were to spread that shipping fee out across two or three meal kits, the actual per-serving cost is more like $11 to $12. 

HelloFresh may have one of the largest weekly menus of meal kits and user-friendly ordering interface, but as it turns out, the popular service doesn't offer as much value as other meal kit companies. 

EveryPlate is also about the same as buying groceries

EveryPlate's two meal kits cost $4.98 and $5.82 when purchased a la carte at the grocery store, which averages out to $5.40. That's just 60 cents less than the per-serving price of EveryPlate's meal kits, which cost $6 per serving no matter which plan you choose.

Add the $10 shipping cost per box and the meal kit cost creeps up a bit, but it's still around the same price as buying all the groceries yourself.

EveryPlate's meal kit menus don't feature much in the way of steak or seafood so you can expect more budget-friendly proteins such as chicken, ground beef and pork chops. EveryPlate meals are also easy to make and satisfying, making it our top pick best cheap meal kit service.

To get the most out of your meal delivery, see my guide to hacking a meal delivery subscription in 2025.