Meal kits are touted as a quicker, easier, less hassle way to prepare dinner. Having made over 75 recipes testing all the major meal kit brands, I can confirm the claims.

The trade-off for this convenience has always been paying more to have the recipe ingredients measured, grouped and sent to your doorstep to be turned into a meal in minutes. With food prices still high due to post-pandemic price gouging and supply chain issues, we wondered if it was still a costly splurge.

If you are considering trying EveryPlate, Blue apron Or HelloFresh To save time, you may be wondering if this will hit your bank account. To find out, I did the math to see how much meal kits would actually cost in 2024 compared to buying groceries at an average supermarket chain.

It turns out that not only meal kits affordable in 2024but some recipes have been found to be equal to, or even cheaper than, do the shoppingdepending on the service you subscribe to.

Here’s a breakdown and how I got these numbers.

How I did the calculation

To see how much Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and EveryPlate meals cost, I evaluated the ingredients of two real recipes included in a standard subscription.

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

I chose non-organic staple items unless otherwise noted on the meal kit recipe card or website.

How I chose the recipes

If you are looking for meal kits like value propositionyou’ll need to be smart about the 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 containing these proteins. (I also recommend taking advantage of this if you subscribe to a service).

Not all services include steak recipes at no extra charge, but HelloFresh and Blue Apron do. Blue Apron usually offers at least one fairly high-end cut of beef like sirloin steak at no additional cost.

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

Budget services, including EveryPlate, generally don’t offer steak or seafood, which helps keep consumer prices low. For my EveryPlate analysis, I chose a beef meatball with cherries And pork chop recipe.

The blue apron offers the best value for money

Blue apron has the most high-end recipes of the three I chose to analyze. I chose a recipe with sirloin steak and another with fresh rainbow trout fillets.

When I priced groceries to make these meals, they were $11.26 and $8.23, respectively, with an average price of $9.75 per serving. Both meals ended up being more expensive to purchase at the supermarket than the $8 per serving cost for the largest (cheapest) Blue Apron plan.

As good as it sounds, Blue Apron’s biggest plan consists of five meal kits per week containing four servings each, which is probably convenient for most people. If you choose a more reasonably sized plan – say three meal recipes of four servings each – the price per serving jumps to $9.50. It’s still cheaper than the cost of buying groceries, but only a little.

Add in the $11 weekly shipping fee and Blue Apron exceeds the cost of purchasing groceries, but only slightly. When you consider the convenience that a meal kit offers, it’s hard to argue that Blue Apron isn’t a good value in 2024.

HelloFresh was the worst value of the three

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

According to my calculations, HelloFresh meal kits would only cost $6.55 per serving to shop for groceries and prepare meals yourself. That’s about $3.50 less than HelloFresh’s cheapest meal plan, at $10 per serving, and all that’s before you factor in your $11 weekly delivery fee. If you spread that shipping cost over two or three meal kits, the actual cost per serving is more like $11 to $12.

HelloFresh may have one of the largest weekly meal kit menus and a user-friendly ordering interface, but it turns out the popular service doesn’t offer as good value as some other kit companies meals in 2024.

EveryPlate is a great deal, about the same as grocery shopping

Each plate 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 in the $10 per box shipping fee and the cost of the meal kit increases a bit, but it’s still about the same price as if you bought all the groceries yourself.

EveryPlate’s meal kit menus don’t feature a lot of steak or seafood, so you can expect more budget-friendly proteins like chicken, ground beef, and pork chops. EveryPlate meals are also easy to prepare and satisfying, making them our best cheap meal kit service in 2024.

To get the most out of your meal delivery, check out my guide to hack a meal delivery subscription in 2024.