Meal Kits

USDA puts a home-cooked meal at about $4.44 a person. The cheapest meal kit is $7.82 a plate. Here is what delivery fees do to each side.

Three dinners a week for a family of four costs $95.87 at EveryPlate and $119.87 at Dinnerly. The $5.99 headline only applies to 30 servings.

Most meal kits cut you off five days before delivery. Miss that deadline and you pay for a box you cancelled. The cutoffs, written down for six brands.

Blue Apron no longer needs a subscription; Home Chef does. Four plates cost $57.45 vs a $50.95 floor, and how often you order flips the answer.

Purple Carrot is all plant-based at $16.25 a plate. Home Chef is cheaper but had 3 vegetarian dinners out of 37. Here’s the maths on each.

A six-serving EveryPlate box works out at $7.82 a plate. Your last delivery receipt almost certainly did not. Here is the arithmetic both ways.

EveryPlate’s 58% off is worth $32 across your first year. Home Chef’s 30% off is worth $86. The bigger headline is the smaller discount.

Meal kits scale badly downward. For one person the real cost lands near $15 a plate — takeout money for food you still have to cook.

Two services advertise $5.99 a serving. Shipping means you only actually get under $8 a plate if your box is big enough — here’s the threshold.

The per-serving price both services advertise isn’t what you’ll pay. Here’s the real weekly cost of HelloFresh vs Blue Apron in 2026, shipping included.