A guide to meal kit and meal delivery services in the US. Compare classic cook-at-home kits, ready-to-eat prepared meals, healthy and diet plans, vegan boxes, family and budget options, keto, organic, and weight-loss services, with a plain summary of price per serving, menu, and who each one fits.

Kit or prepared, pick that first

Every meal delivery service in the US splits into one of two jobs. A cook-at-home kit ships raw, pre-portioned ingredients with a recipe card, and you still do the chopping, the pan work, and the 25 to 45 minutes at the stove. A prepared-meal service ships food that's already cooked, so dinner is a few minutes in the microwave or oven. Kits are usually cheaper per serving and let you actually cook something, prepared meals cost more but save the time entirely. Decide which trade-off you want before you compare a single price tag, because a $9 kit and a $12 prepared meal aren't competing for the same job.

The intro price isn't the real price

Almost every service on this list advertises a steep discount on your first box, sometimes 50% off or more, and that number is the one that ends up in every ad and every "best meal kit" roundup. It is not what you'll pay in week four. Once the promo period ends, the per-serving price usually jumps by several dollars, and shipping that was waived up front can start showing up as a separate line. Before you subscribe, find the plan's standard price on the FAQ or account settings page, not the landing page, and do the math on what a normal week actually costs at the household size you'll order.

Match the plan to how you actually eat

If you're vegan or eating mostly plant-based, a dedicated plant-based box avoids the constant substitution some general kits require. Keto and low-carb plans publish carb counts per meal, which matters more than a menu that's merely "lower-carb than usual." Weight-loss and portion-control plans build the calorie math into the meal itself so you're not weighing food yourself. Families feeding picky eaters do better with a kit that markets to that explicitly, since a "family plan" bolted onto a general kit often just means bigger portions of the same adult recipes. And if you want to know exactly where the chicken or the produce came from, that's what the organic and premium tier is for.

Read the skip and cancel terms before you sign up

Nearly all of these run on auto-renewing weekly boxes, and the box ships by default unless you go in and skip it, which is an easy thing to forget the week you're traveling. Check how far in advance you need to skip or pause (some cut off five or six days before delivery), whether canceling requires a set number of boxes first, and whether a missed skip window bills you for a box you didn't want. A service that makes this a two-click process on the account page is worth more than one that buries it behind a chat message to support.

Check the shipping map before you order

Meal kits and prepared meals travel in insulated boxes with ice packs or dry ice, and that cold chain has limits. Most national brands reach the contiguous 48 states but exclude Alaska and Hawaii, some regional prepared-meal companies only cover a handful of states or a list of metro areas, and hot climates in summer are where box-arrived-warm complaints cluster. Check a service's delivery zip code checker before you commit to a plan, especially if you live somewhere rural where the delivery truck runs a day behind schedule.

Suggest a listing

Run a meal kit or meal delivery service, or know one we've missed? You can submit a listing for review. Every suggestion is checked by hand before it goes live.

A note on what this is

We describe and link to these services, we don't cook the food or run the kitchens behind it. Pricing, menus, and shipping coverage change often, and a plan's real cost depends on your household size, your zip code, and which discount happens to be running. Treat this as a starting point and confirm the current price and coverage on the service's own site before you subscribe.