GoKawiilMeal kits are a convenience product, full stop. What you're paying for is pre-measured, often pre-cut ingredients delivered to your door -- and the bonus of having your weekly dinners already decided before Monday rolls around.
CNET
We've previously calculated how meal kit delivery services stack up against grocery prices, and the findings aren't surprising, even amid rising food costs nationwide. It's almost always cheaper to buy groceries at the store and you prepare meals, especially when you shop in person rather than have them delivered.
Read more: I Test Meal Kits for a Living: These 7 Mistakes Are Costing You
With all the meal kit delivery services available, though, we wondered whether any offer better value relative to the actual cost of groceries. That is, regardless of the price per serving of a given meal kit, what are you getting for that price? Are certain meal kit delivery brands giving you more than others for what you pay?
So I did the math. Considering seven of the most popular traditional-format meal kit delivery services, many of which appear on our Best Meal Kits of 2026 list, here's how they stacked up, from highest to lowest, based on the value they offer for the price. (The lower the savings in the right-hand column in order to make the same meals yourself, the closer in price between the meal kit and the actual cost of groceries.)
And while these represent the best value meal kits, we've also dug into them to find the absolute cheapest meal kits available in 2026.
Meal Kits Ranked by Value Meal kit service % savings to make the same meals yourself Home Chef 35% HelloFresh 35% Blue Apron 37% EveryPlate 40% Marley Spoon 42% Green Chef 45% Sunbasket 48%
Home Chef scored top marks in our meal kit value ranking. David Watsky/CNET
Home Chef
... continue reading