Meal planning services have been rising in popularity over the past few years, with everyone from those with hectic schedules to people trying to be more financially savvy jumping on the trend!
By outsourcing your meal planning to a service (especially one with an integrated delivery option), you can now get back more time in your day for what really matters.
Check out some of our favorite meal-planning services to see which one might be best suited to you and your family!
In-Depth Review of Top Meal Planning Services
Our Editor’s choice for best meal planning service is eMeals because of the way that they cater to almost everyone, from budget-friendly to different types of dietary requirements!
On top of this, their delivery services integration is superior over other offerings, making it quick and easy to get your order. Read on below for a more in-depth overview:
eMeals
- Price Range – eMeals is a subscription-based service, with pricing beginning at just $4.99/month on a 12-month subscription. Base pricing only includes dinner meal planning, with breakfast and lunch available as optional extras
- Recipe Variety – eMeals has a large variety of recipes under all of the dietary options updated weekly, and you custom create your own weekly meal plan.
- Dietary Options – There are fifteen different dietary options to choose from to cater to all, including keto, paleo, diabetic, gluten-free, plant-based, and clean eating
- Customization Options – The app does not auto-populate any meal selections for you, so once you have selected your dietary requirements, you must browse and select meals that fit your taste preferences yourself
- Delivery – Order delivery or pickup through Amazon, Instacart, Kroeger, Shipt, and Walmart!
- Pros – Emeals offers meal plan options for most dietary requirements, including options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There is a free trial available to decide if eMeals suits you and your lifestyle, with subscriptions available in three or twelve-month commitments
- Cons – To use Emeals, you’ll need access to a capable smartphone or tablet device. There is also no pay-monthly subscription (the minimum commitment is 3 months).
- Best For – People who want a variety of budget-friendly, specialty, kid-friendly, dieting, quick-to-prepare, or other meal plans at the end of their fingertips for an affordable price!
Why We Picked
Creating satisfying meal plans can be difficult when you have dietary restrictions or simply different taste preferences! Ingredients can be difficult to source or swap out.
At eMeals, you don’t have to plan for substitutions or meals that fall flat.
With a wide range of plans available for many different types of diets — including vegetarian, keto-friendly, gluten-free, low-cal, and even kid-friendly — you can receive a custom meal plan package that really works for you and your tastebuds!
Need help getting the shopping done? You can also opt to pick up ingredients or have them delivered directly to your home through one of the companies they’ve partnered with like Amazon Fresh, Walmart, and Instacart.
PlateJoy
- Price Range – PlateJoy offers a free ten-day trial to see if it might work for you and your family. After this, there are two membership options either a 6 month subscription at $69 or an annual subscription for $99
- Recipe Variety – There are thousands of meal recipes online on the PlateJoy app, with new recipes uploaded weekly
- Dietary Options – There are many different dietary programs available on MealJoy including low-carb, kid-friendly, vegetarian, vegan, low-FODMAP, and pescatarian
- Customization Options – PlateJoy is one of the most customizable meal planning services on the market, with a personalization quiz to understand your dietary needs, preferences, health goals, schedule, and ideal time spent cooking
- Delivery – PlateJoy unlike other meal planning services does not offer direct shipping to you. It will create the list of items required according to your meal plan, but it leaves the ultimate decision-making, and shopping choices up to you
- Pros – PlateJoy offers the ability to customize your breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack recipes including how many people you are cooking for. PlateJoy also offers third-party integrations with food and fitness tracking apps, to help sync nutritional goals
- Cons – PlateJoy requires an investment of time to set up the app with all of the features specific to you
- Best for – Busy people looking to eat healthy with a personalized meal planner app that suggests recipes and prepares shopping lists based on both preferences and dietary goals.
Why we picked
PlateJoy is an excellent online service people use as a meal planner. It takes all your eating habits into account to create healthy meals you will truly enjoy!
It generates a shopping list and lets you decide whether you want to buy everything on your own or order ingredients via Instacart.
We love PlateJoy for the full customization and complete freedom in creating your meal plan – perfect for all family members (even those picky eaters)!
RealPlans
- Price Range – RealPlans offers a monthly, quarterly, and annual subscription commitment, beginning at $19/month, which is on the expensive side for short-term commitments
- Recipe Variety – RealPlans offers over 2000 home-style recipes, with additional upgrades available in your subscription to gain access to more recipes from food bloggers
- Dietary Options – There are eight different dietary plans available on RealPlans including paleo, whole30, autoimmune paleo, GAPS, and FODMAP
- Customization Options – There are different customization options within the RealPlans recipe guides including choosing your own eating style and adjusting portion size and leftovers
- Delivery – RealPlans creates an ingredient list automatically (including the ability to schedule pantry items) which will sync with Instacart or Amazon Fresh
- Pros – RealPlans offers a pricing filter for more control over how much you are spending per meal as well as great customization options and the ability for professional use
- Cons – RealPlans is more expensive for short-term commitments than other meal-planning services
- Best For – People searching for Whole30-compliant meal ideas and recipes.
Why We Picked
The official meal planners for Whole30, you’ll have plenty of recipe options if you’re following these (or similar) diets.
In addition to clean eating, RealPlans allows you to enter any dietary restrictions or preferences in their questionnaire to create a menu that really suits you and your needs before matching you with their delicious recipes.
The Dinner Daily
- Price Range – The Dinner Daily offers two plans, a 3-month membership for $18 or an annual membership for $48
- Dietary Options – There is a short personalization quiz to begin with that factors in personal likes, limitations, and allergies
- Customization Options – Each week The Dinner Daily auto-populates a weekly meal plan, with the flexibility to swap out meals if they don’t take your fancy.
- Pros – The Dinner Daily offers very affordable subscription plans, recipes with easy-to-use ingredients, and customizable plans
- Cons – Only participating grocery stores will be included in price comparisons, and it is not as customizable as other meal-planning services
- Best For – Financially savvy grocery shoppers.
Why We Picked
The Dinner Daily meal planning service offers an excellent no-frills alternative to some of the more extensive services available.
It provides a variety of recipes and meal planning customization opportunities for financially savvy shoppers or families, looking to create healthy homestyle meals on a budget!
The Fresh 20
- Price Range – The Fresh 20 offers two commitment options, a three-month membership of $1.50 per week or an annual membership of $1.04 per week
- Recipe Variety – Featuring over 10,000 delicious and healthy recipes designed and tested by a team of professional chefs and certified nutritionists!
- Dietary Options – There are several dietary plans including vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, and more
- Customization Options – The Fresh20 offers fewer customization options than other meal planning services but allows access to searchable archives to find the right meal for you depending on your mood
- Delivery – Meal plans are released every Friday, giving you the weekend to prepare your own shopping and meal-prepping
- Pros – The Fresh includes a full walkthrough to help you create a full week’s worth of meal prep in one hour, as well as promising meals that are 20 ingredients or less and take less than 20 minutes to have your meal ready!
- Cons – The family meal size under The Fresh is designed for a family of four, so larger families will have to coordinate and adjust their recipes accordingly
- Best For – Those looking to spend less time in the kitchen week to week or who may be in a food rut and want inspiration to spice meals up
Why We Picked
The Fresh 20 promises each one of its delicious recipes will have fewer than 20 ingredients, and that it will take you less than 20 minutes to have your meal on the table!
Fewer ingredients mean you’ll spend less time shopping (or searching) for items and you’ll likely already have ingredients on hand.
Of course, the fewer ingredients you’re using, the less time you can anticipate spending in the kitchen preparing your meal as well.
The Fresh 20 also has an active online subscriber community to help share advice, recommendations, hacks, and tips and keep each other accountable.
Cook Smarts
- Price Range – There are two main membership plans on offer; either pay monthly at $14.99/month or commit to a year’s subscription at $8.33/month.
- Recipe Variety – There are over ten years of recipe archives available to select from online, with the flexibility to mix and match between the dietary requirements for diet blended families.
- Dietary Options – There are only four dietary options available: classic, gluten-free, paleo, and vegetarian.
- Customization Options – CookSmarts is less customizable than some of the other services out there, however they do allow for adjustment of serving sizes to tailor to your specific eating habits.
- Delivery – There is the function to send your grocery list to InstaCart for easy delivery.
- Pros – Cooksmarts is not only easy to use, with a grocery list integration to delivery service, it is also fully customizable for the type of meal and the number of family members.
- Cons – CookSmarts does not currently offer an app, so can only be accessed via the website.
- Best For – Home chefs who are looking for a simple meal planning service that won’t disappoint.
Why We Picked
Cooksmart is more than just a meal planning service. With smart nutrition information, the plans help you to understand the full scope of what your diet is providing to your body – providing full transparency for macros and calorie counting!
The Cooksmart community is lively and active, offering a community of others to ask questions and receive tips.
Subscriptions also include access to a whole range of food tutorials, helping to upskill home chefs with better food preparation techniques.
Eat This Much
- Price – Subscriptions are available on a monthly or annual plan, with pricing beginning at $8.99/month or $60/year
- Recipe Variety – Meal plans can be catered to multiple diet types, preferences, and nutrition goals
- Customization – Eat This Much is easily customizable to your health and wellbeing goals, activity level, body type, and dietary preferences, helping you achieve your targets faster and more sustainably
- Delivery – After selecting your weekly meal plan, a custom grocery list is created that can be synced with Instacart in the premium version. Another premium feature includes pantry tracking to make sure you don’t double up on ingredients
- Pros – Eat This Much makes it easy for people to plan their meals in a calorie-focused way for multiple different diet types. They offer pay-per-month subscriptions and grocery delivery in less than one hour
- Cons – Eat This Much currently does not sync with regular pantry items to reduce grocery shopping
- Best for – People looking to eat healthy and become fit without having to actively search for recipes and learn about nutrition science.
Why we picked
Eat This Much is a valuable tool to help revolutionize your meal planning by managing your dietary requirements and meeting your nutritional targets.
The combination of a user-friendly app and automated grocery lists makes planning your weekly meals quick and easy!