9 Blue Apron Competitors & Alternatives

Next to Blue Apron, Home Chef is one of the most popular and well-known meal kit delivery services. Like Blue Apron, they deliver fresh, pre-portioned ingredients, packed into a meal kit with a recipe card, for you to prepare in your own kitchen.

The main way that Home Chef differs is in their meal kit options for people with special dietary needs or food preferences. They have meal plan categories specifically for Calorie-Conscious, Carb-Conscious, Vegetarian, and Under 30 Minutes for people and families short on time.

Compared to Blue Apron, Home Chef also has more options for people who are avoiding dairy and soy. It’s worth mentioning that while it has a vegetarian meal plan, many of their meal kit choices contain dairy, so there are few, if any, vegan options. Still, you can filter out some unwanted ingredients and customize certain meals with substitutions.

The real question is about the quality of the food. How do their meals taste, and how do they stand up against Blue Apron? Home Chef delivers on taste and quality, with overwhelmingly positive reviews and a devoted customer base that keeps coming back for more.

Pricewise, Blue Apron and Home Chef are very comparable. Home Chef’s meal kits cost between $6.99-$13.99 depending on the plan you choose, but on average, they cost right around $10. They get decent reviews all around, making them a great Blue Apron alternative for easy, home cooked meals from scratch.

If you’ve tried Blue Apron and enjoyed their meal kits but wish there was a bit more variety of meals to choose from, HelloFresh might be your answer.

HelloFresh offers six different options of meal plans to choose from. A couple are dietary-focused, like Calorie Smart, Pescatarian, and Vegetarian, but they also offer meal plans for families and quick & easy meals that are simple, healthy, and delicious.

With HelloFresh, you get to choose from about 24 meal kits each week. This is about twice as much variety as Blue Apron. Plus, HelloFresh’s flavor profiles are a bit more adventurous.

With more meal kit choices each week, they can include new attractive, flavorful options like Zucchini and Mushroom Bibimbap Bowls or Za’atar Crusted Grilling Cheese, one of their top dishes of 2020. HelloFresh even has a few oven-ready meals for when you want a super-fast meal.

We also like Hello Fresh as an alternative because of their affordability. Typically, Hello Fresh meal kits cost between $6.99-$12.49, but they frequently have special offers for new customers that cut the cost of each meal kit to about $5, plus free shipping. HelloFresh is a great deal.

One of the biggest perks of subscribing to a meal kit delivery service is that it gives people who love to cook the chance to do so, without the fuss of a trip to the grocery store, digging for recipes, or spending so much time on clean up afterward. Martha & Marley Spoon is the Blue Apron alternative for foodies who love to cook a great meal.

With Martha Stewart’s name attached to it, you know Martha & Marley Spoon is going to be good. Don’t confuse this for being fussy or complicated because these meal kits are anything but.

Martha & Marley Spoon offers up about 30 meal kit options per week, with a range of choices from classic dishes to the slightly exotic. Cinnamon Bun Pancakes with Candied Pecans sounds like a hit for a weekend brunch, and 20-Minute Honey Soy Scallops is perfect for a quick, light, and elegant dinner.

We also like that Martha & Marley Spoon offers five different meal kit categories, including family-friendly and vegan plans, each week to keep their customers happy and coming back for more. The recipes are easy to follow, minimize steps, and feature spice blends that receive rave customer reviews.

Martha & Marley Spoon costs $6.99-$10.99 per meal depending on the plan you choose, plus $8.99 shipping for each order.

Sunbasket is a meal kit delivery service that focuses on providing their customers with healthy meal choices using clean, organic ingredients. Sunbasket’s advantage over their competitors is a combination of quality, variety, and simplicity.

Sun Basket offers meal kit choices in nine different categories, plus a separate category devoted to heat & eat meals, for when your dinner plans include minimal effort and maximum taste.

We love Sun Basket because their meal kits feature recipes that are suitable for all cooking skill levels. Considering the integrity of ingredients, the healthiness of the recipes, and simple cooking techniques, Sun Basket is great for a family night of cooking at home.

As one on the list of Blue Apron competitors, SunBasket stands out for being a meal kit service ideal for anyone following a specific diet or special dietary needs. They have gluten-free, paleo, diabetes-friendly, carb-conscious, lean & clean, and vegetarian meals, among others.

Sunbasket’s ethics are another attractive feature. They have an entire page on their website devoted to their values, including where they source their ingredients for the best food quality and how a portion of their revenue is returned back into the community.

You get a lot of goodness packed into a box when you choose SunBasket as your meal kit company, but they do cost a bit more than other Blue Apron competitors. On average, you’re going to pay $11-$13 per serving with SunBasket, compared to $10 or less with Blue Apron.

Green Chef belongs to an elite group as a certified organic food delivery company. All of the produce and eggs used in their meal kits are certified organic unless otherwise stated. As a company, they are huge on using clean ingredients and eco-friendly packaging.

Green Chef has you covered with multiple healthy meal plan options if you are looking for healthy, clean, and mostly organic meal delivery services. Their rotating weekly menu has various meal types to choose from, including keto & paleo, balanced living, and plant-powered, which includes a mixture of vegan and vegetarian meal options.

Green Chef helps you eat healthy without meal planning or stressing about where you can find local, organic groceries to somehow toss together for a reasonably healthy dinner. Of all the meal kit delivery companies on our list, Green Chef is one of the best for families with a variety of food preferences and hard to please people around the dinner table.

While we like Green Chef for their responsible packaging, like their non-toxic, recyclable, or reusable ice packs, where they fall just a little short is in the number of menu choices for each plan. Each one has about nine dinner options, which isn’t bad but also isn’t the most variety on this list. They also don’t offer breakfast, lunch, or snack products like some of the others.

How much are you going to pay for a delicious meal kit from Green Chef? Dinners range from $9.99-$12.99 depending on the plan and number of meals chosen. Shipping usually is $8.99 per order, but you can find a deal to have your box shipped for free a lot of the time.

Purple Carrot is one of only a few meal kit delivery companies that are exclusively plant-based. Purple Carrot is one of the best Blue Apron alternatives for people who are looking to make changes in their diets, maybe eliminate beef and other animal products, while focusing on healthy, whole foods to improve their health.

Purple Carrot makes all of this super easy, with a yummy menu packed full of plant-based, nutritional goodness. This is a great meal kit service for vegans, anyone who eats a primarily plant-based diet, and for those who want to go meatless a couple of times a week.

We could go on about Purple Carrot’s environmental ethics, but first, let’s talk about the food. They offer mostly dinners, but there are few breakfast, lunch, and snack options on the menu. You’ll find about eight dinner recipes per week to choose from. This isn’t a huge selection of recipes, but the variety is really good.

You might find meal kits like Kimchi Mushroom Fried Rice, Loaded Cauliflower Steaks, and Mexican Socca Pizza in a typical week. There’s a taste here for everyone, and it won’t take long for you to find a few favorite meals.

Purple Carrot is also very upfront about their nutritional information. You can find nutrition facts and calorie information, right along with a list of ingredients and the recipes on their website. Each meal is about 500-800 calories and is a perfect balance of carbs, protein, and healthy fats. All of this in a meal kit with a simple cooking process that’s packed up in a box and delivered right to your door.

Purple Carrot is a subscription service, and once you sign up, they will automatically select meals based on the plan you choose. This doesn’t mean you’re bound to what they send you, but you do have to manually go in and select different meals if you’re not happy with the recipes coming in your weekly box.

On average, Purple Carrot costs a bit more than Blue Apron per serving. Expect to pay $10-$12 per meal, but the shipping cost of their delivery service is free.

Dinnerly is hands-down the most affordable of Blue Apron’s competitors. Dinnerly is good for individuals and families that have wanted to try a food delivery service but have been put off by the price. Dinnerly is so economical that it’s sometimes cheaper than doing the shopping for ingredients yourself.

As a meal kit delivery service, Dinnerly offers a good selection of meals per week. On average, there are 18-20 meal kits, often with a couple of desserts or a breakfast thrown in there. Dinnerly’s recipes lean toward well-liked classics like cheese ravioli or lemon pepper chicken. There isn’t a lot that’s too bold or exotic on their menu.

Dinnerly works like most other meal service companies. You go in, choose your recipes, and then let the professionals prepare and box up your delivery box. Once your meals arrive, you benefit from pre-portioned ingredients, easy-to-follow recipes, and simple cooking instructions.

Dinnerly claims that they keep their prices low by following a few simple rules. They provide the same high-quality ingredients in their products but save money by using streamlined packaging, digital recipe instructions, and not going overboard with marketing tactics. Through this, they are able to pass the savings onto you. Dinnerly meals cost $4.29-$4.99 per serving.

One thing that Dinnerly doesn’t seem to do so great on is customer service. Recent reviews point to consumers being less than happy with their experience, claiming a lot of ingredients are subpar or arrive past their prime, and that customer service is slow to provide acceptable resolutions.

EveryPlate prides itself on being an affordable meal delivery service option. Like Dinnerly, this Blue Apron competitor’s meals cost just under $5 per serving, making them a very economical choice, especially for family households and anyone with a curiosity about how meal kit subscriptions work.

EveryPlate uses simple ingredients, reduces food waste, and minimizes packaging in order to deliver such value with their meal kits. Each week you’ll find about 15 different meal choices that include well-liked recipes that appear flavorful while still appealing to less than adventurous eaters.

When looking at customer reviews of meal kit services, one detail seems to emerge repeatedly, and that is you seem to get what you pay for. The most economical meal companies, like EveryPlate and Dinnerly, really seem to take a hit where quality and customer service are concerned, at least according to numerous reviews. That said, there are also plenty of customers who have been completely satisfied with EveryPlate and repeatedly come back for more.

Dinnerly is hands-down the most affordable of Blue Apron’s competitors. Dinnerly is good for individuals and families that have wanted to try a food delivery service but have been put off by the price. Dinnerly is so economical that it’s sometimes cheaper than doing the shopping for ingredients yourself.

As a meal kit delivery service, Dinnerly offers a good selection of meals per week. On average, there are 18-20 meal kits, often with a couple of desserts or a breakfast thrown in there. Dinnerly’s recipes lean toward well-liked classics like cheese ravioli or lemon pepper chicken. There isn’t a lot that’s too bold or exotic on their menu.

Dinnerly works like most other meal service companies. You go in, choose your recipes, and then let the professionals prepare and box up your delivery box. Once your meals arrive, you benefit from pre-portioned ingredients, easy-to-follow recipes, and simple cooking instructions.

Dinnerly claims that they keep their prices low by following a few simple rules. They provide the same high-quality ingredients in their products but save money by using streamlined packaging, digital recipe instructions, and not going overboard with marketing tactics. Through this, they are able to pass the savings onto you. Dinnerly meals cost $4.29-$4.99 per serving.

One thing that Dinnerly doesn’t seem to do so great on is customer service. Recent reviews point to consumers being less than happy with their experience, claiming a lot of ingredients are subpar or arrive past their prime, and that customer service is slow to provide acceptable resolutions.