We’re comparing Factor VS Hello Fresh so you can find the best meal delivery service to fit your budget, lifestyle, and dietary needs. This comparison is especially interesting because Factor and Hello Fresh are two very different types of meal delivery!
Learn what you can expect from both companies so you can place an order with the confidence in knowing is money well spent.
Factor
Factor is a meal delivery service with prepared foods that arrive fresh and last up to seven days in the fridge. Meals delivered to your door are ready to eat in minutes with meal plans to fit various dietary restrictions and preferences.
This company makes meal planning and cooking a thing of the past while transforming your nutrition in every bite.
Hello Fresh
Hello Fresh is a meal kit company designed for regular people, so you don’t have to be a chef to make the weekly menu recipes! Each box includes all of the perfectly portioned ingredients you need to make the recipes you choose.
With the ability to customize recipes and order multiple servings of each meal, there are so many reasons why this meal kit service is one of the most popular in the industry.
Factor
Pros
- Free shipping for all meal plans
- Choose as few as 6 or as many as 18 single-serving meals per week
- Various meal plans, including keto/low-carb, calorie smart, protein plus, flexitarian, vegan, and vegetarian
- Dietitian-designed, chef-prepared meals
- All meals arrive fresh, never frozen
- Ready-to-eat meals can be heated in just 2 minutes
- No meal prep, cooking, or clean-up required
- Flexible subscription can be paused, changed, or canceled anytime
- 35 meals to choose from every week
- Online nutrition coaching is available
Cons
- Single-serving meals only
- Many meals have a notably high fat and sodium content
- Meals range from $10.99 to $13.49 per serving, which makes this a less affordable option
- No delivery to Hawaii or Alaska
Hello Fresh
Pros
- Meals from $7.49 to $8.99 per serving
- Option to order meals with 2 or 4 servings, making it family-friendly
- Vegetarian, pescatarian, and low-calorie meal options each week
- Ability to customize meal boxes before they ship
- 100+ options every week
- Flavorful recipes allow you to try new things
- Easy-to-follow recipe cards
- Perfectly portioned ingredients for every dish
- Flexible subscription can be changed, canceled, or paused anytime
Cons
- All meals require some preparation/cooking
- No delivery to Hawaii or Alaska
- No ready-to-eat or single-serving meals
Dietary Options
Factor 75
check close close
Hello Fresh
check check close close close close
Dietary options are a category that can make or break meal delivery services. The reality is that different customers have different dietary preferences and needs! Whether this is due to a food allergy or lifestyle preference, having options to accommodate an array of customers is the key.
Both Hello Fresh and Factor offer some dietary options, but Factor has more. Factor offers meal plans to accommodate keto, vegan, and vegetarian diets, as well as low-calorie and high-protein plans.
Hello Fresh keeps things much simpler, with vegetarian, low-calorie, and pescatarian meals being the only real dietary options available.
Dietary Options Winner
Factor meals offer so much more in terms of meeting your dietary requirements. Since they have plans to accommodate more customers, they’re the clear winner here!
The ability to order keto, low-calorie, and high-protein dishes takes all the guesswork out of navigating your diet, which is a major perk that comes with prepared meal delivery. We will make a note, however, that the vegetarian and vegan options from Factor could be improved by adding variety and more flavorful recipes.
Meal Variety
Factor 75
check - 30
- 4 meals for 1 person
Hello Fresh
- 70+
- 2 meals for 2 people
One of the top concerns for customers considering a meal delivery service is the variety of items offered. Let’s be honest: meal delivery services aren’t cheap, so the last thing you want is to feel bored at mealtime. Meal delivery services range drastically in the amount of variety they offer.
Factor is on the not-so-impressive end of the variety spectrum, with only 35 meals to choose from every week.
The options go down dramatically if you’re on a vegetarian or vegan meal plan, too. You can get a bit more variety with cold-pressed juices, smoothies, and snacks, but these will also increase the price of your box.
On the other end of the spectrum, Hello Fresh has so much variety! They offer more than 100 recipes to choose from every week and give customers the option to customize those recipes even further by swapping proteins and side dishes. The menu includes primarily dinner dishes, but some quick and easy, healthy meals are perfect for a quick lunch.
Meal Variety Winner
Variety is the spice of life, and with Hello Fresh, there will never be a lack of variety in your kitchen. Many of the weekly meal kit recipes are vegetarian friendly, with the option to add a protein for meat-eaters, which we love.
Choose from family-friendly flavors to more globally inspired flavors with just the right amount of heat in every bite.
Ingredients
Factor 75
check close
- Non-GMO
grass Organic- Grass Fed
- Wild-Caught
Hello Fresh
close close close close
Neither Hello Fresh nor Factor are certified organic meal delivery services, putting them on a level playing field regarding ingredients.
Factor claims to source premium ingredients from a trusted network of partners, but there is little to no information available beyond that. This leaves customers in a tough spot where they can either choose to take Factor’s word for the ingredient quality and sourcing or not.
Ultimately, this makes it harder to trust the brand, and trust is essential when you’re talking about something you’re putting in your body!
Hello Fresh is open about their responsible sourcing from a hand-picked network of suppliers. Sustainability is at the forefront of their ingredient sourcing mission, and they choose suppliers with similar values.
They have an entire page on their website that lists their most frequently used suppliers. Seeing this much transparency around the ingredients that you’ll use to make your Hello Fresh meals is as comforting as it is refreshing for consumers to see.
Ingredients Winner
Hello Fresh has not always been so transparent about their ingredients, but they are now, and that’s what matters! We love being able to learn more about where the ingredients are coming from and how they go from the farm to our doorstep.
The ingredients in Hello Fresh boxes are consistently high-quality, delicious, and super fresh when they arrive. If you’re interested in learning more about Hello Fresh ingredients, check out their suppliers page.
Convenience
Factor
Hello Fresh
Meal delivery companies are popular for lots of different reasons, but convenience has always been at the top of the list. Meal delivery eliminates the need for meal planning and grocery shopping, but some services offer even more convenience with ready-to-eat meals.
All of Factor’s healthy meal options are ready to heat and eat, requiring less than 2 minutes in the microwave. The meals can easily be taken on the go, too, for healthy eating at work or wherever you are!
There’s never any prep work, cooking, or clean-up required. It doesn’t get much more convenient than that!
Hello Fresh is certainly more convenient than traditional grocery shopping and cooking, but it isn’t nearly as convenient as the ready-made meals from Factor. The recipes are simple, but some basic cooking skills are still required to turn your delivery from a meal kit into a plated dish that’s ready to serve.
Convenience Winner
The heat-and-eat meals from Factor offer more convenience than a meal kit service ever could. Having healthy food ready in minutes sets people up for success and takes the stress of meal planning out of the equation.
Taste & Sample Meals
Factor
Hello Fresh
When you’re paying for a meal delivery service, having meals that taste good is a must. If the food isn’t delicious, why are you paying for it?! Hello Fresh and Factor meals both taste good, but they’re also quite different.
Since Factor is a prepared meal delivery service with chef-made meals, the taste should be almost as good as what you’d order in a restaurant. Sadly, this isn’t the case. The meals aren’t bad by any means, but they just aren’t that great either.
Many of the menu items have a common theme; the protein or “main” part of the meal tastes incredible, but the sides and veggies feel like an afterthought. Those items that are supposed to complete your meal often taste bland and feel repetitive from one meal to the next.
Hello Fresh meal kits have a wider range of flavors and unique recipes that make absolutely delicious meals! I’ve tried my fair share of Hello Fresh recipes, and I can truthfully say there was never a meal that didn’t taste great.
Since you prepare the meals yourself, they taste much fresher than the dishes from Factor, too.
Convenience Winner
Neither of these meal delivery services has bad-tasting meals, but Hello Fresh certainly has more consistently tasty dishes. There’s a great mix of familiar flavors and creative recipes, too, so it’s easy to find meals that will be a hit with every member of your family.
Pricing
Factor
MEALS PER WEEK | PRICE PER SERVING |
6 | $12.49 |
8 | $11.49 |
10 | $10.99 |
12 | $10.49 |
14 | $9.99 |
18 | $9.99 |
Hello Fresh
MEALS PER WEEK | PRICE PER SERVING | PRICE PER SERVING | PRICE PER SERVING |
2 | $11.49 | $9.99 | $9.99 |
3 | $9.99 | $9.99 | $9.99 |
4 | $9.99 | $9.99 | $9.99 |
5 | $9.99 | $9.99 | $9.99 |
6 | $9.99 | $9.99 | $9.99 |
The cost of meal delivery companies varies an insane amount, but it’s important to remember that the price you pay for a meal delivery service covers more than just the cost of the food. You’re paying for the convenience, saved time, shipping process, expertly designed recipes, and so much more.
Factor is on the pricier end of meal delivery companies, with meals starting at $10.99 and going up to $13.49 per serving. The cost of your meals is based on how much you order, which means the more you order, the lower the cost. Shipping is free for all meal plans.
Hello Fresh may not be the cheapest meal kit service on the market, but it’s more affordable than Factor by a significant amount. Hello Fresh meals start at $7.49 per serving and go up to $8.99. Similar to Factor, the meals are cheaper the more you order. Shipping is free for all orders.
Pricing Winner
Hello Fresh is clearly the more affordable option in this comparison. Hello Fresh is a realistic mealtime solution for more than one person too! If you have a family, you can order up to 4 servings of every meal.
If you are only feeding yourself, opt for 2 serving meals and save the second serving for lunch the next day to stretch your meal delivery budget even further.
Packaging & Recycling
Meal delivery companies have a lot to consider when it comes to packaging and recycling. Food must be kept at a safe temperature and protected against damage during transit. Ideally, companies accomplish this without creating excess waste from the packaging.
Hello Fresh and Factor meal boxes both contain mostly recyclable materials. Factor has to use more cold packs and insulation since the meals are fully prepared before shipping. Hello Fresh only needs ice packs to keep meat products cold, so the packaging is much more minimalistic.
Hello Fresh meal ingredients are placed into labeled bags, so it’s easy to grab the bag you need when you’re ready to cook.
Factor meals are individually packaged, so you can simply grab the meal you want, heat it, and eat it all from the same container. The containers can be recycled after they’re rinsed out, with the exception of the film liner that covers the top of the meal.
Packaging Winner
Both companies do a great job of offering mostly recyclable packaging that does well during the transport process, but Factor does a little bit better by adding more cold packs and insulation in their boxes. Also, the Factor meal packaging just looks better in your fridge than the bulky ingredient bags from Hello Fresh.
Some Hello Fresh customers have reported issues of produce being damaged in transit, but this is a rare occurrence, and the customer service team does a great job of compensating customers for those issues.
Customer Service
Factor 75
play_circle Skip a Weekpause_circle Pausestop_circle Cancel
Hello Fresh
check check
Customer service is an integral part of meal delivery companies. Without a good customer service team, it’s impossible to have long-term success. Good customer service starts with quick response times, an open line of communication, and, of course, consistency.
Both of these meal delivery companies allow customers to contact customer service via online chat, phone, or email. You can reach out if you have questions about your delivery, concerns about the quality of the food, delivery dates, and more.
Customer Service Winner
Although both of these meal delivery companies have similar customer service, Hello Fresh is slightly better. This is because Hello Fresh tends to have quicker response times and more generous compensation for customers who experience issues with their orders.
Winner
Hello Fresh
It’s clear that both of these meal delivery companies are good options! They both have healthy meals, great customer service, and options to fit the needs of their customers. While we still love Factor, Hello Fresh comes out on top due to its affordability, sustainable ingredient sourcing, and incredible variety every week.
Choose Hello Fresh if you:
- Like cooking your own meal, with the convenience of a meal kit with step by step recipes
- Are conscious about food waste
- Like services like Green Chef but want to try something new
- Enjoy meals made with fresh produce
- Are looking for ane economical meal delivery option
Choose Factor if you:
- Place having easy meals as a priority
- Have specific health goals in mind or want to lose weight
- Enjoy a variety of low carb meals
- Prefer meals with individual servings
- Want meals with extra proteins or follow a keto diet