We compared Good Ranchers vs. Butcher Box to see which meat delivery service offers the best high-quality meat and seafood, with the most variety and best prices. We’ve challenged both meat delivery services on the types of subscription boxes they offer, the variety of meats and seafood, sourcing, pricing, and more.
Good Ranchers
Pros
- Responsibly and sustainably sourced meat from the US
- Grass-fed, grass-finished, and grain-finished beef
- Better than organic chicken
- Price locked in for two years
- Lots of boxes to choose from
- Can order a one-time box
Cons
- No customization
- Limited seafood options
Butcher Box
Pros
- Customizable boxes available
- Great boxes that cover all the basics
- Great reputation and one of the most popular meat-based meal delivery services
- Meat sourced from ethical and responsible ranchers
Cons
- Customized boxes cost more
- Price isn’t locked in
- Much of their meat is imported from Australia
Subscription Boxes
When signing up to have meat delivered, you want more variety and higher quality of meat and fresh seafood than you can get at the local grocery store. Meat subscriptions can keep your freezer stocked, but only if they offer a subscription box that fits your needs and price range.
Butcher Box offers four different meat subscription boxes, which doesn’t seem like a lot of options, but they have the bases covered, including a custom box that you can create yourself.
- Beef & Chicken Box: 8-11 lbs of meat that are close to equally split between beef and chicken
- Beef & Pork Box: 8-11 lbs of meat that’s close to equally split between beef and chicken but tends to lean slightly to including more beef
- Mixed Box: A variety of beef, pork, and chicken, averaging between 8-11 lbs
- Custom Box: 9-14 lbs of a variety of meats that you choose from more than high-quality selections
Good Ranchers meat subscription box options are many! They don’t offer a custom box where you can pick exactly what you want as Butcher Box does, but with 12 different options, there really is something for everyone.
- Ranchers Classic: This is one of Good Ranchers’ best sellers and includes different cuts of beef plus a good amount of chicken breasts
- Burger Box: A nice selection of American Wagyu ground beef, taco meat, meatballs, etc
- Wild Caught Seafood Box: A variety of cod, salmon, halibut, and shrimp
- The Cattleman: For the beef lovers out there, you get to enjoy flat iron steaks, angus ground beef, top sirloin, t-bone steaks, NY strip, and strip cut sirloin steaks
- The Cowboy: This is similar to the Cattleman meat subscription box but better! Black Angus NY Strip, Angus Ribeyes and Top Sirloin, and American Wagyu burgers – Yum!
- Whole Chicken Box: This is the ultimate everything chicken box with chicken breasts, boneless thighs, boneless leg quarters, and chicken lollipops
- Family Feast Bundle: Something for everyone, even for the picky eaters at the table – includes a selection of high-quality steaks and assorted chicken cuts
- Butchers Bundle: All of the butcher’s favorites, from Black Angus Bone-In NY Strip to flat iron steaks and ground beef packages
- Better Than Organic Chicken Box: This box includes a variety of plain chicken breasts and marinated or seasoned chicken breasts.
- Prepper Box: About 40+ lbs of the most popular beef selections plus chicken breasts
- Prime Pork Box: If your preferred meat is pork, you’ll love this box, with just about every cut imaginable, including sausages and brats
Subscription Boxes Winner
While we really like that ButcherBox offers the flexibility of a custom box, there’s just no denying that Good Ranchers has made a meat lover’s life as simple as possible with their wide range of subscription box options.
Meal Variety
Good Ranchers
- 11
Butcher Box
- 35
Variety is something that may or may not be that important to you when choosing the right meat delivery service. Some people like what they like and are happy with only certain cuts and limited selection – as long as it includes their favorites. Others want all the variety they can possibly have. We’re someone in the middle.
With Butcher Box, you get their choice of meats when you order their curated boxes, and there’s some variety there, but it doesn’t tend to vary much from one shipment to the next. If you want the most variety from Butcher Box, you want to go with the custom box, which does cost a bit more.
With the custom boxes, you can choose from about 25 cuts (give or take). Beef selections include ground beef, tri-tip, sirloin tips, ground sirloin, chuck roast, flat iron steaks, top sirloin, ribeye, brisket, NY Strip, thick cut NY Strip, and sirloin cap. There’s a good variety of conventional meat selections here.
For free-range, organic chicken, there are all the standards, including chicken breast, which is the most popular, along with tenders, thighs, drumsticks, and ground chicken. Pork selections range from ground pork to boneless pork shops, along with ribs, pork roast, pork butt, and bacon.
Butcher Box offers what we consider to be not the best selection of seafood, but then again, it’s not where their focus is. The selections include salmon, shrimp, scallops, and cod. There are a few miscellaneous extras you can add, like ground bison or wild boar, veggie burgers, and breakfast sausage.
Since Good Ranchers doesn’t offer customized boxes, you only get a look at what they have by checking out all the different boxes they offer, and that availability may change from week to week.
With Good Ranchers, we see a lot of traditional meat products, like sirloin steak, filet mignon, flank steak, New York Strip, flat iron, top sirloin, American Wagyu beef, and USDA prime beef, and a good selection of bone-in steaks.
For chicken, they offer organic chicken breast, along with marinated chicken breasts, boneless thighs, wings, and leg quarters. For pork, there’s a good selection of boneless pork chops, ground pork, ground beef and pork blends, Italian sausages, and brats.
Good Rancers does just marginally better with the seafood than Butcher Box. The Seafood Bundle usually contains some variety of shrimp, cod, halibut, and salmon.
Meal Variety Winner
When we first started this variety comparison, we originally thought that Good Ranchers was going to win because it seems they offer such a great selection of fine meats – which they do. However, when put head to head, on variety alone, Butcher Box manages to come in a few steps ahead.
Sourcing & Quality
We’re really impressed by Good Ranchers’ sourcing of their meats and seafood. Good Ranchers sources their meats from local independent farms in the United States.
We didn’t realize that the majority of grass-fed or grass-finished beef in the world comes from elsewhere in the US, so it’s great that they’re supporting local rangers who are committed to this level of quality.
Good Ranchers is committed to sustainable meat and pasture-raised animals. Cattle that are grass-fed or recycled distillery grain-fed minimizes stress on the animal and is a more sustainable practice overall. You won’t find corn-finished beef here.
They’re also committed to using heritage pork, wild-caught salmon & seafood, and they have what they call better than organic chicken. This means that it isn’t just what the chicken ate that mattered but also that it was pasture-raised and free to roam. It’s no wonder their meat and seafood taste delicious.
Butcher Box is also committed to the most humane, responsible, and sustainable practices. Butcher Box focuses on pasture-raised animals, grass-fed beef and grass-finished beef, free-range chicken, humanely raised pork, and wild-caught seafood, much the same as Good Ranchers.
The one area where the two companies deviate is that while Good Ranchers is sourced in the US, Butcher Box gets most of its organic meat from Australia, where sustainable meat practices are generally more of a priority than they are in the US. Also, Butcher Box meats are flash-frozen to preserve quality and freshness.
Sourcing & Quality Winner
Both companies do a great job of sourcing their meats with ethics and sustainability in mind. It really comes through in the quality of their meats. That said, we love that Good Ranchers is committed to working with local ranchers and farmers in the United States and supporting them financially.
Pricing
Good Ranchers
CURATED BOXES | PRICE PER BOX |
Holiday Helper | $169.99 |
Ranchers Classic Box | $219.00 |
Prime Pork Box | $189.00 |
Wild-Caught Seafood Box | $194.00 |
The Burger Box | $154.00 |
The Cattleman | $244.00 |
The Whole Chicken Box | $164.00 |
The Cowboy Box | $294.00 |
Family Feast Bundle | $384.00 |
Butchers Bundle | $474.00 |
Better Than Organic Chicken | $164.00 |
Prepper Kit Box | $824.00 |
Butcher Box
CURATED BOXES | WEIGHT | PRICE PER MONTH |
Custom Box | 9-14 lbs | $169 |
Mixed Box | 8-11 lbs | $146 |
Beef & Chicken Box | 8-11 lbs | $146 |
Beef & Pork Box | 8-11 lbs | $146 |
Basic Box | 7-7.5 lbs | $99 |
One of the reasons we like online meat delivery is because the meat quality far surpasses what we have available to us locally in nearby grocery stores. Of course, enjoying the best meat comes with higher costs, but you might find that it’s not as expensive as you thought.
Butcher Box wants to make high-quality meat available for more people, so they try to keep their pricing as reasonable as possible, at right around $6 per meal. But the prices do still vary a bit depending on what and how much you order.
For the custom boxes, you have the option of a classic box with 9-14 lbs for $169, or if you have the freezer space, 18-26lbs for $306. With that, you choose if you want a delivery of meats and seafood like wild salmon every four weeks, six weeks, or eight weeks.
The curated boxes that are picked for you cost a bit less at $146 and $269, respectively.
With Good Ranchers, the weight of the boxes varies, and so do the prices. For example, the Ranchers Classic is regularly priced at $219 and includes a bit more weight than a box from Butcher Box.
However, Good Ranchers is known for offering discounts, especially to new subscribers, which is like getting free meat as a perk.
The wild seafood box from Good Ranchers is discounted at $169, the burger box is $129, and the large bundle – the prepper kit – is $699. You can choose to have your Good Ranchers box delivered every four weeks, every six weeks, or every eight weeks. But you can also order a one-time box, which we really like.
Pricing Winner
Honestly, these two companies are pretty close in a cost comparison, but there are a couple of reasons that we choose Good Ranchers as the winner.
First, we like the variety of boxes at different price points. Second, we also like the option to order a one-time box, which is great for people who want to try it out but maybe don’t have the finances or interest to order more. Plus, Good Ranchers locks in your introductory price for two years!
FAQs
Is Good Ranchers pasture-raised?
Good Ranchers is pasture-raised. The company has a strong ethic for working with local farmers in the US who adhere to ethical, responsible, and sustainable practices.
What are the Is Good Ranchers’ meat frozen?
Many items from Good Ranchers are frozen, but they also offer some items that are shipped fresh. They use dry ice during transit to keep your box cold.
Winner
Good Ranchers
In our comparison of Good Ranchers and Butcher Box, we could easily say that they’re both among the best meat delivery services and both offer high-quality meats , but in the end, it was Good Ranchers that won us over.
We love their approach to sourcing sustainable, ethical quality meats from the US instead of resorting to importing. Their grain-finished and grass-finished meats tasted great, and we’d be happy to order from them again.
Still, there’s nothing wrong with ButcherBox meat, and they’re one of the top meat delivery options in the country, along with others like Omaha Steaks, Wild Fork Foods, and Crowd Cow.
If we had one suggestion, it would be that these two companies expand their seafood selection and maybe add organ meat into their offerings.
Choose Good Ranchers if you:
- Like a variety of curated boxes that don’t need customization
- Appreciate that they locally source their grass fed beef from responsible and sustainable farmers in the US
- Want to try meat delivery but don’t want to commit
- Need or want a company with several options for different food budgets
Choose Butcher Box if you:
- Want to curate your own box of delicious meats
- Don’t mind that the meat mostly comes from Australia as long as it’s high-quality
- When it comes to seafood, you like the basics of salmon and shrimp
- Prefer your meat to arrive flash-frozen