Is HelloFresh worth the cost?

Find out if the meal kit service is worth paying for.

Key points

• Many people use meal kits to save time on food preparation.
• You might want to consider HelloFresh, but don’t expect it to drastically reduce your grocery bills.

Many of us maintain hectic and busy schedules that leave little time for shopping and meal planning. That’s where services like HelloFresh come in handy.

HelloFresh is a meal delivery service that delivers kits you make in your kitchen every week. To be clear, it’s not a heat-and-eat kind of deal: you still have to put different ingredients together to make your meals come together. But you’ll be given everything you need to prepare meals in one convenient package, along with step-by-step instructions on how to get the job done.

HelloFresh could definitely be a huge time saver. But is it worth the cost? This is what you need to know.

Digging into the numbers

Typically, HelloFresh starts at $7.99 per serving. It is possible to use a promo code to get a discount on your first batch of meals, reducing their price to $3.99 per serving. But don’t expect to pay that $3.99 for long.

The advantage of HelloFresh is that you are not bound by a contract and you can skip a week (or more) whenever you want. The service also allows you to customize your meals to fit any dietary restrictions. For example, if you don’t eat meat, HelloFresh may still be a viable solution for you.

But let’s talk about whether HelloFresh will actually save you money. For the most part, the answer is no.

Sure, with a coupon code that brings your cost down to $3.99 per serving, you can get some savings up front compared to what you’d spend at the grocery store. But at the regular price, you won’t see your grocery expenses go down.

That said, getting meals from HelloFresh can be much cheaper than dining out at restaurants and ordering a lot of takeout and delivery. And it can be much healthier.

Should you use HelloFresh?

HelloFresh won’t necessarily be easy on your wallet, and you can build up a sizable credit card bill using the service instead of doing all your grocery shopping at the grocery store. But if you don’t have a lot of time to shop, and you often turn to delivery and takeout because of that, then HelloFresh may be a better alternative.

Ultimately, if you’re comfortable in the kitchen and aren’t necessarily short on time, then there’s not much value in paying for HelloFresh, especially beyond the initial promotion you might get. Some people say it helps them mix things up and discover new meal ideas, but you can do the same thing for free by exploring food blogs yourself.

One thing to consider, though, is that if you’re self-employed, it may be easier to justify the cost of HelloFresh. The reason? You may spend more on service than on groceries. But if using HelloFresh frees up a few hours of your time each week, you can earn enough working those extra hours to cover that extra cost and still get ahead financially.

You may decide that HelloFresh is worth spending the money for the convenience factor alone. There is nothing wrong with that if it fits your budget.

Many of us routinely pay for amenities, so HelloFresh need not be an exception. But you shouldn’t use HelloFresh with the expectation that doing so will drastically reduce your grocery bills, because that most likely won’t happen.