How much does Hello Fresh cost?

Meal kits are sold per-recipe/per-person, with permutations that offer between two to four recipes and serve between two to four people, depending on the service you choose. You can look at the total price for the box, but meal kit services first show you the price per serving. One serving is how much one person should eat, so each two-person meal recipe gives you two servings.

Every meal kit service offers a discount if you buy more recipes and serve more eaters, but the price drop isn't as great as you'd expect; generally a dollar or two per serving if you order extra meals. This adds up when you're feeding a large family, but if you order too much food and an entire meal sits in your fridge until the ingredients go bad, you've lost money on the deal and wasted food. Food kit meals last about a week, but some delicate ingredients wilt within a few days of arrival.

Hello Fresh offers a variety of options, and the more meals you buy at once, the less you pay per meal. If you go for a two-person plan and buy only two different recipes each week, you'll pay $10 per serving, or $28 total with shipping. Add one more recipe each week, and you drop $1 per serving and $1 off shipping. The Family Friendly plan with three recipes for four people saves you $10 per meal versus the two-person, two-recipe plan.

Of course, your mileage will vary. My son and I (one adult, one child) shared a kit full of two-person recipes and sometimes ended up with a meal's worth of leftovers. In a week, we could easily fill one more dinner as a leftover-meal with all the extra prepared food.

The worst thing would be to waste ingredients and a meal, but Hello Fresh is flexible about letting you change your plan on the fly. If you find you are not finishing your meal box, you can reduce your future orders.

Shipping charges are $6 or $7, less for larger kits. Other meal services offer free shipping when you bump up to the larger meal plans, but Hello Fresh prices are competitive already, so the additional shipping cost does not change the balance.