This Hack Lets You Try Every Meal Kit for Next to Nothing

This story is part of Home Tips, CNET’s collection of practical advice for getting the most out of your home, inside and out.

It’s a known fact that food tastes better when you’ve scored it for a good discount. If you like delicious eats but don’t like paying much money for them, I’ve got a seriously good money-saving hack that’ll allow you to try nearly all the top meal kits and meal delivery services for next to nothing.

All it takes is a little organization (and maybe a few calendar reminders to be safe). You can hack the system and try all the most popular meal kit services for a massive discount.

And when I say discount I mean it; you’ll often pay for less than £2 per serving. That’s far cheaper than buying the groceries and cooking at home or ordering cheap and unhealthy fast food. With this meal kit hack, you’ll have all the fresh ingredients preportioned and sent to your home to make healthy dinners for you and the family.

How to try every meal kit for cheap

Almost every meal kit service I’ve tested — and I’ve tested pretty much all of them — will allow you to try several weeks of meals for a super cheap promotional price. These hugely discounted sign-up offers are often as low as £4 or £5 for a full recipe that will feed two, four or six four people. The deals will be typically spread out over three, four or even five deliveries.

As an example, Blue Apron‘s offer will save you £110 but you’ll have to order five weeks’ worth of meals. That still amounts to 13 “free” dinners, though, and you’ll get to try this easy breezy meal kit service in the process. Gobble’s deal is shorter but just as tempting. That service lets you try your first six meal kits for just £36.

EveryPlate is my favorite budget meal kit.

It’s already pretty affordable but this is how cheap it’ll be for your first few boxes.

Screenshot by David Watsky/CNET

Even without these deals, we crunched the numbers and using a convenient meal kit is just a few dollars more expensive than shopping for the same groceries. Factor in one of the offers and it’ll be significantly cheaper than buying the ingredients. Plus, you won’t have to take annoying trips to the store for months — or even as long a year if you try them all.

So which are the best meal delivery sign-up deals?

I’ve rounded up the best meal delivery deals here so you can make a plan to try them all.

Some promotions are likely to change from month to month, so grab the ones that look best to you now and I’ll be sure to update the post so you can find the best deals when it’s time to try a new service.

Make sure to read each offer carefully. Often the deal is spread out over a few deliveries so you’ll be committed to a few weeks of meals. You can always cancel or pause after the discount ends.

Screenshot by David Watsky/CNET

Set a reminder to cancel and move on to the next one

The big catch is that if you don’t cancel after the initial promotion ends, the service will almost certainly keep sending you boxes of meals but at the full price.

Some will let you cancel right after you place your order while others will make you wait until the promo boxes have all been delivered. In cases where they make you wait, I’d suggest setting a reminder to cancel at the earliest possible time.

Setting reminders to cancel after the promo ends will keep this sneaky system running smoothly.

Screenshot by David Watsky/CNET

The worst-case scenario is you’ll get an extra week’s delivery of meals at a higher price. Certainly not the end of the world but if you’re trying to try them all for those rock-bottom offers, you’ll have to stay on your game.

There’s usually no commitment, but read the fine print anyway

Most of these deeply discounted sign-up offers won’t rope you into any long-term contracts.

In fact, they make it fairly easy to pause or cancel your service, unlike those fury-inducing gyms. But for safety’s sake, read the fine print for each service and for each individual promotion before you enter your credit card information.

Sunbasket is my favorite overall meal kit service. It’s usually about £12 or £13 per serving but not when you take advantage of this trial offer.

Screenshot by David Watsky/CNET

Insider tip: CNET’s shopping browser extension will help you find any promo deals that might be hiding somewhere on the site but not populating on the front page.

You can download it here.

There are prepared meal delivery deals to try too

If you don’t have an interest in cooking, many of the top prepared meal delivery services have sign-up offers too. I’ve found that the discount, by percentage, isn’t usually as good as with meal kits but there are still some cheap meals to be had. Much like meal kits, you’ll be able to cancel your service after you’ve taken advantage of the deal — or keep ’em coming if you like what you get.

Prepared meal services such as Freshly have sign-up offers too, although you’ll typically get a bigger deal from meal kits.

Freshly

Even online butchers such as Butcherbox and grocery delivery services such as Thrive Market and Hungryroot have some hefty new customer deals.

I say try them all and let everyone else pay full price.