eMeals alternatives: what eMeals costs and 7 other ways to plan dinner

eMeals costs $59.99 a year for its dinner plans, which it advertises as as low as $4.99 a month, after a 14-day free trial (checked on eMeals' own pages in October 2026). Stay with it if you want a menu chosen for you every week by a team that includes registered dietitians, with the ingredients sent to Walmart, Kroger, Instacart or one of its other grocery partners. Switch if you keep throwing away food you already bought, because each eMeals plan starts from its weekly menu rather than from what's in your kitchen.

For that problem, a pantry-first planner such as Well Stockd fits better. If you mostly cook your own recipes, Plan to Eat ($49 a year) is the closer swap, and if you want something free, Samsung Food and Eat This Much both have real free plans.

How much does eMeals cost?

eMeals sells dinner plans, with breakfast and lunch as add-ons. These are the prices on eMeals' help center, checked on October 24, 2026.

The 3-month dinner price varies by page. The help center and the home page say $37.50, the grocery delivery page says $9.99 a month, and the App Store listing describes a $29.99 three-month dinner subscription and $99.99 for a year of All Day. Check the price on the screen where you subscribe.

Is eMeals free? No. New users get a 14-day free trial, and eMeals says its iPhone and Android apps are for members with an active subscription. The App Store describes every plan as a recurring subscription, so a 12-month plan renews unless you cancel it.

Is eMeals worth it?

Yes, for a particular kind of cook. eMeals offers 15 meal plans, including Low Carb, Keto, Clean Eating, Budget Friendly, Kid Friendly, Gluten Free, Diabetic, Heart Healthy and Mediterranean, and its App Store listing says each week brings 7 new recipes. You pick the ones you want, the app builds the shopping list, and you either shop yourself or send the list to Walmart, Kroger, Instacart, Amazon Fresh, Albertsons, Safeway, H-E-B or Shipt for pickup or delivery. You can also add your own family recipes and recipes from the web.

It suits you less if your fridge and cupboards are already full. The menu comes from eMeals, not from your kitchen, and reviewers describe removing what they already own from the shopping list by hand. If waste is the problem, a plan that starts from your inventory does more than a better menu.

What eMeals users like, and what they complain about

We read the 150 newest App Store reviews, written between January 21 and October 21, 2026. They average 3.93 stars, against eMeals' overall 4.6 from about 52,700 ratings.

The happy reviewers are often long-time members, some for over ten years. They like having dinner decided, trying new recipes and sending the list to Walmart, Instacart or Kroger, and one called adding their own recipes their favorite feature.

The complaints repeat. Several reviewers say wine pairings get added to the shopping list and can't be switched off (April, July and September 2026). Some say the list sometimes failed to reach Walmart (July 17 and September 13). Others report doubled ingredients on the list (March and April), bland recipes (May) and paying extra for breakfast and lunch plans (April). Some reviewers between January and October 2026 also say they were billed for a full year when the trial ended and couldn't get a refund, so if you're only testing eMeals, set a reminder before day 14.

eMeals alternatives compared

Prices and features were checked on each vendor's own site or App Store listing on October 24, 2026.

Plan to Eat

Switching from Plan to Eat? See how Well Stockd compares

Plan to Eat is the planner for people with a recipe collection. Its clipper saves recipes from websites, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest, the calendar plans a week or a month, and the grocery list is built from the plan and sorted by store and aisle. There's no free plan: $5.95 a month or $49 a year on its site after a 14-day trial with no card, and the App Store lists a year at $54.99. It's about $11 a year cheaper than eMeals dinners, but you supply the recipes. Our Plan to Eat alternatives guide goes further.

Eat This Much

Eat This Much generates meals to hit calorie and macro targets, so it suits people planning around a diet goal more than a family dinner. The free plan makes one day at a time. Premium, $5 a month on an annual plan, plans a whole week, writes the grocery list, handles leftovers and connects to grocery delivery from Instacart, Amazon Fresh and Walmart. Its App Store listing says Premium also keeps a virtual pantry.

$5 Meal Plan

The closest thing to eMeals at the same price. For $5 a month you get a weekly meal plan with a shopping list, in a Classic or a Gluten Free version, after a 14-day free trial. It's simpler than eMeals, with fewer diet styles and no grocery hand-off listed on its site, and it's built around keeping each meal cheap.

Samsung Food

Switching from Samsung Food? See how Well Stockd compares

The biggest free option. Samsung Food's App Store listing describes more than 240,000 public recipes, search by ingredients, saving recipes from any website, weekly meal plans, shared shopping lists and grocery delivery through 23 integrated retailers, all free. Food+, at $6.99 a month or $59.99 a year, adds AI weekly plans, a guided cooking mode, nutrition tracking and automated pantry management. Our Samsung Food alternatives guide covers what Food+ is worth.

Prepear

Prepear is a free recipe organizer and meal planner. You save recipes, plan the week and build the grocery list, and in the mobile app you can tap Shop Now to send it to Walmart for pickup or delivery. Prepear Gold, sold in the app, adds unlimited ad-free cook mode and access to every meal plan on Prepear.

Meals Hub, where Mealime went

Mealime closed on October 21, 2026. Its closing page sends users to Meals Hub, a free planner inside Albertsons Companies store apps, such as Safeway's, with all of Mealime's recipes and more. It's free and familiar to former Mealime users, but it lives inside one grocery company's apps, so it suits people who shop at an Albertsons Companies store. If you used Mealime, our guide to what happens after Mealime shuts down covers the options.

Well Stockd: a planner that starts from your kitchen

Well Stockd turns the eMeals order around. You keep a list of what's in the fridge, freezer and pantry, with amounts and estimated use-by dates, and it emails you before something reaches its date. Recipes are matched against that list, so each of more than 3,800 recipes shows whether you can cook it tonight and what it's missing. The shopping list fills itself as you run out and cook, and you can send it to a Walmart or Kroger cart after checking the matched products, or open it as a list on Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods Market.

Planning the current week by hand is free. Pro plans up to eight weeks ahead, writes the shopping list from the plan and can fill a week for you, starting with what's already in the kitchen and what's closest to its date. You can also bring your own recipes in from a link, a photo of a cookbook page, or a file from apps such as Paprika and Plan to Eat. The feature list has the details, and pricing has what Pro costs.

Where eMeals is better: it reaches more grocery stores, it publishes diet plans such as Keto, Diabetic and Heart Healthy, and it chooses the week for you with no setup. Well Stockd asks you to put what you own into the kitchen first, which takes some time up front, and its diet rules cover vegetarian, vegan and pescatarian plus the ingredients each person avoids. If that sounds like homework, eMeals is the easier product. The eMeals switching guide covers moving over if you decide to.

Is eMeals a good Mealime replacement?

Partly. Mealime closed on October 21, 2026, and its closing page offers Meals Hub inside Albertsons Companies apps and mentions no export. In Reddit threads around the shutdown, former Mealime users say they miss one combined grocery list for the week, plans that reuse ingredients, chef-made recipes rather than AI ones, and sending the list to Walmart or Instacart.

eMeals covers most of that list: curated recipes, one shopping list built from the week's meals, and hand-off to eight grocery partners, Walmart and Instacart included. The difference is the price, since eMeals is a subscription and Meals Hub is free. If you shop at an Albertsons Companies store, try Meals Hub first. If you don't, eMeals, Plan to Eat and Well Stockd are the realistic choices, and eMeals is the closest in feel. eMeals itself is still actively updated, with an iPhone release on October 20, 2026.

How to cancel eMeals

Cancel where you subscribed. If you started in the iPhone app, cancel in your Apple subscriptions; on Android, in Google Play; if you signed up on emeals.com, through your eMeals account. Then check that the subscription shows as cancelled, and keep the confirmation until the renewal date has passed.

FAQ

Is eMeals free?

No. eMeals is a paid subscription with a 14-day free trial, and its apps are for members with an active subscription. Dinner plans are $59.99 a year, as of October 2026.

How much is eMeals per month?

eMeals advertises dinners as low as $4.99 a month, which is the $59.99 yearly plan divided by twelve. The 3-month dinner plan is listed at $37.50 on its help center and home page and at $29.99 in its App Store description.

Is eMeals worth it?

It's worth it if you want someone else to choose the week's dinners and send the ingredients to a store. It's worth less if your kitchen is already stocked, because the menu doesn't start from what you have.

Can you use your own recipes in eMeals?

Yes. eMeals says you can add your own family recipes and recipes from anywhere on the web, alongside its weekly plans.

What are some free alternatives to eMeals?

Samsung Food, Prepear and Meals Hub are free meal planners, Eat This Much plans one day at a time for free, and Well Stockd's free plan covers a kitchen inventory of up to 30 foods, recipes, the shopping list and planning the current week.

Does eMeals work with Walmart?

Yes. eMeals sends your shopping list to Walmart for pickup or delivery, and to Kroger, Instacart, Amazon Fresh, Albertsons, Safeway, H-E-B and Shipt as well.