If you’ve been looking into meal delivery options, you already know there is an overwhelming number of choices out there. If you’re at the point where you’ve narrowed down to Freshly Vs Hello Fresh, and you just need a little more info to help you cross the finish line.
Hello Fresh is a name in the meal kit delivery industry that many people recognize. Their business is built around making mealtime simpler and more enjoyable by doing the meal planning and ingredient shopping for you.
Freshly is another popular meal delivery service but they differ from Hello Fresh in one major way. Rather than delivering a box of ingredients and instructions for prepping and cooking, Freshly offers heat and eat meals that are delivered fresh to your door, already prepared.
In a meal delivery industry where some are charging prices that rival higher-end restaurant meals, Freshly and Hello Fresh are both more economical options. As you’re looking at meal delivery that fits in a realistic monthly grocery budget, these two are worthy contenders.
While Freshly and Hello Fresh share a similar price point, they’re also different in many ways. Let’s take a closer look at what sets each apart, and which one rises to the top.
Table of Contents
Freshly
Pros
- Heat & eat meals require zero prep work
- Meals are delivered fresh, not frozen
- Significant cost savings when ordering 12 meals a week compared to 4
- Abundant meal options, usually more than 30 each week
- You can set dietary preferences to filter out meals for special dietary needs
- Almost all packaging materials are recyclable
Cons
- Freshly lacks transparency with shipping costs
- Fresh delivered meals are more perishable than frozen
- Freshly takes some knocks in reviews for their customer service
Hello Fresh
Pros
- Ideal for people that like to be more hands-on in the kitchen
- Hello Fresh is an economical option that offers a slight discount for larger orders
- Great selection with 20 meals each week
- Variety of classic and worldly cuisines
- Flexible plans allow you to skip weeks
- 15% discount for students
Cons
- Requires prep and cook time
- Limited options for those with special dietary concerns
- You need to pay for your plan before you can select meals
- More packaging material, some of it difficult to recycle
Dietary Options
Freshly
Diets
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Paleo
- Keto
- Whole30
- Mediterranean
- Gluten-Free
- Dairy-Free
- Diabetic-Friendly
- Weight Loss
Hello Fresh
Considering that so many people have special dietary needs, a meal delivery service needs to consider this when designing their meal – at least if they want to have broad appeal. For many, we’re not just talking about preferences here, but true dietary needs that are important for maintaining health.
Whether you’re someone who follows a special diet, like Paleo or Keto, or you have allergies or sensitivities, you want to know which service is going to provide you with the most options.
Hello Fresh does an ok job of providing for a range of dietary preferences. If you’re a vegetarian or following a lower calorie diet, you’ll find a decent selection of options to choose from on the Hello Fresh menu.
If your dietary needs are more strict, especially if you have allergies, you might find Hello Fresh a little limiting. For example, you’re not going to find a ton of dairy-free, gluten-free, or soy-free options. It’s also difficult to find at-a-glance information about ingredients, which is frustrating when you want to quickly select meals that fit your dietary needs.
Since Freshly’s meals are premade, you can’t take upon yourself to eliminate ingredients. This is ok, however, because Freshly does a really good job of offering selections that meet a range of dietary needs.
Meals are clearly marked with dietary option icons on their at-a-glance menu. All of their meals are gluten-free, and a good portion of them are also either dairy-free, soy-free, or both. You can also quickly check which meals are high-protein, low-carb, low-calorie, and vegetarian.
Dietary Options Winner
Meal Prep & Variety
Freshly
- 32
- 4 Meals for 1 Person
Diets
- Choose Your Own Meals
- Number of Meals Available
- Minimum Order
Hello Fresh
- 20
- 2 meals for 2 people
Many people who consider a meal delivery service are looking for a long-term solution to streamlining mealtime and everything that goes along with it. If you’re just trying out a company for a week or two, the variety might not be that important. However, if you want to commit for the long haul, you don’t want meals that become boring or are overly complicated to make.
Hello Fresh offers about 20 meals each week, and they do a good job of mixing up the variety. Hello Fresh is good for people with more classic tastes, as well as those who like to try new flavors and cuisines every once in a while.
Since Hello Fresh is a meal delivery kit service, there’s going to be some cooking and prep work involved. The amount of work is minimal and shouldn’t be an issue if you enjoy spending a little bit of time in the kitchen. Most meals can be prepped, cooked, and on your table in 30-45 minutes.
With more than 30 meal choices, Freshly offers a bit more variety than Hello Fresh. You can easily filter their menu by meal type, such as Home Bistro, Take Out Twists, and One Bowl Nourishers.
Freshly meals are heat & eat, delivered fresh to your door. There isn’t any prep work involved, and they can go from refrigerator to table in about 5 minutes.
Dietary Options Winner
Ingredients
Freshly
Diets
- Non-GMO
- Organic
- Grass Fed
- Wild-Caught
Hello Fresh
When it comes down to it, your meal is only as good as the ingredients used in making it. The quality of ingredients used by meal delivery companies is top on the priority list when comparing them to each other.
With Hello Fresh, you get a meal-delivery kit delivered right to your doorstep. When you open your box, you’ll find all the ingredients you need to craft your chosen recipes, and the quality of ingredients is immediately visible.
Hello Fresh claims on their website that they source their ingredients straight from the farm, citing quality, ethics, and sustainability as things they’re committed to. Customers seem to overwhelmingly agree and give Hello Fresh high marks for ingredient quality
Freshly’s meals are premade, which means it’s more difficult to assess the quality of each ingredient used. Instead, we need to look at the quality of all the ingredients in each component of the dish. Overall, customers are pleased with the quality that Freshly delivers.
If there is one issue with Freshly’s ingredients, it would be that these meals are delivered fresh – meaning they have a shorter shelf life unless you take it upon yourself to freeze them. To illustrate the point here, greens that are delivered whole are going to maintain their quality a bit longer than greens that have been pre-chopped and mixed with other ingredients.
Ingredients Winner
Taste & Sample Meals
Freshly
- Chicken Livorno
- Turkey Mushroom Meatballs
- Springtime Chicken Pilaf
Hello Fresh
- Zucchini Pomodoro Penne Bake
- Bulgogi Chicken Tacos
- Harissa Sweet Potato Pockets
Now that your appetite is worked up, let’s talk about what’s really important – taste.
Although Hello Fresh offers fewer meal options than Freshy, they do manage to pack a lot of different flavors into their 20 or so options each week. You can count on Hello Fresh to make sure boredom doesn’t set in with selections from 18 different categories of worldly/ethnic cuisines.
Customers enjoy the different spice blends and sauces that Hello Fresh provides in their meal kits, along with their ability to maximize flavors in simpler, more classic style dishes.
You might think that because Freshly’s meals are premade, that you’re going to sacrifice some taste for convenience. This isn’t the case at all. Freshly does an incredible job of eliminating all the unnecessary extras and focusing on using only ingredients that elevate the flavors in each dish.
Freshly provides a list of 85 additives, preservative, and plain unnecessary ingredients that they won’t use in their dishes. With Freshly meals, you truly are tasting flavors that come from natural goodness.
Dietary Options Winner
Pricing
Freshly
MEALS PER WEEK | PRICE PER SERVING |
4 | $7.49 |
6 | $6.39 |
8 | $6.19 |
10 | $5.99 |
12 | $5.69 |
18 | $5.49 |
Hello Fresh
RECIPES PER WEEK | 2 PEOPLE | 4 PEOPLE (Price Per Serving) |
2 | $12.49 | $9.49 |
3 | $9.99 | $9.49 |
4 | $9.79 | $9.29 |
5 | $9.79 | $9.29 |
6 | $9.79 | $8.99 |
Hello Fresh is one of the more economical options for meal delivery kits. Some come in at a lower price point but Hello Fresh finds the sweet spot between quality and value. Depending on which meals you choose, and the number of portions, you’re going to pay somewhere between $7.48-$8.99 per meal.
It’s also important to factor in shipping costs when considering the overall affordability. Shipping with Hello Fresh isn’t free, but a flat rate of $7.99 per delivery isn’t the worst that you’ll find.
Freshly is right on par with Hello Fresh from a price standpoint – if you choose their largest plan of 12 meals. With this option, meals are $7.99. Count on adding a few dollars to the price of each meal when choosing a lesser quantity.
It’s also a little difficult to determine final pricing with Freshly because they’re not upfront about shipping cost. You can’t find out shipping costs for sure until you’re ready to finalize your order.
Pricing Winner
25 Free Meals Across 5 boxes + First Box Ships Free + 3 Surprise Gifts
Packaging & Recycling
Freshly
Hello Fresh
Both Hello Fresh and Freshly strive to use as little packaging materials as possible while ensuring the integrity and quality of your meals. Here is how they stack up.
Hello Fresh is committed to using recyclable materials, and they do a decent job of eliminating unnecessary packaging materials. Currently, the only packaging that isn’t recyclable are the BPA liners that are made from plastic and mylar.
Keeping food fresh and at the proper temperature is extremely important. Hello Fresh uses a gel pack to accomplish this. The gel inside the pack is water-soluble but if you plan on recycling the outer shell of the gel pack, know that the gel inside isn’t pipe friendly.
All of Freshly’s packaging materials are non-toxic and either recyclable, reusable, or biodegradable. Freshly even offers a quick video and a bullet-point list of how to dispose of/recycle their packaging materials.
Dietary Options Winner
Customer Service
Freshly
Diets
- Skip a Week
- Pause
- Cancel
Hello Fresh
Freshly and Hello Fresh go head to head in many of the customer service categories that matter when choosing a meal delivery service. They have similar stances as far as cancellations, suspensions, refunds, and returns are concerned.
This leaves us looking at their customer service interactions with customers. Hello Fresh can leave you a little frustrated because you need to take steps like entering your email address before you can even browse, but Freshly seems to have some issues with their customer service department.
Looking over customer reviews for Freshly, they receive great marks across the board, except for customer service and shipping.
Customer Service Winner
Winner
Freshly
When comparing Hello Fresh Vs Freshly, each is a winner in their own ways. Freshly wins overall, mostly due to their quality, variety, and range of meals that are suitable for special dietary needs.
For many, however, the deciding point here is whether you want to spend time prepping and cooking, or if you prefer heat & eat meals. Your own preferences in this department will play a huge role in deciding which of these companies is best for you.
Choose Freshly if you:
- Like the idea of heat & eat meals that are fresh, not frozen
- Have special dietary needs or preferences that need consideration
- Plan on ordering enough meals to benefit from Freshly’s cost savings
- Appreciate a variety of meal options to choose from each week
- Like the idea with limited waste and no-fuss recycling
Choose Hello Fresh if you:
- Like spending a little bit of time prepping and cooking
- Like to see all the ingredients that go into your meals
- Enjoy a variety of classic flavors and worldly cuisines
- Want an economical option for meal delivery kits