The Best Dating Apps for 2022

From casual hookups to serious relationships, everyone has their own vision of love. We've tested several dating services so you don't waste time that could be spent looking for someone special.

In 2013, I started my Ziff Davis career as an intern on PCMag's Software team. Now, I’m an Analyst on the Apps and Gaming team, and I really just want to use my fancy Northwestern University journalism degree to write about video games. I host The Pop-Off, PCMag's video game show. I was previously the Senior Editor for Geek.com. I’ve also written for The A.V. Club, Kotaku, and Paste Magazine. I’m currently working on a book about the history of video games, and I’m the reason everything you think you know about Street Sharks is a lie.

OUR TOP TESTED PRODUCTS

Match

Tinder

Kippo

Bumble

Clover Dating App

Hinge

OkCupid

eharmony

Facebook Dating

POF (Plenty of Fish)

Whether you're looking for a long-term relationship or a quick booty call, there's a dating app for everyone. From the hyper-specific—FarmersOnly, JDate, 3Fun—to the general ones we review here that cast wider nets, there are many, many options. A dating app that only works on Thursday? What a concept! Many even have special video services they've introduced specifically to deal with dating in a post-COVID world, as we'll explain below.

With so many choices, how can you find your perfect, loving match? We've gathered our choices for the best dating apps here. Read on for our top picks, followed by everything you need to know about online dating.

Match

Best for Long-Term Relationships

Why We Picked It

Match makes it smooth and easy to form virtual connections. Rich and robust profiles, not just hot photos, let you know if someone is worth your time before you start talking. Thanks to the Vibe Check feature, potential partners already in a conversation can also begin a live video chat session if they both agree.

Who It’s For

Match is for anyone looking for love. It is a premium dating app that offers a premium experience. It wants you to truly get to know a person, and judge your compatibility, before potentially entering a serious relationship. It’s the Editors’ Choice pick for finding lasting love.

Tinder

Best for Casual Dating

Why We Picked It

Tinder’s young, online-oriented users are no strangers to forming virtual connections. It innovated the “hot or not” mobile interface now used by almost all other dating apps. Once swiping gets old, Tinder’s video chat app, Face and Face, lets consenting partners start talking and get real.

Who It's For

Tinder is for finding love right now, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Who knows? While some hookups stay casual, others may blossom into something more. Tinder is the Editors’ Choice pick for quick, young romance that favors the physical.

Kippo

Best for Gamers

Why We Picked It

A gamer-focused dating app potentially sounds like a bad idea, but Kippo pulls it off with execution worthy of an Editors’ Choice pick. You can customize your stylish profile to highlight your geeky interests, and enjoy premium features for affordable prices.

Who It’s For

Kippo’s smart design and clever features make it a welcoming haven for nerds in search of love. Its shared social space features, where you can hang out online with other people and play games together, also makes it a gentle way to try out the “metaverse.”

Bumble

Best for Woman-First Dating

Why We Picked It

Bumble empowers its most vulnerable users to send the first message when looking for dates, knowing that they won’t get unsolicited messages in return. Bumble also offers many ways to communicate beyond text. You can send audio notes, add a Virtual Dating Badge to your profile, and begin a video chat when you’re ready.

Who It’s For

Bumble is for women and nonbinary folks who don’t want cis men to have all the power in online dating. It flips the script on who controls the flow of the conversation, as men can only talk to people who have already expressed interest. In an unbalanced world, Bumble helps make things a bit more fair.

Clover Dating App

Best for Community Socializing

Why We Picked It

Clover stands out with its creative and useful dating features. Users can join social communities as they search for potential partners, and create calendars to schedule dates within the app. Not only can you video chat with dates, but you can also broadcast yourself live to various communities.

Who It's For

Clover is for people who want to feel a larger sense of community in their dating app, especially as dating apps and social media services blend into each other. Other apps could learn from its innovative features.

Hinge

Best for Beautiful Profiles

Why We Picked It

Hinge’s attractive, elaborate profiles give you a good sense of what a person's about, and provide multiple ways to engage with their interests. Take it further through video chat. Use the “Dating From Home” menu to start video calls, and get intimate with audio recordings that answer Hinge’s creative icebreaker prompts.

Who It's For

Hinge strikes an excellent balance for people looking for something between the youthful immediacy of modern dating apps and the deeper dives you want when looking for a stronger connection. Hinge's profiles do it all, and look beautiful while doing it.

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OkCupid

Best for Thoughtful Questions

Why We Picked It

Dating apps let us learn so much more information about a potential partner than we ever could from a random conversation at a bar. OkCupid’s wide range of questions, from fun tidbits to serious dealbreakers, make your messages that much more informed and your romantic success that much more likely.

Who It's For

OkCupid is for people who want to choose how much they put out there. You can answer as many questions as you want to give the algorithm more data to work with, but you pick what you will and won’t answer. It feels empowering rather than overwhelming.

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eharmony

Best for Test Takers

Why We Picked It

Eharmony is a somewhat old-fashioned dating service. For example, it was a little slow to add same-sex options. However, with modern features like video dating alongside the classic questionnaire, eharmony has stayed current without giving up what already works.

Who It’s For

Eharmony is for people who want to date through data. Its extensive questionnaire uses more than 100 questions to take in as much useful information about you as possible. It then uses that data to find matches that are truly compatible in the long term.

Facebook Dating

Best for Facebook Users

Why We Picked It

A dating app can have all the features in the world, but it won’t matter if it has no users. As the world’s biggest social network, Facebook has nearly three billion users, and a lot of them are probably looking for love. Facebook Dating uses your Facebook/Instagram data to build a profile and connect you to other users for free. Don’t worry, none of this will be revealed on your main feed.

Who It’s For

We don’t blame you if you want to keep Facebook far away from your dating life. However, if you’re interested in leveraging the massive social media to help you find romance, Facebook Dating offers a platform no other app can match.

POF (Plenty of Fish)

Best for Messaging Without Limits

Why We Picked It

Plenty of Fish (POF) puts few obstacles between you and whoever you want to message in its vast dating ocean. It suggests prompts to improve your messages, too. You can even live stream yourself, to your date or to the whole POF community.

Who It's For

Plenty of Fish is a good dating app, especially for free users. While the low barrier to entry may invite a lot of spam (or folks not worth dating), ultimately you want a large pool to choose from, and the service delivers just that.

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Which Dating Apps Are Totally Free?

The first thing you need to decide is your commitment level. As in, how much do you want to pay to make your heart go pitter-patter? Some apps, like Plenty of Fish, let you view profiles and send messages for free. Most of the others let you view your potential matches without charging you a penny, but they make you pony up and subscribe if you want to actually reach out to them without limits—especially if the interest is one-sided. While the monthly charges for the apps we review here range in price from $10 to more than $40, most offer a discount if you commit to a long-term subscription, such as six months or a year. (You're not afraid of commitment, are you?)

Then there are all the add-ons. Options—for example, letting you pay to boost your ranking in search results, letting someone know that you are really, really interested in them, or undoing a dreaded left-swipe that was supposed to be a right-swipe—cost you extra. Although some apps may advertise themselves as free, they all try to get a buck from you in the end. Only Facebook Dating is totally free, and that’s only if you don’t consider your existing personal Facebook profile data to be currency.

How to Make the Best Dating App Profile

When it comes time to put yourself out there and create a profile, all apps ask for the basics: name, age, location, a photo, a short blurb about yourself, and (usually) if you can stand a person who smokes. Beyond that, it can be a bit of a crapshoot. For example, Tinder values photos over personality. Eharmony makes you fill out an endless questionnaire before you can even think about browsing for your match. Still, Zoosk and other similar apps ask so little that you're left to wonder what's being used to match you with like-minded love-seekers.

If you don't fall into the cis-hetero dating pool, you'll be happy to know that most of the apps reviewed here are inclusive. Even eharmony finally embraced same-gender couples. However, some are friendlier to the LGBTQ community than others. For example, OkCupid goes beyond forcing users to choose between being a male or female, including options like Hijra, genderfluid, and two-spirit. Other apps target identities beyond gender and sexuality. For example, Kippo's nerd-friendly features attract gamers, Vinylly connects matches people through a shared love of music, and SilverSingles reskins EliteSingles for a senior audience.

Finding Matches on Dating Apps

Once you pick that perfect selfie and write paragraphs to sell all your best attributes to your future digital Valentine, it's time to start browsing. This is where the significant differences between these apps are apparent. For instance, Tinder, with its famous hot-or-not swiping interface, makes it quick and easy to find your next date. Bumble, on the other hand, puts all the power in women's hands; men can't even contact a woman unless she's first expressed interest. Others, such as Match and OkCupid, have robust profiles that let you dive deep into a user's personality (or at least the one they decided to present to you), before you decide to go on the pursuit. Hinge lets users create profiles that are a beautiful blend of visuals and text.

Now that you've perused the dating pool and have your eyes on that special someone, it's time to bite the bullet and actually reach out to them. Each app offers different ways of showing your interest. Match lets you Wink at a fellow member for free, and Plenty of Fish doesn't charge for messaging. In most dating apps, messaging is typically free when both users like each other. However, free users only get so many likes per day, with Hinge being especially limited. In other instances, you'll get charged for reaching out. If you're not ready to express your feelings in words, Bumble lets you send Bumble Coins to prospective matches, for $2 a pop. Zoosk lets you buy coins to anonymously browse profiles, as well as reward anyone who views your own profile (for an additional fee, of course).

Staying Safe on Dating Apps

All of these services, even the decades-old Match, offer both iPhone apps and Android apps. Most also have desktop counterparts for when you're at work and want to take a break from your spreadsheet to set up a weekend tryst. Just be aware that the functionality can vary substantially between the app and desktop interfaces. For example, there's no swiping on Tinder's browser version. Facebook Dating and Hinge are only available as mobile apps.

Once you've installed these apps and signed up for the services, get ready for a barrage of notifications and email. Some, like daily match suggestions, are helpful, while others, like alerts that tell you every new "like" you get, can just be annoying. The good thing is you can easily tweak these alerts by drilling down into the settings menus in each of the apps.

Any activity that involves meeting strangers from the internet carries some safety risks. If you find yourself in a toxic situation and need to cut off contact, all of these apps let you block and report users who haven’t taken the hint. These services try to vet their profiles and keep unwanted inappropriate material from appearing. Bumble blurs nudes with AI. Tinder lets you secretly alert emergency services if you’re on a particularly bad date. There are even third-party solutions. UrSafe (Opens in a new window) is a hands-free, voice-activated personal safety app with features for online daters who are looking to meet up with their matches in-person. Not having to use your hands is especially appealing during a viral pandemic, which brings us to our next section.

COVID-19's Impact on Dating Apps

In case dating wasn’t difficult enough, our social lives were upended by the COVID-19 epidemic. Ideally, online dating should lead to meeting up in real life. However, sometimes the responsible thing to do is to stay home, and that created quite a dilemma for dating apps. Fairytrail (Opens in a new window) , a dating app for connecting via shared travel destination dreams, saw a bittersweet increase in use. Similarly, Zoosk's Great Dates feature lets couples virtually tour exciting locales safely at home.

The Best Meal-Kit Delivery Services for 2022

Meal delivery services make it easy to cook or heat healthy, tasty, and affordable food that's dropped at your doorstep. Our information-packed guide helps you find the service that best fits your dietary goals.

I've been contributing to PCMag since 2011, at times as an analyst and currently as deputy managing editor for the software team. My column, Get Organized, has been running on PCMag since 2012. It gives advice on how to manage all the devices, apps, digital photos, email, and other technology that can make you feel like you're going to have a panic attack.

OUR TOP TESTED PRODUCTS

Blue Apron Meal Delivery Service

Green Chef Meal Delivery Service

HelloFresh Meal Delivery Service

Hungryroot Meal Delivery Service

Fresh N Lean Meal Delivery Service

MisenBox Meal Delivery Service

Balanced Bites Meal Delivery Service

Factor Meal Delivery Service

Mosaic Meal Delivery Service

Purple Carrot Meal Delivery Service

Ramen Hero Meal Delivery Service

Veestro Meal Delivery Service

You love the idea of cooking, but hate the prep and cleanup. You don't want to go to the grocery store, but still want to eat inventive meals. You're learning to cook, but don't want to buy a $9 jar of sauce you've never heard of for just one recipe (especially in this economy!). You have zero time to shop, prep, or make meals, but you still want nutritious options. Meal delivery services are the answer to these dilemmas, and many others.

But which meal delivery service is the best for you? We've eaten our way through many services to help you decide. Read on for our top picks, followed by what to look for when selecting a service.

Blue Apron Meal Delivery Service

Best for Novice Chefs

Why We Picked It

Blue Apron is an Editors’ Choice service that fills your belly and educates you about food. Beyond walking you through recipes, the instructions teach you about cooking and encourage you to become more creative as a home chef.

Who It’s For

Blue Apron is for anyone who wants to learn how to cook, not just receive easy meals. The service even lets you buy groceries and cookware to help you make meals from scratch.

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Green Chef Meal Delivery Service

Best for Fresh, Vegetable-Forward Meals

Why We Picked It

Want to eat healthier? Green Chef is a delivery service that makes it a breeze to eat more fresh vegetables. You can rest easy knowing that the plant-focused meals you cook will be as healthy as they are delicious.

Who It’s For

Green Chef is an Editors’ Choice pick for vegan and vegetarian diets. Meat eaters will find a few keto and paleo offerings, but vegetables are the real star of this excellent food service.

HelloFresh Meal Delivery Service

Best for Omnivores

Why We Picked It

HelloFresh is an overall Editors’ Choice winner because it embodies everything that makes meal kits so enticing. Receiving weekly boxes of tasty food that’s easy to make is extra convenience in a busy life.

Who It’s For

HelloFresh is the meal kit for just about everyone. The vast, varied menu constantly rotates in exciting new items for virtually all diets. Quick delivery times and sustainable packaging round out the top-tier service.

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Hungryroot Meal Delivery Service

Best for Groceries With Recipe Suggestions

Why We Picked It

Hungryroot meal kits use a slightly different system than competing services. Instead of selecting specific meals from a menu, you tell Hungryroot the groceries you want. Hungryroot then sends you those groceries along with suggested recipes.

Who It’s For

Hungryroot is for shoppers who want the ease of meal kits along with the option to buy their own groceries. Ultimately, it’s all just food. Eat it however you like!

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Fresh N Lean Meal Delivery Service

Best for a Variety of Prepared Meals

Why We Picked It

Fresh N Lean is an Editors’ Choice for prepared meals. That means the food arrives fully cooked, waiting for you to heat and eat. Its well-rounded menu appeals to all diet types. Other prepared meal services target certain groups with specific dietary needs, but Fresh N Lean is an excellent option for everyone thanks to its varied, high-quality menu.

Who It's For

Fresh N Lean is for everyone curious about prepared meals, regardless of diet. It's one of the best gateways to this particular meal-kit category. What you lose in freshness, you gain in sheer convenience. Fresh N Lean also lets you create custom subscriptions with a la carte items, which is a nice touch.

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MisenBox Meal Delivery Service

Best for Food Straight From Restaurants

Why We Picked It

Instead of creating its own meals, MisenBox partners with restaurants for its meal kits. As a result, people all over the world can eat high-quality restaurant food that would've otherwise been inaccessible.

Who It’s For

MisenBox’s unique system means that its menu and pricing can dramatically change at any moment. However, if you're looking for truly restaurant-grade food, there’s no other option.

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Balanced Bites Meal Delivery Service

Best for Prepared Keto and Paleo Meals

Why We Picked It

Balanced Bites carefully crafts high-protein meals that are so good you would never believe they come fully prepared. Boxes are more expensive than many competing services, but you have many options for customizing your food deliveries.

Who It’s For

Balanced Bites is for people who want weekly keto and paleo boxes (each meal contains meat, so it’s not for vegetarians). If you are okay with the company's focus, you'll find a lot to like with this low-carb meal-kit service.

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Factor Meal Delivery Service

Best for High-Quality Prepared Meals

Why We Picked It

Factor is a prepared meal delivery service owned by HelloFresh, and it's similarly excellent, selling delicious rotating dishes that are incredibly convenient to prepare.

Who It’s For

If you want more variety in your prepared meals, Factor is another great overall option. You have to subscribe (it lacks an a la carte option), but the menu should accommodate all diets. Plus, you can purchase add-ons for your weekly meals to round out your deliveries.

https://jiji.ng/

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Mosaic Meal Delivery Service

Best Variety for Vegans and Vegetarians

Why We Picked It

Mosaic offers surprising variety, despite focusing on vegetarian diets. Its prepared meals include everything from soups and bowls for individuals to pies designed to feed an entire family.

Who It’s For

People who want choice in their healthy, prepared vegetarian meals. This flexibility also extends to the service; it lets you choose between cheaper, smaller items and larger, more expensive ones as you craft your subscription.

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Purple Carrot Meal Delivery Service

Best for Vegans Who Cook

Why We Picked It

Purple Carrot is a vegan meal kit service that teaches you to appreciate the ingredients you’ve harvested from the earth. It’s another great company that helps develop your skills as you prepare tasty meals.

Who It’s For

Purple Carrot is for vegan home chefs who want to feel good about the entire cooking process. Learning how to cook delicious, healthy meals that don’t come from animals checks off many sustainability boxes.

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Ramen Hero Meal Delivery Service

Best for Restaurant-Quality Ramen

Why We Picked It

College students know that instant ramen is an absolute lifesaver when it comes to quick and easy meals. But Ramen Hero’s meals are far superior versions while being just as easy to prepare. You simply warm and combine the various components to enjoy wonderful ingredients swimming in flavorful broth.

Who It’s For

As the name implies, Ramen Hero is for ramen lovers. There's a lot of variety in that category, as you start mixing various meats, vegetables, and spices.

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Veestro Meal Delivery Service

Best for Easy Vegan Meals

Why We Picked It

Prepared meals are especially useful for vegan and vegetarian diets, as they remove the hassle that makes it so hard to form healthier eating habits. Veestro offers many vegan meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that taste great, and don't require much prep time.

Who It’s For

Veestro is for people who want to really commit to eating vegan. You must buy many meals up front, but they last a while in the freezer. A la carte and subscription plans give you plenty of flexibility when choosing meals.

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Which Meal Delivery Service Is the Best?

Meal delivery (also referred to as meal-kit delivery) is a type of subscription service in which a company sends you a box of fresh ingredients in the right amounts for a few recipes that you can make at home. It's a rapidly growing sector of the food industry, with one report projecting the global market for meal delivery to be worth $8.94 billion by 2025 (Opens in a new window) .

Cook-from-a-kit boxes, such as Green Chef and HelloFresh, are just one style of meal delivery. Some throw the "kit" element to the wind and instead provide heat-and-eat meals that require minimal effort. Sunbasket, for example, provides the ingredients for a family dinner already mixed and assembled in an oven-safe container.

Splendid Spoon specializes in ready-to-eat meals for one person, such as smoothies, soups, and bowls. It also has prepared plates that are more akin to a microwavable TV dinner. Factor, Freshly, Balanced Bites, Fresh N Lean, and vegan services Mosaic and Veestro fall into this pre-made category. Conversely, Blue Apron is a service committed to helping you learn to cook—to the degree that it also sells chef's knives, meat thermometers, and other equipment you might need as your skills progress.

The service diversity is remarkable. We haven't had an opportunity to test them all, but if their unique hooks sound appealing to you, consider doing some more research. Yumble specializes in kid-friendly foods in kiddie portion sizes. Sakara Life’s pricey subscription sets you up with a highly curated wellness plan and includes meals that purportedly improve whatever issues you have, such as making your skin clearer or increasing your energy. You can find kosher or halal meal kits. There's even a ramen delivery service called Ramen Hero, which we have reviewed, that sends pre-measured ingredients in heat-safe pouches that you warm in boiling water to make your own Japanese noodle soup.

Some services, such as Snap Kitchen or Vegetable and Butcher, only deliver to their local communities. Housemade, which we've reviewed, depends on you being near a physical Just Salad restaurant, although the service plans to expand in the future. However, most other services deliver anywhere in the United States, except for Alaska and Hawaii, in about one week. MisenBox partners with local restaurants to deliver their food as meal kits nationwide.

How to Choose Food From a Meal Delivery Service

Before you sign up for a meal delivery service, you should preview the menu for the upcoming week and future weeks. In our experience, this is the most important part of choosing a service. Looking at the weekly menus for a few services and comparing them tells you a lot about what makes each one unique.

It's a little like choosing a restaurant. Both the menu and presentation, including pictures of the food and how the company describes it, determine whether it speaks to your taste buds. Just look at the difference between Daily Harvest's stark images of vegetables in a bowl, compared to HelloFresh's colorful plates brimming with warm meals and a scattering of fresh herbs or toasted breadcrumbs on top.

When previewing menus, be sure to check two things: 1) Are there enough menu options each week that meet your dietary requirements, including allergen concerns? 2) Can you see the recipe and instructions, and do they line up with how much work you're willing to do? The recipes indicate what equipment and ingredients you need. It might be nothing more than a skillet, wooden spoon, and salt and pepper. It helps to have olive oil, vegetable oil, and sometimes butter on hand, too. Depending on the service, you might see recipes that call for a slow cooker, though it's easy to avoid them if you don't have one.

In a few rare cases, companies make it hard to see detailed recipes until after you pay. We like companies that show you everything in advance so there are no surprises after payment.

Once you sign up, you choose which meals you want each week from a rotating selection. If you forget to pick meals, the company automatically selects some for you.

A few companies let you pick substitutions, or offer add-ons and upgrades. Some Home Chef meals let you substitute, say, chicken for shrimp, or pay extra for organic or antibiotic-free meat. Sunbasket sells snacks, breakfast items, and other standalone groceries that you can add to your order. Hungryroot is a slightly unusual meal delivery service that's part online grocery store and part meal-kit service, letting you choose both kits and groceries in every order. Gobble sells add-ons, too, like a two-pack of cookie dough or an extra container of marinara sauce.

How Many Meals Do You Get From a Meal Delivery Service?

Some meal delivery services offer a la carte purchases, but most require a subscription. When you sign up, you agree to regularly receive a shipment of meals or meal kits, usually weekly. On average, you must commit to a minimum of three meals per week that serve two people each, or six servings total. A few companies let you scale down to as few as two meals for two people per week.

All plans let you can skip a week at any time or indefinitely pause your subscription. You typically have the option to skip multiple weeks at a time. The best companies let you do this directly from your account.

When you first sign up, the meal delivery service's site will typically ask for a few details about you and your food needs. How many people will be eating with you? Do you have allergies or dietary restrictions? A top-notch service only shows you the meals that meet your needs. Watch out, because not all companies do this. For some services, you must vet each meal as you choose your orders.

What Is the Cheapest Meal-Kit Delivery Service?

The going rate for a meal delivery service is between $8.99 and $12.99 per serving. Delivery fees typically hang in the range of $7.99 per shipment.

Note that meals are priced per serving. Most (but not all) companies calculate the price of your kits on a sliding scale, based on how many servings you order. It's the old "the more you buy, the more you save" idea. A box of three meals per week with two servings each has a higher per-serving price than a box containing four meals per week with four servings each—even though the larger box has a final higher cost.

Dinnerly and EveryPlate are two notably low-cost services. Both charge $4.99 per serving, and Dinnerly's prices dip by another $0.50 per serving if you order a large box of meals.

$7.99 is the standard shipping rate, but you can often find better deals. Blue Apron charges $0 in delivery fees for all but the smallest orders. Hungryroot's shipping is free if you qualify for ground delivery from its New York City location; air shipments cost $10. Purple Carrot charges more for big boxes (up to $11.99) and less for small ones ($5.99). Veestro charges $10 for one-time purchases, but waives shipping fees for subscribers.

Which Meal-Kit Delivery Service Has the Best Packaging?

You heard right. When you receive a meal kit order, you must deal with the packaging, and sometimes there's a distressing amount of it. Some services reduce the amount of material used (EveryPlate does a fair job) or have moved toward compostable materials (Daily Harvest). That said, no nationwide company is a paragon of environmentalism.

In our testing, we noticed two options for keeping the shipment cold. The most common is a gel pack. It's a frozen block of non-toxic liquid wrapped in heavy-duty plastic. They are a pain to dispose of properly. You can reuse them by refreezing them, or you can let them thaw out, snip a corner of the plastic, and then dump the watery contents into the trash. The gel is not suitable for your plumbing. Then, you must thoroughly rinse the remaining plastic and hope that your recycling center accepts it.

Option two is dry ice. Dry ice works well with fully frozen items, but not fresh produce. If it evaporates before you open the box, that's ideal. If the ice is still intact, you must be extremely careful not to touch it, as dry ice can burn your skin. You might not want to risk it around curious children and pets.

Can I Send a Meal Kit as a Gift?

If you want to convert your friends to the meal kit lifestyle (without sending them a mysterious box of raw food), you're in luck. Many services let you purchase gift cards. Referral programs can even make your own subscriptions cheaper if you tempt friends to sign up.

What Is the Healthiest Meal Delivery Service?

The main draw to any meal delivery service is convenience. Many meal kits also have a health angle, but most home-cooked meals are going to be better for you than the average delivery meal (if only because you can control the amount of salt that goes into them). Certainly you can use them to get more plant-based meals into your diet, too. If you subscribe to WW (formerly Weight Watchers), you can find some meal plans that tell you how many points your meals are worth. Blue Apron displays the menu options that are WW approved, and Splendid Spoon has a help page that highlights its meals' point values. Veestro offers its own weight loss subscription plan. Trifecta pairs its healthy meals with a free fitness app and a food-logging database.

If you're looking toward meal delivery for health reasons, you might also consider a fitness tracker, fitness apps, and other helpful tools, such as a smart bathroom scale or a heart rate monitor to steer your workouts to be more effective.

Variety Is the Best Meal-Kit Spice

There are far, far more meal delivery services than these top picks, including choices for nearly every cuisine, specialized diet, or cooking skill level. We'll be looking at more services from time to time, too. For more information on meal delivery services, please visit our dedicated meal kits page, our guides to the best vegetarian and vegan meal kit delivery services, and the best prepared meal delivery services. Read our Blue Apron vs. HelloFresh comparison to see two of the best meal-kit delivery services face off.

For even more on improving your culinary life through tech, check out the best meal planning apps and best grocery delivery services.