PlateJoy Vs. eMeals Comparison

UPDATED Oct. 2024
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PlateJoy and eMeals are among the most popular digital meal planning services in America. They provide healthy recipe recommendations based on your dietary needs and desires and allow you to plan your meals and trips to the store for weeks in advance. They are both highly convenient, but they are far from identical. If you are trying to decide between these two services, our helpful PlateJoy vs. eMeals comparison can steer your decision-making process in the right direction.

PlateJoy
Meal Planning Just Got Much Easier
VS
eMeals
Budget-Friendly Personal Meal Planner

Highlights

PlateJoy
PlateJoy is a digital meal planning service that offers custom meal plans including easy recipes for different dietary and cooking preferences. In addition to the plans, it offers pre-populated grocery lists. You can choose from dozens of recipes each month and tailor your subscription to your needs.
  • Price Range: $$
  • Average Price Per Meal: $9.99
  • Shipping Cost: $0
  • Delivery Area: 44 states
eMeals
eMeals is a budget-friendly personal meal planner that provides healthy recipes and handy grocery lists. It offers meal ideas for a variety of diets and allows you to customize your weekly menus to your needs and shop for groceries yourself.
  • Price Range: $
  • Shipping Cost: $0
  • Delivery Area:

Compare Features

PlateJoy
Best For
Best for home cooks looking for fresh recipe ideas
Menu/Meal Plans
PlateJoy offers fully personalized meal plans based on your dietary preferences.
Recipes/Meal Options
PlateJoy lets you assemble your monthly menu based on about 60 recipe suggestions.
Meal & Recipe Variety
PlateJoy offers breakfast, lunch, dinner, batch meal, snack, and dessert recipes. The options at your disposal include low-carb, clean eating, vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, allergen-free, keto, Paleo, pescatarian, gluten-free, batch cooking, and kid-friendly recipes.
Food Quality
PlateJoy does not deliver food.
Nutritional Value & Portion Size
With PlateJoy, you are in charge of grocery shopping, so the nutritional value of your meals depends on the ingredients you purchase.
Subscription Flexibility
PlateJoy lets you change your dietary preferences whenever you want and pause your subscription for 1 or 2 months. You can cancel your subscription at any time, directly through your account.
Refunds
PlateJoy does not offer prorated refunds. However, it does offer a 10-day free trial, allowing you to test the service before investing in a subscription.
eMeals
Best For
Best for individuals on special diets who want to save time on recipe searching
Menu/Meal Plans
eMeals offers dinner, lunch, and breakfast plans. Lunch and breakfast plans are optional and they can be combined with the standard dinner subscription.
Recipes/Meal Options
eMeals provides 7 dinner, 7 lunch, and 7 breakfast recommendations per week. You can choose the recipes you want to cook.
Meal & Recipe Variety
eMeals provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes. You can opt for 30-minute, budget-friendly, clean eating, diabetic, gluten-free, heart-healthy, kid-friendly, low-calorie, low-carb, Mediterranean, Paleo, quick and healthy, slow cooker, vegan, vegetarian or keto recipes.
Food Quality
eMeals does not deliver food.
Nutritional Value & Portion Size
Since eMeals does not deliver groceries but lets you purchase the ingredients for your meals on your own, the nutritional value of the meals you make depends on your grocery choices.
Subscription Flexibility
With eMeals, you can change your meal plan anytime, pause your subscription for 1, 2 or 3 months, and opt out of renewals at the end of the subscription period.
Refunds
eMeals does not offer prorated refunds unless your subscription is terminated by the service itself. It offers a 14-day free trial that lets you test the service before subscribing.

Suitable For

PlateJoy
Meals For Families
Meals For Kids
Meals For Seniors
Meals For One
eMeals
Meals For Families
Meals For Kids
Meals For Seniors
Meals For One

Compare Meal Options

PlateJoy
Vegetarian Meals
Vegan Meals
Paleo Meals
Keto Meals
Low-Carb Meals
Low-Fat Meals
Meals For Diabetics
Gluten-Free Meals
Organic Meals
Weight Loss Meals
eMeals
Vegetarian Meals
Vegan Meals
Paleo Meals
Keto Meals
Low-Carb Meals
Low-Fat Meals
Meals For Diabetics
Gluten-Free Meals
Organic Meals
Weight Loss Meals

Compare Extras

PlateJoy
A La Carte Menu
Gift Cards
Marketplace
eMeals
A La Carte Menu
Gift Cards
Marketplace

Compare Ratings

PlateJoy
FINAL RATING
9.3/10
Meal Options
Variety
Nutritional Value
Portion Size
Flexibility
Price
eMeals
FINAL RATING
8.7/10
Meal Options
Variety
Nutritional Value
Portion Size
Flexibility
Price

Compare Customer Reviews

PlateJoy
  • Submitted By Cassandra on 05/23/2018
    This really does nothing more than charge you 70 dollars every 6 months for 4 weekly recipes that you can easily find on Google for free. It really doesn't focus on exercise at all. There are much more helpful apps out there if you want assistance with weightloss.
  • Submitted By Hailey Foster on 11/13/2017
    Saves me so much time each week meal planning compared to when I used to do it by hand. Since it coordinates ingredients between recipes it also cuts down on food waste and costs better too. I also, love that it allows you to customize your preferences and change them week to week. I do wish I could import recipes to bring in family favorites, but I hear this feature is coming soon!
  • Submitted By Sarah on 11/08/2017
    Love that it chooses recipes for me, minimizes waste, and provides a KOSHER option! I've been cooking much more frequently because I make my menu for the week, shop once, and then I have everything I need on hand when I get home from work during the week. The recipes are healthy and taste good and provide variety in what I'm eating (choosing what to make has always been the hardest part of meal planning for me). The app and website are easy to use and you can easily change the number of meals and other preferences from week to week. Totally worth the cost.
  • Submitted By Valerie on 10/23/2017
    Five stars if this was more affordable. So useful but the price is very high for families on a tight budget. Maybe it saves money for people with a larger budget, but for us we didn't spend less on groceries. However, it is very handy and the recipes are great especially for whole30. I wish we could justify the very high cost of this service but we can't.
eMeals
  • Submitted By Matt on 05/25/2019
    It was not for us. We wanted to be able to pick and choose individual meals each day, not just a meal plan for the week.
  • Submitted By MD on 08/24/2018
    I didn't expect much from emeals (tried them out with the free trial), but I was pleasantly surprised with what they provide for just 10 bucks per month. I hope they do add more recipes in the future, though.
  • Submitted By Ruth Pearse on 08/11/2018
    Emeals makes my life easier, but 7 recipes per week is just not enough.
  • Submitted By Jessie on 08/01/2018
    Hard to find info on how to cancel. Once I did a few searches and found contact numbers, both numbers were “down for maintenance” the first time I called. Tried back a few times and finally reached someone who cancelled my account without a problem. But the difficulty in cancelling, no online cancellation capability and hidden contact numbers were really aggravating. The recipes were pretty good for the first 6 months (a little low on flavor, but decent), but then started getting pretty repetitive. Would have given 3-4 stars had the cancellation method not been so sketchy.

Winner

PlateJoy is an innovative service that does not provide meals but instead offers fully personalized meal plans based on your preferences and needs. It helps you eat better, stop wasting food and money, and plan all your meals in advance, taking the stress out of everyday cooking. Read our objective PlateJoy review and find out: Is PlateJoy worth it?

Meal Options

With PlateJoy, you can get breakfast, lunch, dinner, batch meal, snack, and dessert recipes. You can choose from low-carb, clean eating, vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, allergen-free, keto, Paleo, pescatarian, gluten-free, batch cooking, and kid-friendly options.

eMeals offers standard dinner meal plans and additional breakfast and lunch plans. The options include 30-minute, budget-friendly, clean eating, diabetic, gluten-free, heart-healthy, kid-friendly, low-calorie, low-carb, Mediterranean, Paleo, quick and healthy, slow cooker, vegan, vegetarian, and keto meals.

Variety

As a PlateJoy subscriber, you have unlimited access to the company’s cookbook. The service suggests about 60 options for your monthly menus, based on your dietary and cooking preferences. You can select the meals you want to cook and remove the ones you do not like.

eMeals brings you 7 dinner recommendations per week, customized to your needs and taste. If you get the additional breakfast and lunch plans, you also get 7 breakfast recommendations and 7 lunch suggestions. You can choose the recipes you like and discard the rest.

Nutritional Value

Since PlateJoy and eMeals leave grocery shopping to you, the nutritional value of the meals you cook with them depends on the foods you purchase. The recipes you receive are selected based on your preferences in regard to calorie count, carb content, and other related factors.

Portion Size

PlateJoy offers recipes that can yield both adult-size and kid-size portions while eMeals focuses on adult-size portions. However, with both services, you only get recipes and buy the ingredients yourself, so you can adjust serving size depending on your appetite.

Flexibility

PlateJoy lets you change your dietary preferences, pause your subscription for 1-2 months, and cancel your subscription whenever you wish. However, it is important to note that the service offers 6-month and 12-month subscriptions. While you can state your decision to cancel at any time and end your subscription directly through your account, you cannot receive a refund for unused services.

eMeals allows you to switch between meal plans, pause your subscription for 1, 2 or 3 months, and cancel your trial or opt out of subscription renewal. The service offers 3-month and 12-month subscriptions. You can cancel by calling the company’s customer service. You cannot get a refund for unused services if you decide to cancel before the end of your subscription period.

Price

With PlateJoy, subscriptions start at $8 per month and you can try it for free for 10 days. eMeals subscriptions start at $5 per month and the service offers a 14-day free trial for new customers. There are no additional costs with either of the services since they do not deliver physical goods.

* All the prices on this website are subject to change without notice. While we put a great deal of effort into making sure that all the prices are accurate, one or more products may have outdated prices. Please visit the specific product’s official website for exact prices.
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