Too Busy to Shop? Here Are the 10 Best Grocery Delivery Services That'll Do It for You
Nowadays, it seems like we don't have enough time for the things, people, and hobbies we love, let alone an extra hour or two for life's more mundane tasks, such as grocery shopping. That's where the beauty of grocery delivery services comes in. Our golden age of convenience has extended to stock our fridges and pantries with both healthy snacks and daily indulgences, and we couldn't be happier.
If you're looking to cut down on time spent in the store and on your weekly grocery bill, these services are worth looking into. On the surface, it may seem like there are as many delivery services as there are fruits in the produce section, but we've done the digging to help you find the best fit for your lifestyle. Whether you're a lone vegetarian or feeding a picky family, there's a grocery delivery service on this list for you.
The 10 Best Grocery Delivery Services
- Best Overall: Hive Brands
- Best for Same-Day Delivery: Instacart
- Best for Produce: Amazon Fresh
- Best Organic: Thrive Market
- Best Beyond Food: Shipt
- Best for Vegetarians: Hungryroot
- Best for Meal Kits: HelloFresh Market
- Best for Meat: Rastelli's
- Best Budget: Walmart Plus
- Most Sustainable: Hungry Harvest
Best Overall: Hive Brands
When picking the right grocery delivery service, it seems like you can't have it all. One vendor might be sustainable but requires a hefty subscription fee, while another is more affordable but not as ethically sourced. But Hive Brands is hands-down the best grocery delivery service because it combines a commitment to social good with great-tasting products.
Beyond featuring delicious, healthy groceries at a fraction of the retail price, Hive Brands keeps sustainability and social impact at the forefront of its business model. Perhaps its best feature is the ability to build your shopping cart based on causes like community & economic development, the environment, and poverty & hunger, to name a few. All the products in your cart are sourced to support these causes for a shopping experience you can feel good about. Plus, it has a low carbon footprint and recyclable packaging, making it all around one of the best grocery delivery services out there.
Get started: No subscription required. Free delivery for $50+ orders, and $6 delivery for orders under $50. There's a $10 minimum to shop; hivebrands.com
Related — The 10 Best Online Grocery Delivery Services, Including HelloFresh's New Market
Best Same-Day Delivery: Instacart
Same-day grocery delivery can be a real lifesaver, especially when you're missing just one ingredient or are way too busy to make your weekly grocery run yourself. That's where Instacart comes to your rescue. It offers unbeatable same-day delivery from more than 400,000 stores like Target, ALDI, and even your neighborhood grocer. What's more, each store lists an estimated delivery time so you can find a window that works best for you.
It's not just for groceries either. Your personal Instacart shopper can also swing by the pharmacy, the pet store, and even nearby retail stores. Simply enter your location, view your eligible stores, and get everything you need delivered to your front door that same day.
Get started: Delivery starts at $4 for orders $35 and over for non-members. Get free delivery for every order over $35 by signing up for Instacart Express ($10 per month or $99 per year); instacart.com
Best for Produce: Amazon Fresh
It's easy to order pantry items and not think twice about it, but getting fresh produce from a grocery delivery service is its own ordeal. Luckily for us, Amazon Fresh uses all of the company's resources to wipe our worries away. The service lives up to its name with produce ripe and ready for same-day delivery. Amazon owning Whole Foods makes for high-quality fruits and veggies, plus a wide variety of organic snacks and other delectable goods.
You need an Amazon Prime membership to use Amazon Fresh, but it's no extra charge for Prime members. Amazon Fresh currently delivers to select cities, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C. Check your zip code here to see if you're in the service area.
Get started: You must have an Amazon Prime membership to use Amazon Fresh. Free shipping on orders $35 and up, and $10 shipping for orders under $35; amazon.com/fresh
Related — 5 Produce Delivery Services That Will Get You Quality Fruits and Veggies Safely
Best Organic: Thrive Market
Thrive Market's mission is to make healthy living easy, and it does a pretty great job. This grocery delivery service delivers natural, organic products like sustainable snacks and even beauty products right to your front door. Whereas traditional grocery stores make you dig to find vegan, keto, and gluten-free items, Thrive Market allows you to easily filter their large inventory to suit your dietary needs.
You can opt to order some of your tried-and-true favorites through their grocery delivery service or be a bit adventurous and let Thrive Market pick out your next go-to craving with its curated bundles. Either way, you'll have the comfort of knowing your groceries are ethically sourced, processed in a zero-waste warehouse, and brought to you with carbon neutral shipping. Oh, and did we mention Thrive Market will price match to give you the best deal available?
Get started: Membership is $60 annually or $10 per month. Shipping is free for orders over $49, frozen food orders over $99, and wine orders over $79. Orders less than those amounts ship for $6 to $14; thrivemarket.com
Related — Want to Try a Meal Kit Service? These Are the 12 Best to Try Now
Best Bulk Delivery: Shipt
Going to run errands usually means stopping in at multiple stores. While other grocery delivery services are limited to, well, groceries, Shipt hits all your usual stops and beyond. Simply download the app, enter your zip code, and browse stores in your area like Target, Costco, Petco, and various pharmacies. Browse the Deals tab for exclusive offers on all your favorite products, no coupon clipping necessary. Once you've built your cart, a personal shopper will pick up all the items you need (and a few you just want). They'll text you updates about delivery time, out-of-stock items, and anything else you should know along the way. Overall, Shipt is the most efficient way to get bulk items with same-day delivery.
Get started: Shipt memberships are $99 for a year of service or $14 per month. Delivery is free for orders over $35 and costs $7 for orders under $35; shipt.com
Best for Vegetarians: Hungryroot
Sure, all grocery delivery services offer produce and plant-based items in some form, but Hungryroot goes the extra mile. Its mission is to curate healthy groceries alongside simple recipes. While traditional meal kit services send you precisely portioned ingredients, Hungryroot sends full-sized products with various recipes, including grain bowls, flatbreads, and even themed dishes like Vampire's Delight Tortellini. Though Hungryroot still sells meat, it mainly carries various tofus and tempehs, beans and lentils, and plant-based meat alternatives. Plus, you'll find uncommon products like watermelon radishes to help expand your palate.
Hungryroot's service starts with a quiz asking how many you're feeding, what your grocery goals are (healthier meals, shopping less, plant-based eating, etc.), any dietary restrictions, and your general taste preferences. Then, the algorithm works its magic to plan your weekly meals, snacks, and servings. Hungryroot truly does make planning plant-based meals a breeze.
Get started: Weekly deliveries start at $59, with recipe meal kits costing between $9 to $10 per serving. Orders over $70 ship for free; otherwise, there's a $7 shipping fee; hungryroot.com
Best for Meal Kits: HelloFresh Market
HelloFresh has long dominated the meal kit market, but it's recently expanded into delivering groceries to your door, along with the meal kits that made it a household name. HelloFresh Market allows subscribers to add on all kinds of grocery goods to their meal plans. We're talking breakfast food, stand-alone sides, fresh produce, proteins, and pantry staples. While its meal ingredients come in generic packaging, HelloFresh Market allows you to shop your favorite brands like Annie's and Pillsbury.
And it wouldn't be HelloFresh without even more meals. In addition to meal prep kits, HelloFresh now also offers heat-and-eat dishes that are ready-made and ripe for the microwave. The grocery delivery service helps simplify shopping further with chef-curated bundles with a seasonal twist, like backyard barbeque or Mother's Day brunch. HelloFresh Market is only available to those already subscribed to their meal kit service, but it's still easy to start. After picking out your weekly meals, simply add on your groceries at checkout.
Get started: HelloFresh starts at $59 a week for meal plans with add-ons from the Market priced at $4 and up. Your meals and groceries ship at a flat rate of $9; hellofresh.com
Related — I've Eaten Over 228 HelloFresh Meals, and They've Drastically Changed My Dinner Routine
Best for Meat: Rastelli's
There's a certain charm that comes with visiting your local butcher shop and leaving with a carefully selected cut of meat. Meat delivery service Rastelli's retains that same charm through the comfort and convenience of ordering online. Their virtual meat counter sells a wide range of proteins, including iconic Wagyu beef and bacon-wrapped filets, seafood like swordfish steaks, plenty of poultry and pork, and even lamb and veal. It also offers various rubs and herb butters to take your meat to the next level of flavor. It's an entire quality meat counter at your fingertips.
The family-owned meat delivery service began 40 years ago in south Philly and has taken pride in its cuts ever since. All its products are responsibly sourced in the U.S. and free of steroids, antibiotics, and hormones.
Get started: Rastelli's doesn't require a membership to shop its meats. Shipping is free for orders over $200, $10 for orders between $100 to $200, and $25 on orders under $100; rastellis.com
Related — The 12 Best Meat Delivery Services to Bring Steak, Chicken, Pork, and More to Your Door
Best Budget: Walmart Plus
One of the biggest myths about grocery delivery services is that they're all expensive. While some services do cost a pretty penny, Walmart Plus offers convenient grocery delivery at an affordable price. It combines the everyday deals found in their stores with perks like next-day and two-day home delivery, scan-and-go through the app while in stores, and even discounted gas at Walmart and Murphy pumps. Best of all, you can order as much as you want as often as you want with no additional delivery or shipping fee, meaning the options are truly endless.
Get started: A Walmart Plus membership costs either $13 per month or $98 for the whole year. And yes, that includes free shipping; walmart.com/plus
Most Sustainable: Hungry Harvest
Having first appeared on Shark Tank back in 2016, Hungry Harvest is a grocery delivery service aiming to reduce food waste and hunger in the U.S. It works directly with farmers to rescue produce that would otherwise not make it to grocery store shelves because of its shape, size, and other visual factors. In fact, every harvest box saves approximately 10 pounds of food from going to waste. Hungry Harvest knows eating the same old vegetables multiple days a week can get old, so it makes sure to work a healthy variety into your deliveries along with helpful storage tips to further reduce waste.
There are multiple ways to shop at Hungry Harvest. You can select one of its three sizes of curated produce boxes to expand your pantry and your palate or opt to build your own box with all of your favorite fruits and veggies. Either way, you'll be contributing to Produce in a SNAP, Hungry Harvest's program to help deliver fresh produce to areas with low food access, all while eating food that would have otherwise gone to waste. Hungry Harvest currently delivers in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Greater Philadelphia, Southern New Jersey, Northern Delaware, South Florida, The Triangle area and Charlotte in North Carolina, and the Detroit Metro Area.
Get started: Produce boxes range from $15 to $42. Shipping is free for orders over $30 and costs $4 otherwise; hungryharvest.net
