w,
My teenage son has taken an interest in cooking and trying new things via the various “meal kit delivery services”. He said he would try new things if we got the boxes that portion everything out for your and send recipes. I’m good with that idea. So we’re working our way through them.
I can’t WAIT to tell you about them and which ones we liked the most.
HOWEVER
I need to let you know which one I DO NOT recommend and why.
That would be EveryPlate
The recipes that we got were delicious. We will absolutely be shopping for the ingredients and making some of them again in the future.
The problem I have with them is their business practices. First off, their billing is weird. They bill you for the base cost of the box but if you have premium recipes, you’re billed for that separately and if you have any add-on items, you’re also billed for that separately. So my box with them actually had three invoices that I paid. This is confusing when you check out because even though I chose the premium recipe and the add-on items, the bill I “paid” when I checked out was just for the base box. Then it auto-bills the additional invoices. I don’t recall actually seeing those billed items.
The very first time I got a box from them, back on 2021, I noticed this practice. I didn’t like it but thought, well, it’s weird but it’s just how they do it. And I only got the one box from them that time so I didn’t give it anymore thought.
But after trying them a second time, I like it even less and I think it’s part of their shadiness, because when you check out, you think you’re paying one price, but you’re actually paying more.
But that’s not even the worst of it.
Here’s why I can’t recommend Every Plate Meal Kit Delivery:
When G decided he wanted to try meal subscription boxes, we started with Every Plate because they were advertising $1 menu items, including $1 steak for life. Sounds good, right? The ability to add certain extra items for $1.00 was what made this box a good value. Without that, I wasn’t really impressed with what I got for the price.
After my experience, it feels like they reel you in with the promise of “$1 add-on menu items” including steak, but they don’t actually plan on following through.
I ordered my box of four two-person meals and chose Steak, Garlic Bread and Potato Wedges as add on items. These items added an additional charge of $3 plus tax.
My box arrived. It contained NONE of my add on items.
So I contact help chat and they “are very sorry” and will “happily refund the $3 charge.” I told them that wasn’t sufficient. I wanted the items. They promised these items to me as part of the promotion I signed up under.
I was told that’s not possible because they work with local sources and those items are no longer available.
But, guess what is still available on their website? $1 steak, $1 garlic bread and $1 potato wedges. I could literally, at that moment they were telling me they couldn’t send out my items I was missing, go add those very items to another box. If they aren’t available, then why were they still on the website? That really wasn’t adding up.
I pressed the issue with support chat and was cut off. Now, anyone that has ever done any kind of support chat knows that they always ask, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?” “Please rate this chat at the end.” “Have a great day.”
Not this time. The next message in the chat said they did not intend to “set incorrect expectations for our valued customers and we do prioritize reported issues in our internal systems. However, it is important to know that these reports undergo a thorough evaluation by multiple teams to pinpoint problem areas.”
Then the agent ended the chat. Just like that… “agent has left the chat.”
It Feels Gimmick-y
So if you ask me, the $1 menu is a gimmick. They have no intentions of sending you steak for $1. If you contact them about it, they refund your buck but they’ve already gotten your money for the whole box. So they win.
If they had intentions of holding up their $1 menu, then they would’ve sent out the $1 items I ordered instead of issuing a $3 refund.
After my disappointing support chat, I went to their Facebook page and left a review. Of course, because I did that, every third post in my Facebook news feed was a sponsored post for EveryPlate from Facebook accounts like Budget Mama, Food Babe, etc. So there are bloggers and influencers out there more than happy to take money to push an ad to your news feed for a company that they probably don’t even use. Or if they do use them, they’re getting boxes as kickback for sponsoring ads. And you know those boxes will be packed correctly. THIS review is coming from someone who signed up for the service like any normal customer. And I discovered that this is how normal customers are treated.
We will not use EveryPlate ever again. There are just too many others out there to try. There is no sense in wasting time on a company that doesn’t follow through with their promos.
Stay tuned to find out the ones we LOVED!
Check out this better experience we’ve had with Dinnerly:
Dinnerly Meal Subscription Review | Definitely the most kid-friendly so far!
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