Is ButcherBox Cheaper Than Buying Meat at the Grocery Store? I Did the Math

Convenience and quality typically come at a price, but every once in a while we stumble across a service that delivers both and offers savings, too. Meal kits are one example. 

Buying meat from the grocery store is how most people get steak, fish and chicken, but online meat delivery services and butchers-by-mail have become popular of late. ButcherBox is our favorite meat box subscription. It’s convenient and easy to manage and the company sources high-quality and humanely raised meat to be delivered to your door. 

We dig the service, as evidenced by our full review here, but is ButcherBox also cheaper than a grocery store?

To find out, I did the math to see how much an average shipment of ButcherBox’s premium meats cost if you were to buy the same — or very similar — meats at a midrange grocery store like Wegman’s.

After crunching the numbers for three months of shipments, I found that ButcherBox offers significant savings versus the same organic and grass-fed meats when bought from a brick-and-mortar market. If you include the cost of ButcherBox’s promotional gift (three pounds of organic chicken in every box for a year,) ButcherBox is a full 15% cheaper.

As good as that sounds, ButcherBox still might not be the cheaper option for everyone. (Don’t worry, I’ll explain.) 

Here’s how we did the math and exactly how expensive — or inexpensive — ButcherBox is compared with buying quality meats at a grocery store. 

What is ButcherBox?

ButcherBox is a meat subscription that sends quality meats in custom or curated packages, and I do stress quality. 

ButcherBox’s beef is grass-fed and humanely raised and much of it comes from Australia which famously has higher beef production standards than those in the US. Chicken and poultry from ButcherBox are also certified humanely raised (GAP 3 or 4). If you’re confused about poultry labels, that’s because they’re confusing. Here’s a helpful guide for what chicken labels really mean.

ButcherBox also includes only humanely raised pork and wild-caught seafood in its boxes. If you’ve held a package of wild, caught salmon up against a filet of farmed salmon, surely you’ve noticed the difference in color and quality — but also price. 

As someone who has covered the food business for more than five years, I’ve learned which designations matter and which ones don’t. ButcherBox focuses on sourcing meat with grades and standards that promote sustainable farming and humane treatment of animals, all resulting in better meat. ButcherBox is proud of its high standards and outlines them in great detail here. 

How much does ButcherBox cost?

ButcherBox has two plans: A custom box of meats chosen by you, or a curated box in which the selection is left up to them. For curated plans, you’ll receive a box every 30, 60, 90 or 120 days with a mix of ground beef, steaks, pork cuts, organic chicken pieces (mostly boneless,) and the occasional cut of bison or other red meat. 

ButcherBox also has two sizes for each subscription: regular and large. The regular box is 8 to 11 pounds of meat per month, while a large order is exactly double that — 16 to 22 pounds. The regular-sized curated box costs $146 while the Big Box is $269. 

Shipping is free or, more accurately, built into the subscription price.

How I Did the Math

For this exercise, I chose ButcherBox’s curated subscription and used the smaller box (8 to 11 pounds of meat each month.)  To compare ButcherBox prices with those of a typical grocery store, I used my local supermarket, Wegmans. Wegmans is not a budget supermarket, but it’s also not the most expensive option in my neighborhood. I chose Wegman’s both because it’s where I shop when I shop in person, but also because it has a sprawling selection of quality meats, including grass-fed beef, organic chicken and wild-caught seafood.

I tallied up the items from the three months of ButcherBox’s and curated plan: January 2024, December 2023 and November 2023. When finding a match at Wegman’s, I used the cheapest option for each item. For instance, if the ButcherBox shipment included a 3-pound package of organic chicken breast, I used the cheapest per-pound option of organic chicken breast available at Wegman’s. 

If an item was on sale at Wegman’s, I use the discounted sale price since that’s a perk of grocery store shopping. I made these calculations on Feb. 7, 2024. I used Wegman’s direct pricing, not a third-party delivery vendor such as Instacart or DoorDash since they often have inflated prices. 

In addition to the items sent in ButcherBox’s custom plan, I also included the ButcherBox free promotional gifts when calculating the total grocery store cost. New subscribers to ButcherBox receive a gift of meat or fish in their monthly deliveries for a full year. In some cases, the gift is included for the entirety of your subscription. 

Right now, the gift for new subscribers is a choice of 2 pounds of grass-fed beef, 3 pounds of organic chicken thighs or 1 pound of premium steak tips. Three pounds of organic chicken thighs at Wegman’s costs $23.67, so I included that in each month’s total.

ButcherBox vs. Grocery Store: Which Is Cheaper?

When I averaged out the three months of itemized list purchased at the grocery store plus the free gift included in each delivery, the total for meats when purchased at Wegman’s was $170.72. Compare that to ButcherBox’s monthly cost of $146 and about $23 cheaper per month if you use the subscription service. 

If you exclude the free gift that expires after a year, then the savings drop down to just $1, but ButcherBox is still the more cost-effective option.

For the Big Box, ButcherBox savings are even, well, bigger. To double the meat at Wegman’s would cost about $341 versus ButcherBox which costs $269 for a double order of the curated plan. That’s a total savings of $72 per month with ButcherBox.

So is ButcherBox as good a deal as it seems? For some, it is. 

You might be thinking this is a no-brainer, and have your mouse fired up ready to check out as a new ButcherBox subscriber; that very well may be a smart money move for you. 

First, consider that ButcherBox specializes in quality meats and, at times, premium cuts. If you already buy organic poultry, wild-caught salmon and seafood and don’t mind splurging on a grass-fed ribeye steak, ButcherBox is clearly a better deal than shopping at a mid-range or high-end grocery store. 

Plus you don’t have to lug the meats home with you. Your haul of beef, pork chicken and fish shows up at your door, ready to be thawed or frozen for later.

Keep in mind…

If you don’t already buy high-end meat, you might end up spending more

If you aren’t as particular about the type of meat you cook and eat, ButcherBox may end up being the more expensive option. While I didn’t run the numbers for non-organic poultry, non-grass-fed beef and non-humanely-raised pork, those varieties of meats are significantly cheaper than the higher-quality cuts included in ButcherBox’s deliveries. Even with the free monthly gift, ButcherBox would be a more expensive option than most supermarkets. 

If the quality of the meat matters, and likewise, the treatment of animals during production, ButcherBox will not only save you time and effort versus a trip to the supermarket, it can save you real money, too. 

For more We Do the Math, see how much meal kits cost versus buying the same groceries and how much you can save making soda water at home in a year. To beef up your kitchen skills, here’s the one trick chefs use to tell when steak is done and the best alternatives to expensive ribeye.