If you’ve found this article, you likely are looking for a way to make meal prep easier. Eating at home is certainly a great way to save money, but it’s not also easy to know what to cook, and going to the grocery store can be a chore. In this eMeals review, I’ll share with you whether or not I’ll answer the question, “Is eMeals worth it?” and also share with you a negative experience I had with eMeals.
eMeals has meal plans available to suit every dietary preference. However, eMeals can only be accessed on a smart phone, doesn’t have a monthly subscription option, and is hard to cancel. While eMeals may be worth it for some, it’s important to know the pitfalls before signing up.
Read on for the details on what eMeals has to offer, and why I don’t feel that eMeals is worth it.
What is eMeals?
First, let’s get into what is eMeals, and how it works.
The eMeals website breaks the process of using eMeals down into 3 easy steps:
- Choose Your Meals
- Get Your Groceries
- Enjoy Delicious meals
The basic way that eMeals works is that there are several different menu plans to choose from. Regardless of your dietary needs or preferences, there will be a plan that at least in theory is right for you.
eMeals Plans
Here are some of the eMeals plans:
- Quick and Healthy
- Low Carb
- Keto
- Clean Eating
- Budget Friendly
- 30 Minutes
- Low Calorie
- Plant Based
- Kid Friendly
- Gluten Free
- Diabetic
- Heart Healthy
- Paleo
You choose what plan you want, and the number of people you cook for. From there, each week you get a menu, complete with a shopping list and recipes.
According to eMeals, using their service saves you two hours per week, and helps you break out of “the dinner time rut.”
So far so good, right?
Problems with eMeals
Unfortunately, despite the gorgeous food photography, smiling faces, and multiple meal plans, eMeals isn’t for everyone.
Here are some things that I don’t like about eMeals.
eMeals Doesn’t Have a Monthly Subscription
There are two subscription options for eMeals. The three-month subscription costs $29.99 (for a monthly cost of $9.99) and the annual subscription is $59.88 a year (for a monthly cost of $4.99).
Unfortunately, there is no monthly subscription option. The problem with the lack of a monthly subscription is that if money is tight, you may not want to pay for three months in advance. In addition to that, you may enjoy it for a short period of time and then get bored with it. Three months, or even worse, a year, is a long time to be stuck with a subscription you really don’t want.
Generally speaking, I prefer to go with monthly subscriptions, with an option to upgrade to a longer subscription term. With eMeals, that’s not an option.
eMeals isn’t Available on the Web
While I have, and use a smart phone on a daily basis, there are still times when it’s much easier to access and print information from my computer.
So, while you can sign up for eMeals on the website, you can’t actually access any of the meal plans, recipes, or shopping lists from the web.
While it’s great that there’s an app, and many of us, including me, use apps, for anyone that wants to use a computer instead, that’s not possible.
If you like to print recipes or meal plans and keep them in a binder, or use a printed version when cooking or shopping, you’ll be out of luck.
The eMeals Free Trial is Hard to Cancel
This last issue is the thing that motivated me to write this article.
A selling point with eMeals is that there is a free, 14-day trial. If you cancel before the trial ends, you don’t pay anything.
Unfortunately, you have to put in your credit card information to get the free trial.
Now this is all well and good, except after just one day of looking at the menus and not finding any that really stood out to me, I decided to cancel.
That should have been no problem, since I was only one day into the free trial. And I’m very conscientious about cancelling subscriptions I don’t want to keep, so I really wasn’t worried about being charged for a service I didn’t want.
But here’s what happened.
I went into the dashboard, and had to first find where to cancel. Once I found it, I clicked on “cancel.”
That should have been the end of it. So, imagine my surprise when two weeks later, a $29.99 charge ended up on my credit card.
I immediately went back into my account, and went through the cancellation process again.
This time I noted that I had to say that I wanted to cancel at least three times.
Just because you think you’ve cancelled, doesn’t mean you have. You have to click on cancel, and then find another link to click on cancel again, and then find another link to click on cancel again.
Finally, after a good amount of effort, you have actually cancelled your account.
It’s easy to think you’ve cancelled, but haven’t. It’s one of those deceptive practices that companies use to increase revenue.
After I was surprised by the $29.99 charge to my credit card, I immediately emailed support and let them know I had attempted to cancel, but it hadn’t gone through. I requested a refund.
Here is the response I got:
Thank you for contacting eMeals!
Upon reviewing your account, I can confirm that your subscription has been cancelled and there will be no further charges. However, in accordance with our terms and conditions, you are not eligible for a refund. You will have access to your subscription until 8/09/2022, at which time your account will expire.
We are sorry to see you go but thank you for giving eMeals a try!
Have a wonderful day!
I’m sorry, but after getting an email like that, I’m not having a wonderful day.
I am not prone to writing negative reviews, but I felt this whole set up was unethical. My experience was so negative, that I felt I had to warn people so no one else ends up paying a fee they don’t want.
Is eMeals Worth It?
Now let’s get back to the big question of whether or not eMeals is worth it. It could be. If you like eating what other people tell you to eat, and don’t mind spending more on your grocery bill, it could be worth it.
It will save you money if it keeps you from eating out.
But due to not having a web-based option for accessing the meal plans, shopping lists, and recipes, no monthly plan, and even more so the unethical practice of making it hard to cancel a subscription, with no option for a refund, I personally don’t recommend it.
If you do decide to take advantage of the free eMeals trial, or if you decide to use it for awhile and then want to cancel, just be careful to jump through all the right hoops to make the cancellation go through.
Otherwise, you’ll end up with an unpleasant surprise on your credit card bill, and with their stringent no-refund policy, you’ll be left with a bad taste in your mouth.
