MenuMaker vs Mealime vs Plan to Eat: 2025 Comparison Guide

The Meal Planning App Dilemma

You know you need to start meal planning. The grocery bills are out of control, you're ordering takeout three times a week, and every evening starts with that dreaded question: "What's for dinner?"

You've decided an app can help—but which one? With hundreds of meal planning apps promising to solve your dinner dilemma, the choice can feel overwhelming. Three names keep coming up in your research: MenuMaker, Mealime, and Plan to Eat.

Each has passionate fans. Each promises to simplify your life. But they take fundamentally different approaches to meal planning. This comprehensive comparison will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each app so you can choose the right one for your family.

Quick Comparison Table

Feature	MenuMaker	Mealime	Plan to Eat
Pricing	$4.99/month	Free + $3/month Pro	$5.95/month or $49/year
Free Trial	3 days	Free tier available	14 days
Recipe Source	Curated recipes	In-app recipes only	Import your own
Planning Method	Automated planning	Guided selection	Manual scheduling
Grocery Integration	Instacart, Walmart, Target, Smiths, Harmons	Instacart, Walmart, others	List only (no ordering)
Best For	Busy families wanting automation	Simple, quick recipes	Recipe collectors

MenuMaker: Automated Meal Planning for Busy Families

MenuMaker takes a fundamentally different approach: instead of browsing recipes, you tell the app your preferences once, and it automatically generates complete weekly meal plans tailored to your family.

How MenuMaker Works

After a quick onboarding where you specify dietary preferences, family size, and any food restrictions, MenuMaker creates a full week of personalized meals in seconds. Don’t like a suggested meal? Tap to regenerate that day with a new option. Once you’re happy with your plan, your complete grocery list is automatically generated and can be sent directly to your preferred retailer—Instacart, Walmart, Target, Smiths, or Harmons—for delivery or pickup.

MenuMaker Strengths

Speed: Plan your entire week in under 5 minutes. No browsing, no decision fatigue—just automated meal plans.
Smart Personalization: The more you use MenuMaker, the better it understands your family’s preferences and generates meals you’ll actually make.
Seamless Grocery Shopping: Direct integration with Instacart, Walmart, Target, Smiths, and Harmons means you can order all your groceries without leaving the app.
Family-Focused: Designed specifically for busy parents who need practical, kid-friendly meal solutions.
Swap Flexibility: Easily swap out individual meals if you’re not in the mood for a suggestion.
Nutrition Tracking: See nutritional information for every meal to ensure balanced family eating.
Personal Assistant: Built-in assistant to answer meal planning questions and provide cooking guidance.

Who MenuMaker Is Best For

Perfect for: Busy working parents who want meal planning done FOR them, not by them. If you value time over customization and want the fastest path from "what’s for dinner?" to food on the table, MenuMaker delivers.

Not ideal for: Home cooks who love collecting recipes, experimenting with new ingredients, or who want complete control over every meal detail.

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Mealime: Simple, Healthy, 30-Minute Recipes

Mealime has built a loyal following by focusing on one thing: making healthy cooking simple. Every recipe in the app takes about 30 minutes and is designed to minimize both prep work and cleanup.

How Mealime Works

You start by setting your dietary preferences (keto, vegan, paleo, etc.) and customizing for allergies or dislikes. Each week, Mealime presents you with recipe options. You browse through these options, select the meals you want to make, and the app generates your grocery list. The free version gives you access to basic recipes, while Mealime Pro ($3/month) unlocks exclusive recipes, nutritional details, and the ability to customize calories.

Mealime Strengths

Free Tier: Unlike most competitors, Mealime offers a genuinely useful free version—no trial that expires.
Recipe Quality: Every recipe is tested and optimized for simplicity. Clear instructions and minimal ingredients make cooking stress-free.
30-Minute Meals: Realistic cooking times mean you can actually make dinner on busy weeknights.
Cooking Mode: Step-by-step cooking instructions displayed on separate screens help you follow along without getting overwhelmed.
Diet Flexibility: Strong support for 8+ diet types including keto, vegan, pescatarian, and paleo.
Grocery Integration: Connects with Instacart, Walmart, Safeway, and other major retailers.

Mealime Limitations

Recipe Browsing Required: You still need to spend time each week browsing and selecting recipes—it’s not automated.
No Recipe Importing: You’re limited to Mealime’s recipe library—you can’t add your own favorites.
Less Personalization: The app doesn’t learn your preferences over time; you manually select each week.
Premium Features Locked: Nutritional information and calorie customization require the paid subscription.

Who Mealime Is Best For

Perfect for: Singles or couples who enjoy browsing recipes and want a simple, guided meal planning experience. If you like having control over exactly what you make each week and appreciate clear, tested recipes, Mealime is excellent.

Not ideal for: Large families needing bulk meal planning, or anyone who wants to import and organize their existing recipe collection.

Plan to Eat: The Digital Recipe Organizer

Plan to Eat takes a different philosophy entirely: it’s not trying to give you recipes. Instead, it’s a powerful organizational tool for the recipes you already have and love.

How Plan to Eat Works

You import recipes from anywhere on the web using their browser clipper tool, or manually enter family recipes. These go into your digital recipe book. Then you drag and drop recipes onto a calendar to plan your week. Plan to Eat automatically generates an organized grocery list based on your planned meals. You can scale serving sizes, track leftovers, and even plan frozen meals.

Plan to Eat Strengths

Complete Customization: Total control over your recipe collection and meal planning. This is YOUR recipe book, digitized.
Recipe Importing: Grab recipes from any website with the browser clipper—it extracts ingredients and instructions automatically.
Calendar-Based Planning: Visual calendar interface makes it easy to plan weeks or months in advance.
Family Sharing: Multiple family members can access and edit the same plan—great for shared household meal planning.
Leftover Tracking: Mark meals as leftovers so you don’t forget to eat them (reducing food waste).
Customizable Shopping Lists: Organize your grocery list by store or aisle—super flexible.

Plan to Eat Limitations

No Recipes Included: You’re starting with a blank slate—the app doesn’t provide any recipes.
Manual Planning: You need to actively plan every meal by dragging recipes onto the calendar. No automation.
Higher Price: At $5.95/month (or $49/year), it’s more expensive than alternatives for what’s essentially an organizational tool.
Setup Time: Building your recipe library takes significant upfront effort.
No Free Option: Only a 14-day trial; no permanent free tier.

Who Plan to Eat Is Best For

Perfect for: Home cooks with existing recipe collections who want a powerful organizational system. If you love collecting recipes from food blogs, have family recipes you make regularly, and want maximum flexibility in planning, Plan to Eat is fantastic.

Not ideal for: Beginners who need recipe inspiration, or busy families who want meal planning automated rather than organized.

Feature-by-Feature Deep Dive

Meal Planning Approach

This is where the apps differ most dramatically:

MenuMaker automatically generates complete personalized meal plans. You set preferences once, and the app does the planning for you each week. Planning time: 2-5 minutes.

Mealime presents curated recipe options each week that you browse and select. You’re guided but still choosing. Planning time: 15-20 minutes.

Plan to Eat gives you a blank calendar and your recipe library. You manually drag recipes onto days. Planning time: 20-30 minutes.

Winner for speed: MenuMaker. Winner for control: Plan to Eat. Winner for balance: Mealime.

Recipe Sources and Variety

MenuMaker provides curated recipes optimized for families. You can’t import external recipes, but you can save favorites to request more often.

Mealime has a library of hundreds of tested 30-minute recipes, with new ones added weekly for Pro members. All recipes are exclusive to Mealime.

Plan to Eat has no built-in recipes—infinite variety because you’re importing from anywhere on the internet or entering family recipes.

Winner: Depends on your preference. MenuMaker and Mealime win for convenience; Plan to Eat wins for unlimited variety.

Grocery Shopping Integration

MenuMaker integrates directly with Instacart, Walmart, Target, Smiths, and Harmons. Your grocery list automatically populates in your preferred retailer for one-click ordering and delivery or pickup.

Mealime connects with Instacart, Walmart, Safeway, Albertsons, and several other retailers. Good integration options.

Plan to Eat generates organized grocery lists but doesn’t integrate with grocery delivery services. You’ll copy the list manually or shop in person.

Winner: Tie between MenuMaker and Mealime—both offer excellent multi-retailer integration. Plan to Eat lags behind.

Nutritional Information

MenuMaker shows complete nutritional information for every meal, including calories, macros, and key vitamins.

Mealime includes nutrition data, but only for Pro subscribers ($3/month). Free users don’t see nutritional details.

Plan to Eat can calculate nutrition if recipes include ingredient weights, but it’s less automatic since you’re importing recipes.

Winner: MenuMaker for included nutrition tracking.

User Interface and Experience

MenuMaker has a modern, streamlined mobile-first interface. Everything is designed for quick interactions—swipe to swap meals, tap to order groceries.

Mealime is known for its clean, intuitive design. The cooking mode is particularly praised for making it easy to follow recipes step-by-step.

Plan to Eat has a more utilitarian interface. It’s functional and powerful but less visually polished than the others.

Winner: Mealime for user experience, MenuMaker for modern design, Plan to Eat for power users who prioritize function over form.

Pricing: Which Offers the Best Value?

MenuMaker - $4.99/month

Automated personalized weekly meal plans
Unlimited meal swaps
Complete nutritional tracking
Personal assistant for meal planning questions
Multi-retailer grocery integration (Instacart, Walmart, Target, Smiths, Harmons)
3-day free trial

Value proposition: Pay for time savings and automation. If planning takes you 30 minutes weekly, MenuMaker saves you 2+ hours per month.

Mealime - Free + $3/month Pro

Free: Basic recipes, meal planning, shopping lists
Pro ($3/month): Exclusive recipes, nutrition info, calorie customization, meal plan history

Value proposition: Best entry point. Try the free version indefinitely, upgrade only if you want premium features.

Plan to Eat - $5.95/month or $49/year

Unlimited recipe storage
Calendar meal planning
Family sharing
Leftover tracking
14-day free trial

Value proposition: Pay for organization and flexibility. If you have a large recipe collection and cook frequently, the annual plan ($4.08/month) is reasonable.

Best value: Mealime’s free tier is unbeatable for budget-conscious users. MenuMaker offers the best value for busy families when you consider time saved. Plan to Eat is worth it for serious home cooks with large recipe libraries.

Real User Experiences

What MenuMaker Users Say

Users consistently praise the time savings: “I used to spend 45 minutes every Sunday planning meals and making grocery lists. Now it takes 5 minutes.” The personalization gets mixed reviews initially (“first week was hit or miss”) but strong reviews after a few weeks (“now it knows my family better than I do”). The personal assistant feature is frequently mentioned as helpful for cooking questions. The biggest complaint is the lack of recipe importing—some users wish they could add grandma’s recipes.

What Mealime Users Say

Mealime users love the recipe quality and simplicity. Reviews frequently mention: “every recipe I’ve tried has been delicious and actually takes 30 minutes.” The free tier gets praise (“can’t believe this is free”), though some wish more features were included without paying. Main criticism: lack of variety over time—“after 6 months, I’ve made most of the recipes that fit my diet.”

What Plan to Eat Users Say

Plan to Eat has devoted fans who love the flexibility: “finally, all my recipes in one place.” The recipe clipper is frequently praised (“it’s like magic—grabs recipes perfectly from any site”). Criticisms focus on the learning curve (“took me a few weeks to get the hang of it”) and the price relative to alternatives (“wish it was cheaper for what’s basically organization”).

The Verdict: Which App Should You Choose?

There’s no universal winner—the best app depends on your cooking style, family needs, and what you value most.

Choose MenuMaker if:

You want meal planning automated, not just organized
Time is your most precious resource
You have a busy family and need kid-friendly meal solutions
You like the idea of the app learning and adapting to your preferences
You want seamless grocery ordering with multiple retailer options
You’d benefit from a personal assistant for meal planning questions

Choose Mealime if:

You’re budget-conscious and want a great free option
You like browsing and selecting your own recipes each week
You value simple, tested 30-minute recipes
You’re cooking for 1-2 people rather than a large family
You follow a specific diet (keto, vegan, paleo, etc.)

Choose Plan to Eat if:

You have a large existing recipe collection
You love collecting recipes from food blogs and websites
You want complete control over every aspect of meal planning
You need to coordinate meal planning with other household members
You’re an experienced home cook who doesn’t need recipe suggestions

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I switch between apps if I don’t like my first choice?

Absolutely. All three apps offer free trials or free tiers, so you can test multiple options before committing. Your subscription can be canceled anytime.

Which app is best for weight loss or fitness goals?

MenuMaker and Mealime Pro both offer detailed nutritional tracking and calorie customization. MenuMaker can automatically generate meal plans within specific calorie ranges. Mealime Pro lets you set calorie targets and filter recipes accordingly. Plan to Eat can track nutrition but requires more manual work.

Do any of these apps work for large families (5+ people)?

MenuMaker is specifically designed for families and easily scales recipes. Mealime works but is optimized for smaller households. Plan to Eat handles large families well since you can scale any recipe to any serving size.

Which app has the best recipe quality?

Mealime is renowned for tested, reliable recipes with realistic cooking times. MenuMaker’s recipes are family-focused and practical. Plan to Eat’s recipe quality depends entirely on what you import—it could be amazing or terrible depending on your sources.

Can I use these apps if I have food allergies?

Yes—all three accommodate allergies and dietary restrictions. MenuMaker learns your restrictions and excludes those ingredients automatically. Mealime lets you mark dislikes and allergies in settings. Plan to Eat requires you to manually avoid recipes with allergens since you’re choosing what to import.

Which app saves the most money on groceries?

All three reduce food waste and impulse purchases by providing organized shopping lists. MenuMaker and Mealime optimize recipes to reuse ingredients across the week, minimizing specialty purchases. Plan to Eat saves money if you’re diligent about using up leftovers and planning around sales.

Final Recommendation

If we had to recommend one app for most busy families, it would be MenuMaker. The automation solves the hardest part of meal planning—the decision-making—and the time savings are significant. For families juggling work, kids’ activities, and busy schedules, those 30 minutes saved weekly add up to nearly 30 hours per year. Plus, the built-in personal assistant helps answer cooking questions when you need guidance.

That said, Mealime is an excellent starting point if you’re new to meal planning or on a tight budget. The free tier is genuinely useful, and you can always upgrade later if you want more features.

And for serious home cooks with recipe collections, Plan to Eat offers unmatched flexibility and organization.

The good news? You don’t have to choose blindly. Take advantage of the free trials and test what works for your family. The best meal planning app is the one you’ll actually use consistently.

Ready to Try MenuMaker?

Experience automated meal planning with our 3-day free trial. See how much time you can save with personalized meal plans, seamless grocery ordering, and a personal assistant to answer your questions.