Here is my honest (and unpaid) review of ButcherBox, plus the money saving hack I use to make it worth the cost. Most of the reviews I’ve read on other blogs all sound the same… this is not one of them.
LAST UPDATED: April 2024
Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored, nor am I being paid in any way to write it or express a certain opinion. I don’t include advertisements on this blog, but I am a fan of ButcherBox (spoiler alert). The links included within this post are referral links.
If after reading this post, you decide to give ButcherBox a try, please consider using one of my referral links to sign-up. By using my referral link, you’ll receive $50 off your first box! Note that this is a limited time offer. For full transparency, I’ll also receive a credit off my next box when you give them a try. Thank you in advance for supporting this blog!
Why I started using ButcherBox
I started using ButcherBox a little over three years ago, when the pandemic made it more challenging to buy grass-fed, pastured, and sustainably-caught meat and seafood.
It actually wasn’t that easy to buy these things locally before the pandemic. We live in the desert (i.e. no grass) and such options are only recently becoming more mainstream. But, the pandemic made it worse.
The local farmer’s markets were closed. Supply chain issues limited our local food options, and physically going to the grocery store gave me anxiety.
ButcherBox offers high quality and sustainably raised meats, poultry and seafood delivered directly to your door, so it seemed like something worth trying.
What is ButcherBox and how does it work?
ButcherBox is a subscription service that delivers 100% grass-fed beef, free range organic chicken, heritage breed pork, and sustainably caught seafood directly to your door.
What do you get and for how much?
When you sign-up, you select a box of meat, poultry and/or seafood to be delivered to your home. There are no additional shipping costs and everything is delivered frozen (with ice or dry ice, as needed). Additionally the packaging is biodegradable and recyclable.
You can choose from curated boxes (they choose products) or custom boxes (you choose products), as well as a standard size (6 items) or a family size (12 items) box. The price varies by option, but the one I’d recommend selecting to get the most bang for your buck is the standard-sized custom box. I’ll explain why this is later on.
A standard custom box includes six products of your choice for $169.
You can typically choose from 40+ types of meats, poultry or seafood for your six items. Options range from wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon (2 lb. bag) to organic free-range chicken breasts (3 lbs.) to 100% grass-fed NY strips (2 10oz steaks). As I’ll discuss in the money saving section below, there’s a strategy as to what items you select for the initial box.
Since we’ve been using ButcherBox, they’ve added several additional products to their catalog, which has been really convenient for us.
In addition to the fixed box, you can also add other items into your box at discounted prices. Some of these are the same items you can include in your initial box (but at a discount), while others are different products entirely. Unfortunately these items will not ship in your first box, but will be available for any future boxes.
Taking advantage of “member deals” and discounts is the way you make ButcherBox worth the cost. Doing so helped us to save money, bringing our total cost lower than what we were previously paying at the grocery store.
Frequency and cancellation
You will also choose how often you want to receive boxes.
I think the standard recommendation is for monthly deliveries; however, you can increase or reduce your frequency to what you prefer. Reducing your frequency will be the best way to save money. We currently go 3-4 months between deliveries, averaging 4 boxes per year.
You can also reschedule your deliveries at any time before they are billed. It is super easy to change your delivery options and billing dates online.
Subscription services typically scare me, but there is no minimum membership period. You can also easily cancel your membership within your online account… even after the first box, if you decide it’s not for you.
Why we prioritize buying high quality animal products
Let me get on my soapbox for just a moment.
Health, sustainability and animal welfare are important to me. Because of this, we choose to allocate more of our budget to food so that we can buy higher quality animal products and organic produce. Eating this way is currently more expensive than it is to buy conventional produce and animals raised on industrial feedlots.
If you aren’t aware of the differences, I would encourage you to take just a few minutes to learn more about how conventional meat is typically raised in the US. Most meat that you buy from the grocery store comes from industrial feedlots.
Besides being quite disgusting, this method of raising animals is worse for your health, the environment, and the animals. Yes, it’s cheaper than grass-fed and pasture raised meats. But, the hormones, antibiotics, and processed foods those animals ate makes them much more inflammatory and detrimental to our health.
Financial independence gives us the freedom to vote with our wallet
There are ways to make eating high quality food more affordable, but unfortunately, it’s still more expensive than conventional. We are fortunate enough to be in a financial position that allows us to spend more money to support businesses and initiatives that align with our values.
I recognize that not everyone is able to do this.
If you can’t afford high quality animal products, the general consensus (from my research) seems to be that you should reduce your meat consumption. This is to avoid the inflammatory and other detrimental impacts of feedlot meat. This same logic does not apply to fruits and vegetables though. If you can’t afford organic produce, most health experts believe that the benefits of eating conventional produce still outweigh any potential negatives.
Regardless of your budget, here are a few other ways to eat healthier and slash your grocery bill.
My honest review of ButcherBox
I really like it!
When I first signed up for ButcherBox, I honestly didn’t think it would be worth the cost. I fully expected to cancel the subscription after the first box. It seemed expensive and I’m a bit cynical. That said, with the initial discount and free products offered for the first box, it seemed worth giving it a try.
Since then we’ve ordered several additional boxes and continue to be very happy with the service. I typically order 3-4 boxes per year, which supplies the majority of the meat and seafood we consume.
Quality
We live in the desert, so there aren’t a lot of local options nearby. The few grass-fed or pasture-raised animals I’ve found online are still several hours away from us and way more expensive than ButcherBox. We regularly purchased grass-fed meats and pastured poultry from local farmers in North Carolina (and gladly paid more to do so). However, I haven’t yet found any local sources we love since moving to Arizona.
What I have tried are the options available at the grocery store chains in our area. Firstly, there are far fewer options than what is available on ButcherBox. 100% grass-fed ground beef is getting easier to find, but many other cuts of beef are not.
In my experience, the taste and quality of the products I’ve purchased from ButcherBox have actually all been better than the similar products I’ve found in the stores. My favorite is the wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon, which looks and tastes 10x better than any I’ve purchased elsewhere.
I also like the transparency when it comes to the company’s food sources. It’s easy to learn all about the products they offer and even what farms your food came from on the website.
This is just my opinion though. You may have more farms or better options in the grocery stores near you.
Customer service
I’ve had a couple interactions with customer service over the past three years. In every case, the company was easy to reach and quickly addressed the issues to my satisfaction.
The first issue was when one of my chicken packages arrived with a small tear. The customer service rep apologized, stating that in rare instances that can happen in a heavily packed box due to the dry ice. They offered me a credit for the full amount of the chicken (even though only one of my three packages was damaged) or to send me another product without any hassle.
The largest issue I’ve had was an issue with the delivery company for one order, and was not ButcherBox’s fault. My delivery made it to the service center in Phoenix, but kept getting rescheduled by the delivery company. After the second delayed delivery attempt, ButcherBox proactively emailed me to apologize. They let me know that if I didn’t receive the package the next day or if it arrived thawed or not to my liking, they would be happy to send me a replacement box. When the delivery company delayed again the next day, they shipped out a replacement box that arrived in perfect condition… without me having to ask for it.
Cost
While it initially seemed expensive to me, I’ve figured out a way to structure my ButcherBox orders so that it’s worth the cost. Now most of the products I buy (even the initial 6 items in my box) are all less than I would pay at the local stores. More on this below…
How to make ButcherBox worth the cost: my money saving tips
I’ve finally figured out how to get the most bang for your buck! In fact, I’m now buying substantially all our meat and seafood products from ButcherBox and spending less money compared to when I was buying these products at the grocery store.
Here’s how to get the best deals…
1. Minimize the number of boxes you buy
The way the subscription works is that for every box you receive you’ll pay a fixed cost for the first six items you put in the box (under a standard subscription). At $169 per box (current rate for a standard curated box), that’s roughly $28 per item. For your first box, you’ll get $50 off with my referral code, so that per item price is a bit lower at $19.83.
After paying the base box price, you can add on discounted items or member deals. Member deals are rotating “sales” on a larger variety of products, sometimes for really big discounts. Because these deals are where you save money, the best strategy is to keep your fixed cost as low as possible. You can do this buy picking the smallest box that allows you to choose your own products and reducing the frequency of your boxes.
2. Strategize your initial box selections
Because you have a fixed price per item on your base box selections, you’ll want to pick the most expensive items that appeal to you in order to fill the box.
When I checked the website today, there were 63 different items available for custom box selection. These items rotate and vary, though some basics are always available. For example, options today included 2 lbs. of wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon, 3 lbs. of organic pasture raised chicken breasts, a 2.75lb grass fed brisket, or a 1 lb. package of hotdogs.
Although you may want to buy the hotdogs, this is not the place to do so. Add the more expensive items here and save the cheaper items for add on items or member deals. Premium cuts of meat and seafood are where you’ll get the most bang for your buck.
My current base box includes three packages of the salmon, a 1 lb. package of wild-caught sustainable (dry-packed scallops), a 5.5lb bone-in pork butt, and two 6 ounce grass-fed filet mignons. Most of these things would cost me more than $28 to buy at the store, so I consider it a win.
3. Check the ButcherBox website frequently and load up on “member deals”
As mentioned earlier, the rotating “member deals” are where you’ll find the best prices. The more often you visit the website, the more likely you are to grab a great deal.
Some member deals are for a single item, where there’s a discount of a couple bucks or a certain percentage off the sticker price. Others are for bundles or bulk discounts. The bulk “blasts” and BOGO or B2G1F deals tend to provide the best prices.
If you see a deal that looks good, add it to your box. The offers change regularly, but once you add one to your box, it’s locked in. You can easily delete things from your box up to the day before your selected billing date.
I check the website and add offers frequently when building up my box. If a better offer comes along, I just add it and delete the previous offer from my box.
One example of a recent deal was a bulk discount on chicken breasts, 9 lbs. of organic free-range chicken breasts for $46. This works out to $5.11 per pound, which is far less than I’d pay at the grocery store.
To provide more insight to the costs, I’ve included a list of some of the items offered by ButcherBox, as well as the cost comparison for my local stores. Many of these items are from my recent delivery box.
2024 Update: It seems that ButcherBox read my original blog post and has since initiated a 90-day limit for deals to be added to your box before your scheduled shipment date. This has made getting the best deal slightly more challenging. Continue to add deals to your cart. If you decide to push your delivery date out, any deals not in the 90-day window will be removed (they will warn you before you accept the new delivery date). The solution? Continue to update deals as they reoccur. For example, if you have BOGO chicken breasts in your box and you see that deal pop up again, remove the deal and add it again to restart the clock.
UPDATED 2024: Price comparison between ButcherBox and best local grocery store prices (per pound):
| ButcherBox | Grocery | |
| Seafood (wild-caught) | ||
| Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon | $10.00 | $11.00 |
| Wild Pacific Cod | $10.00 | $13.00 |
| Wild US Gulf Shrimp | $9.00 | $10.00 |
| Wild 10/20 Sea Scallops | $18.00 | $19.00 |
| Poultry | ||
| Organic Pastured Chicken Breasts | $5.11 | $8.00 |
| Organic, Pastured Boneless Chicken Thighs | $5.13 | $7.99 |
| Organic, Pastured Whole Chicken | $2.91 | $3.80 |
| Organic Free-Range Chicken Tenders | $9.60 | $22.00 |
| Pork (no antibiotics) | ||
| Boneless Pork Shoulder | $3.27 | $6.00 |
| Baby Back Ribs | $5.28 | $4.00 |
| Pork Tenderloin | $11.20 | $6.00 |
| Ground Pork | $4.00 | $4.50 |
| Uncured Bacon (10oz) | $5.00 | $5.00 |
| 100% Grass fed Meat | ||
| Ground Beef 85/15 | $5.50 | $6.50 |
| Chuck Roast | $8.80 | $9.00 |
| Tri Tip | $11.76 | $12.99 |
| NY Strip | $17.28 | $20.99 |
| Filet Mignon | $28.80 | $31.99 |
| Ground Bison | $10.00 | $16.12 |
A couple caveats…
First, many of these items are not offered at my grocery store in the same quality as what ButcherBox sells. For example, it’s hard to find organic chicken that is also free range, heritage pastured pork, or 100% grass fed bison locally, and I have yet to find dry-packed scallops locally. I compared to the best option available. These prices are from recent ButcherBox deals (over the past few months), so may not reflect current pricing or deals that will be offered in the future.
Your local market may differ as to availability and pricing, so you’ll have to do your own comparisons to see if ButcherBox is worth it from a cost perspective for you. For me, it is.
4. Don’t forget to review and edit your box before the billing date
Set a reminder for your delivery date, especially if you schedule your boxes far in advance. If you haven’t pared down all the deals you added to your cart yet, do it now.
Select only the best deals or items you really want and delete out the rest. This is where I do a final comparison to my grocery store prices, if needed
My upcoming box was hovering around $800 before I edited it down. It’s still $575, but prices have been trending upward so I feel good about the low prices I locked in.
Is ButcherBox worth the cost for you?
If you don’t care about animal welfare or buying non-industrial animal products or you only care about getting the lowest unit price possible for your food, than ButcherBox probably isn’t for you. You’ll be able to find discounted conventional meat on sale at your grocery store for cheaper.
If you’re a vegetarian, then obviously this subscription service isn’t for you (and I’m surprised you’re still reading).
If you live in community with local farmers who practice sustainable farming and responsible animal husbandry, I’m a bit jealous. I encourage you to get to know your local farmers and support them by buying locally, if you are able. It may or may not be more expensive than ButcherBox, but sometimes its worth the cost. You may still wish to explore a subscription for their seafood options or any products you aren’t able to get locally. However, the membership probably won’t be as beneficial to you as it is to us.
If none of the above apply, than ButcherBox may be worth the cost for you.
I recommend comparing prices for any products that interest you with those at your local stores. Keep in mind that you can do this online for most major grocers, and the sticker price on the ButcherBox website isn’t always what you pay (see deals above).
After over three years of using the service, we still think ButcherBox is worth the cost, and will continue to use it for buying quality meats and managing our grocery bill.
If you have any questions about ButcherBox (referral link), just let me know!
I’m happy to share more about our experience.
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