We Reviewed Marley Spoon (2025) Are They Australia’s Best Meal Kit? Or Just Overpriced?

Marley Spoon has been delivering pre-portioned ingredients to Australian households since 2015, building their reputation on chef-designed recipes and quality ingredients.

As one of Australia’s premium meal kit services, they’re not the cheapest option – but are they worth the price?

I’ve tested Marley Spoon multiple times over several years, and I’m sharing my honest, unsponsored experience to help you decide if it’s right for you.

If you decide to give them a try, I’ve negotiated an exclusive discount for Food Box Mate readers that you’ll find in the yellow boxes below.

Marley Spoon is a premium meal kit service that delivers fresh, pre-portioned ingredients straight to your door. Each week, you’ll receive everything needed to cook 2-6 different recipes of your choice, along with detailed recipe cards guiding you through each step.

Not familiar with meal kits? Check out our meal kit guide to learn the basics.

With fulfillment centers in Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne, Marley Spoon delivers to all Australian states and territories. While they cover most metro areas comprehensively, availability might be limited in some rural locations.

Getting Started with Marley Spoon

Marley Spoon have a super simple, easy-to-use website that allows you to see what’s on their menu for the next 4 weeks. If you’re thinking of giving Marley Spoon a try, it’s definitely worth checking out the meals on offer.

When signing up, you can choose between either a 2 or 4 person box that contains either 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 meals each week.

At this stage, you also have the option to make your box vegetarian, which prevents any meat-based meals from showing in your menu.

There’s no long-term commitment required – you can cancel your subscription anytime up to 7 days before your next delivery. This makes it virtually risk-free to try for a week, though keep in mind you’ll need to actively cancel if you don’t want subsequent deliveries (which often come with additional discounts).

Exploring Marley Spoon’s Menu

Marley Spoon boasts the largest weekly menu of any Australian meal kit service, offering an impressive 70+ different meals each week. This is a significant increase from the 30 meals they offered when I first reviewed them in 2020.

While this variety ensures there’s something for everyone, it can feel overwhelming. Scrolling through all options takes time – somewhat counterintuitive for a service designed to save time.

The menu always includes at least 8 vegetarian meals, as well as more than 10 gluten-free meals. So, Marley Spoon is definitely suitable if you have a restricted diet.

See the Marley Spoon menu

To give you a feel of the type of meal available, here are some of the options I’ve seen when ordering before:

• Autumn Lamb Pie
• Mexican Sweet Potato Rice Bowl
• Pork ‘Dan Dan’ Noodles
• Eggplant and Lentil Moussaka
• Cheesy Green Gluten Free Pasta

One of the downsides I’ve noticed to such a large menu is that they can occasionally rely on some very simple recipes to fill out their menu.

It’s worth picking your meals carefully to find those meals that you wouldn’t usually cook, or that have ingredients you can’t buy so easily.

The other downside is that it takes a long time to narrow your order down to just a few meals each week. A few times, I’ve had to cut out meals I really wanted to try. I guess this is a good problem to have though.

Each week, around 10 recipes are labeled ‘Premium’ and incur a small additional charge per portion. It’s worth being cautious when adding these meals as the costs can add up very quickly. I’ve seen some as high as +$4.99 per portion, so a family of 4 would pay an extra $20 for that meal.

Customising Marley Spoon Meals

One of Marley Spoon’s standout features is their meal customization option, introduced since my initial review. Some of their weekly recipes can be modified to suit your preferences where customisation options include:

• Switching protein types
• Adjusting portion sizes
• Modifying for dietary needs (e.g., removing gluten)
• Choosing lower-calorie alternatives

Some of these are included in your subscription price, while others might add a couple of dollars per serving. Here are two examples:

Value-wise, the paid upgrades can be worth it for protein changes, but be mindful that some free swaps (like the lettuce cups) actually use cheaper ingredients than the original recipe. However, it does allow you to adjust recipes ‘your way’ and therefore reduce any ingredient waste.

Only about 20% of recipes have a customisable component. I’d love to see them make this more common.

The Marley Spoon Market

It’s not just meals on the Marley Spoon menu. You can also add ‘market’ ingredients to your order that get delivered in your weekly meal kit box.

A lot of these meals are from ChefGood’s range (who they acquired in late 2021). We’ve also reviewed ChefGood and thoroughly enjoyed their meals, so this fits in with Marley Spoon’s premium experience.

There are also some interesting options for easy snacks, side dishes, lunches, and desserts.

Marley Spoon have also partnered with Press’d, Naked Life, and Remedy to provide an interesting range of drinks.

Price-wise, expect to pay about 10% more than supermarket prices for marketplace items. While this premium isn’t insignificant, the convenience of combining these extras with your regular delivery might justify the cost.

I recommend comparing prices with your local supermarket, especially during sale periods, to decide if the convenience is worth the extra spend.

Delivery Options

Marley Spoon have expanded their delivery network over the past few years, now servicing the metro and surrounding areas of Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Launceston, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Wollongong, Newcastle, the greater Perth region and Darwin.

Annoyingly, Marley Spoon force you to put your email address in before they’ll confirm the delivery days to your postcode. There’s no way around this that I’m aware of.

In line with their major competitors, Marley Spoon charge a flat $10.99 delivery fee with each weekly box. This is a full dollar each week more than getting an equivalent box from HelloFresh.

This cost can really add up when it’s paid every single week, so do make sure you plan it into your weekly food budget.

How much does Marley Spoon cost?

The price of Marley Spoon is mid-range within the Australian meal kit market, so it’s not the cheapest (or most expensive) meal kit available.

I conducted a full cost analysis of the market, which you can read for Australia’s cheapest meal kit. On a cost basis, Marley Spoon are primarily competing with HelloFresh so I have included their costs as a useful comparison.

These are the weekly costs you would expect to pay:

People	Meals	Marley Spoon Cost	HelloFresh Cost
2	3	$77.94	$70.00
2	4	$99.92	$90.00
2	5	$119.90	$105.00
4	3	$137.88	$125.00
4	4	$164.64	$150.00
4	5	$190.79	$165.00

As you can see, Marley Spoon does come out slightly more expensive than HelloFresh by $10 – $20 across each subscription size as they have recently increased their costs despite HelloFresh keeping their prices stable over the last few years.

It’s also possible to add an additional Fruit Box to your order for $24.90.

Here are some tips to get the most value from a Marley Spoon subscription:

• Watch for seasonal promotions and referral offers.
• Look for new customer discounts (up to 40% off first box).
• Consider larger boxes for better per-meal value.

Get up to $210 off Marley Spoon across your first 5 boxesOffer available to new customers only, redeemed by clicking on this link

Nutritional analysis of Marley Spoon meals

Researchers at the University of Sydney have analysed the nutritional qualities of the biggest Australian meal kit subscription services, with the summarised results published below with permission from the original authors.

All values are ‘per each recommended individual serving’.

	Dinnerly	HelloFresh	Marley Spoon	Pepper Leaf
Food Groups (no. of serves)
Vegetables	2.6	3.1	2.8	2.6
Grains	2.4	1.8	2.5	2.8
Meat	1.4	1.3	1.7	1.3
Macronutrients
Energy (kcal)	704	880	690	707
Protein (g)	34.4	38.9	41.9	35.0
Total fat (g)	34.8	53.4	30.3	32.2
Carbohydrate (g)	58.2	56.0	56.8	63.6
Sugars (g)	14.9	17.0	10.9	10.7
Sodium (mg)	853	1426	779	866

Marley Spoon provide the highest quantity of meat per serving, which leads to providing the highest average amount of protein. Surprisingly, Marley Spoon also excel for providing the lowest amount of fat per serving. This means that if you’re trying to increase the amount of lean protein in your diet, Marley Spoon will help you achieve your goals.

It’s also worth considering how well Marley Spoon performs for both calories and sugar per serving, creating a fantastic opportunity for anyone trying to lose weight. That’s why I recommend Marley Spoon as the best service for anyone on a diet.

Thanks to Dr Alice Gibson and Dr Stephanie R Partridge of the University of Sydney for their research. If you want to read their paper, it can be found on the Nutrients journal.

My Marley Spoon Review Box

Whilst I’ve tried Marley Spoon quite a few times over the last couple of years, I’ll focus on one of my boxes so you can understand the experience.

My box (as they all have) arrived exactly as expected, with the delivery driver leaving it outside my front door. They’re nicely branded and it’s quite an exciting moment receiving your delivery.

Similar to HelloFresh, the box is packed with each set of ingredients in their own individual paper bags. This is fantastic because you can simply place these in the fridge straight away. However, this is less environmentally friendly which is something we should all be aware of.

Some ingredients (dairy/meat) come in a separate cooler bag that helps ensure they can last all day outside.

I always check the ingredients when they arrive, just in case there are any issues. Happily, I have never had any issues with any of my Marley Spoon boxes. All the vegetables looked fresh and every ingredient was in its rightful place.

How’s The Food?

Starting with the ingredient quality, I’ve consistently been impressed by everything I’ve received.

Each box arrives with premium, generously portioned vegetables that outshine typical supermarket produce. The meats are notably high-quality and unprocessed, supporting their ‘healthy eating’ promise. Everything arrives fresh and ready to use, with a cleanliness and simplicity that makes cooking feel easier.

However, I have always been a little disappointed by the end result of the dishes. I put this down to the high expectations I have for Marley Spoon, so I’m expecting an explosion of flavour.

For example, I cooked a Beef Stir Fry and found it to be very one-dimensional in flavour. It’s the kind of dish that I could easily cook myself and brings no adventure to the Marley Spoon experience. The worry here is that because they provide so many different recipes each week, they don’t focus on elevating each individual dish.

You can combat this partially by reviewing the recipes themselves when choosing your weekly menu, picking interesting flavour combinations.

The key to success with Marley Spoon lies in how you approach it. I’ve found taking time to review recipes carefully before ordering pays off – look for those with unique ingredients or interesting flavor combinations.

The other advantage of meal kits is the ability to customise the recipe at home. Sometimes I prefer ingredients cooked shorter/longer, or I add extra garlic, or I bulk meals out to last a few days.

We’ve collected some fantastic meal kit tips and hacks from our readers that can help elevate your Marley Spoon experience. While not every dish delivers that ‘wow’ factor out of the box, with thoughtful selection and some personal touches, you can transform good meals into great ones.

A Qualified Nutritionist’s Marley Spoon Review

Nutrition-wise, Marley Spoon has some great things going on!

On average, Marley Spoon meals have 10.4g of dietary fibre per serving, which is amazing as we ideally want to have more than 6g. Fibre comes from fruits, vegetables and wholegrain and helps to keep us feeling full and is protective against chronic diseases. Additionally, the meals are within the range of the ideal saturated fat content per meal, less than 6g.

The other aspect that I love is that the meals provide 2.8 serves of vegetables, which greatly contributes to our daily 5 recommended serves per day!

The two less than ideal aspects of Marley Spoon are the high sodium content and energy-dense meals. On average there is 779mg of sodium per meal, compared to the recommended amount of less than 500mg. The meals also provide an average of 690 kcals per serve, which is just above what an average Australian adult requires (~500kcal). Compared to other meal kits, these values are not too high but I still recommend taking small steps to reduce portion size and use reduced-salt ingredients.

Anything Else?

Marley Spoon’s recipe cards make a strong first impression with their professional design and clear photography. The large format makes them easy to read while cooking, and the step-by-step instructions are generally well laid out.

However, I’ve noticed some inconsistencies with cooking times and temperatures. For instance, one recipe suggested roasting 2cm sweet potato cubes for just 20 minutes at 200 degrees – experienced cooks will know this isn’t nearly long enough.

I think this is why they always ask you to read the full recipe before starting to cook, so you can adjust from your personal experience. However, their competitors are able to produce clear, simple recipe instructions, so why is it a struggle for Marley Spoon?

Marley Spoon offer a mobile app that allows you to manage your orders and view your recipes. I tested it for a couple of my meals and managed a couple of future orders, generally being impressed by the functionality.

Recent updates have resolved earlier issues with oversized images, making recipes much easier to follow on screen.

Final Verdict: Is Marley Spoon Worth It?

Based on their market maturity and price, I started off with exceptionally high expectations for Marley Spoon. My experience has been that their delivery experience is flawless and their ingredients are fresh. I’m left just a little underwhelmed by the dishes I created.

All the food tasted good, but I didn’t feel it brought that enhanced flavour profile that you’d want to impress your friends with. I’d liken it to eating at your regular local restaurant, which you know will be consistently pleasant without truly exciting you. Some people will appreciate the level of familiarity and comfort that brings.

Where Marley Spoon really stands out is the huge variety and choice available each week. With 70+ meals to choose from, you’re definitely going to find dishes that suit your requirements.

For picky eaters, vegetarians or people with intolerances, this makes Marley Spoon a really great meal kit service.

Lastly, I need to call out the recipe cards. I regularly found myself needing to adapt the instructions to fit my kitchen or my knowledge of the ingredients. This is very similar to my experience with Dinnerly and I think stems from them having the same recipe creation team. This shouldn’t be a dealbreaker for anyone, but is an area where Marley Spoon should focus on doing better in the future.

Get up to $210 off Marley Spoon across your first 5 boxesOffer available to new customers only, redeemed by clicking on this link

Competitor Comparison

We’ve tested all the major meal kit services in Australia. Here’s how we rated each service across our 6 key categories. Click a service name to check out our in-depth review.

Competitor Discounts

The best discounts for Marley Spoon alternatives are displayed below (you may need to turn Adblock off if it is showing blank!).

Marley Spoon FAQ

I hope you found our Marley Spoon review useful! Let me know if you’ve tried Marley Spoon before, did you have the same experience? Maybe you’ve not tried them before, if you have any questions give us a shout in the comments below!