Carby vs Eat This Much: grocery budget or macros?
These products share the words “meal plan” and “grocery list” and do different jobs. Eat This Much builds meals to hit nutrition targets. Carby builds dinners to sit under a grocery budget at a named store. A calorie tracker is a third job; see the explainer linked at the bottom.
Side by side
| Criterion | Carby | Eat This Much |
|---|---|---|
| What it plans | Weekly dinners built around a named US grocery store and a budget you type first, with estimated ingredient costs and one aisle-grouped list. | Generate meals from calorie and macro targets. Premium adds a week plan and an automatic grocery list. |
| Starter price | $39.99/year after a 3-day trial on web yearly checkout | Free forever plan at $0.00/month. Premium listed at $5.00/month on the pricing page. |
| Cost if you stay a year | $39.99 if you stay on the web yearly plan after the 3-day trial | Help center (updated May 5, 2026) lists Premium at $59.99/year or $14.99 month-to-month. The pricing page shows $5.00/month. Read the checkout you see. |
| Trial | 3-day trial on the web yearly offer visitors actually see. Monthly ($9.99) and weekly ($4.99) plans also exist. Read the checkout. | Free forever plan needs no trial. Help center says Premium includes a 14-day free trial. |
| Refunds | Web Stripe charges: email within 30 days of the charge for a refund. App Store charges go through Apple. Cancel during the trial and you are not charged. | Help center: no-questions-asked 30-day refund if you email support. Cancel during the Premium trial to avoid the first charge. Website, iOS and Google Play each have their own cancel path. |
| Grocery list | One shopping list for the week, grouped by aisle. You shop it yourself. | Automatic grocery list on Premium. Pricing page also lists grocery delivery integration. Homepage names Instacart, Amazon Fresh and Walmart. |
| Store cost estimates | Yes | No |
| Retailer cart / delivery | No. Carby does not send items to Walmart, Instacart or another retailer cart. | Premium grocery delivery integrations. Homepage names Instacart, Amazon Fresh and Walmart. |
| App Store rating | 4.0 from 29 ratings | 4.7 from 22,167 ratings |
Cost if you actually stay
Carby: $39.99 if you stay on the web yearly plan after the 3-day trial
Eat This Much: Help center (updated May 5, 2026) lists Premium at $59.99/year or $14.99 month-to-month. The pricing page shows $5.00/month. Read the checkout you see.
Eat This Much’s public pricing page lists Free Forever at $0.00 and Premium at $5.00 a month. The help article updated May 5, 2026 lists $59.99 a year or $14.99 month-to-month, a 14-day Premium trial and a 30-day refund via email. Both pages were checked October 20, 2026. Use the checkout in front of you. Carby has no free forever planning tier for the full week; it has a 3-day web trial then $39.99 a year on that offer.
Where they win
- A real free forever plan for daily meals and food tracking.
- The generator is built for calories, macros, keto and carb cycling.
- Premium leftover handling and named grocery delivery partners (Instacart, Amazon Fresh, Walmart).
Where we win
- Family dinner planning around a named grocery store.
- Store-specific catalog cost estimates on the plan.
- The constraint is the grocery budget, not a protein target.
Choose us if / pick them if
Choose Carby if: Choose Carby if you feed a household from a US grocery store and the number that matters is the dinner budget.
Pick Eat This Much if: Pick Eat This Much if the plan has to hit calorie or macro numbers, including a free daily plan. Pick a logger like MyFitnessPal if you only need to count food you already ate.
Meal planner vs calorie tracker: which do you need?Sources checked October 20, 2026: App Store listing · iTunes Lookup id 6779585429 · Carby billing policy · Carby refund help · Eat This Much pricing · Eat This Much homepage · Eat This Much help: what you get · Eat This Much help: cancel any time · App Store listing · iTunes Lookup id 981637806. Competitor facts come from those public pages and US iTunes Lookup. Missing cells were omitted, not guessed.