Stay cozy inside this winter with comforting, savory dishes from HelloFresh. The meal delivery service is one of our favorites and can help make meal times a breeze with fresh ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes shipped right to your front door.

Best of all, you can start whipping up restaurant-quality dishes at home for a fraction of the price thanks to HelloFresh's outstanding new member deal going on now. Sign up for HelloFresh. All you have to do is visit the website, register your account and select what meal plan you want.

HelloFresh is one of the best meal kits we've ever tried for a variety of reasons: big portions, affordable prices and straightforward recipes that even the newest home chefs can handle. If you're vegetarian or pescatarian, HelloFresh has meal options that can accommodate your diet, and all meals are delivered in recyclable packaging.

We even put the service's skills up against one of the original meal kit delivery services, Blue Apron , and found HelloFresh to have more enjoyable meals to make and bigger dishes to devour. Not only does it reduce the amount of food going into the trash, it also helps restaurants recoup at least some money on ingredients that would have otherwise been a total loss.

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While the steepest discounts are usually for new customers, returning customers Use this Postmates Promo Code to slash $20 Off your $30 food delivery order Here are five apps to consider. Imperfect Foods. Imperfect Foods is a weekly grocery delivery service that offers food items at discount prices Restaurants & Food Delivery in Tampa, FL: Discover the best restaurants in Tampa with deals of % off every day

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Related stories Will quick commerce ever be profitable? While theoretically, the organised food services industry can survive without the aggregators, practically that is unlikely to ever happen.

It such practice may lead to dissatisfaction when customers realise that they paid more for the same item through the platform compared to dining in or ordering directly from the restaurant.

In simple terms, what it means is that restaurants are charging more—some even go to the extent of pushing it over 50 percent—for food items and listing them on food aggregating platforms as compared to what the same set of food items would cost at a restaurant.

A marked difference in the delivery and in-store price, points out JM Financial, has become a norm in the foodtech industry.

Though restaurants claim that markups are necessary to recoup upfront customer discounts and compensate for high commissions charged by the food delivery aggregators, the latter are unlikely to stop such practices. The reason is obvious. Also read: Momos, idlis and a pinch of salt: Can Zomato deliver on time?

Take, for instance, a study conducted last year in the US. Self, a credit building site, tried to find out how the price of food delivery changes across the US. The results were startling. Seattle emerged as the most expensive city for food delivery apps. See box Back in India, the markup has become widespread and deeply entrenched.

The practice also brings into question the sham of discounts. A week later, when he took his family to the same Chinese brand in a nearby mall and ended up ordering the same stuff at the restaurant, he was pleasantly shocked.

The restaurants, he underlines, hold aggregators responsible. The aggregators, meanwhile, have maintained that they have no say in deciding the price of the food items listed on their platforms. Time poverty, he underlines, means paucity of time, and it is one of the main reasons—apart from convenience, discounts and choice—for shopping online.

A bulk of the food delivery market, he contends, is largely restricted to the top four to five cities in India. Now if the market is so small, and the burn is so high, one needs to find ways to earn more and bring down losses.

Meanwhile, consumers are bearing the brunt of the fight between aggregators and restaurants. Sadly, the balance of power is heavily tilted in the favour of aggregators.

There are instances where even successful branded chains were not able to leverage their scale while opening a new outlet and ended up paying significantly higher commissions towards the new outlets compared to the more matured ones, the report adds.

Almost negligible size of orders received directly is also hurting their case. In spite of restaurants accepting direct orders—either through their apps, social media or direct calling—the numbers are miniscule when contrasted with the volumes churned out by the aggregators.

With the food aggregators slashing discounts and cashbacks to cut losses and move towards profitable growth, the restaurants are forced to step in to maintain the discount. The duopoly of Swiggy and Zomato, he points out, and their high commission structure prevents them from bringing about transparency.

DoorDash, in fact, happens to be one of the players. The American food delivery biggie is reportedly nudging restaurants to bring parity in their delivery and dine-in prices.

One of the ways to make them fall in line is to convey the message that the erring ones will be less visible to consumers on the app, and those not resorting to markup will get a boost in visibility.

Industry and food analysts reckon that exhibiting more transparency by food aggregators and restaurants can go a long way in tackling, if not ending, markup. Simultaneously, restaurants must carefully review the impact of markups on customer perception and retention as short-term gains could lead to long-term losses.

The food delivery market has witnessed intense competition, with Swiggy and Zomato emerging as the dominant players in many regions. Dean explains. Smaller foodtech startups may find it challenging to compete with the vast resources and market presence of the dominant players, resulting in a less diverse food delivery ecosystem.

This could lead to limited choices for consumers and fewer opportunities for restaurants to partner with alternative platforms that better cater to their needs. This could involve measures to promote fair competition such as data-sharing requirements, restrictions on exclusive partnerships or even financial incentives for new entrants, points out Dean.

The reality for the time being, and also in the near future, is unpalatable for consumers. The food delivery duopoly is here to stay, and so is the practice of markup. Party but don't touch: Rio works to make carnival safer for women.

A final way to get your delivery order at a discount is to pay for it with a discounted gift card. You can also find discounted cards on a site such as Raise. com , where people can go to buy, sell, or trade unwanted gift cards.

Or buy discounted e-gift cards from Restaurant. com that you can use at thousands of restaurants across the country. Discounts on this site vary, but they can sometimes be steep.

For instance, in October , Restaurant. After using coupons and promo codes to reduce the amount you spend on your takeout order, you can take advantage of various rewards programs to make back some of what you spend.

You can earn rewards from the restaurant itself, from a shopping app, from a cash-back credit card, or all three at once. If you have a favorite restaurant — or several — that you order from again and again, check out its website or social media account to see if it has a rewards program.

At many eateries, signing up for an email list can score you special discounts and freebies , such as free food on your birthday. Some rewards programs, such as the Texas Roadhouse VIP Club , deliver perks such as coupons and gifts straight to your inbox.

Each time you place an order at the restaurant, it adds points to your account, and when you earn enough, you can cash them in for free appetizers, drinks, and other rewards. They also allow you to earn cash back when you place a takeout order with a food delivery service.

The deals are best for new subscribers, but returning customers can still earn a modest rebate. These apps can also pay you cash back when you sign up for a delivery subscription discussed below. To maximize your rewards, pay for your order with a cash-back credit card.

If you only use delivery services once in a while, your best bet is probably to switch around as much as possible so you can get the new customer discount at each service in turn. However, if you use these services a lot, you can probably save more by signing up for a delivery subscription.

Most of these services come with a one-month free trial. If you really want to game the system, you could try each of them in turn, cancel it after a month, and get unlimited free delivery for several months.

No matter how many tricks and strategies you use to cut the cost of having food delivered, the fact remains that ordering food from a restaurant is a lot more expensive than cooking it yourself. Forbes found that, on average, it costs about five times as much to have food delivered as it does to prepare the same meal at home.

However, there are ways to make it easier. For instance, you could sign up for a meal delivery service like Freshly or HelloFresh that regularly sends you a recipe and fresh ingredients, all prepared and ready to cook. To save even more, look for easy and inexpensive recipes you can prepare from scratch.

Check out our article on family dinners at home for ideas. Skip to content Advertiser Disclosure Advertiser Disclosure: The credit card and banking offers that appear on this site are from credit card companies and banks from which MoneyCrashers.

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Steep Food Discounts for Delivery - Most restaurant ordering apps charge restaurants steep commissions and fees, typically totaling 20 percent, and sometimes 40 percent or more While the steepest discounts are usually for new customers, returning customers Use this Postmates Promo Code to slash $20 Off your $30 food delivery order Here are five apps to consider. Imperfect Foods. Imperfect Foods is a weekly grocery delivery service that offers food items at discount prices Restaurants & Food Delivery in Tampa, FL: Discover the best restaurants in Tampa with deals of % off every day

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Forced usage of fleet services, lack of data transparency are other concerns NRAI listed out 8 major issues to food delivery firms Swiggy Zomato, UberEats and Foodpanda. ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Estimated delivery times were between 16 minutes for restaurants nearby and 36 minutes for further out restaurants, which means if you live in an urban area, you would save more money with DoorDash than with Grubhub.

With DoorDash, you can order more from the service, like laundry detergent and makeup, but some orders might take a few minutes longer to reach you. Toast Takeout can help you support the local restaurants you know and love. Food delivery services usually charge commission fees that some restaurant owners have said hurt their businesses.

Toast Takeout, however, doesn't charge these commission fees. That means if you order food from a local restaurant featured on the app, more of your money goes towards supporting the restaurant.

Toast Takeout isn't as robust as other apps on this list. The home screen, for example, doesn't have carousels or sections to dive into quickly, but rather shows you restaurants the app partners with. The app is also automatically set to Pickup instead of Delivery, which might influence which restaurant you order from.

And some restaurants on the app only allow Pickup, which means you may need to filter through results to find what you're looking for. Toast Takeout partners with about 74, restaurants , which means you might have limited delivery options depending on where you are.

Our order's estimated delivery time was 44 minutes, which was higher than the average for other services on this list. However, Toast Takeout didn't have many ASAP delivery options available in our urban location. You might have fewer options to choose from with Toast Takeout -- and some delivery options might not be available at all -- but if you use this app, you know more of your money will support families and businesses in your community.

These might be our favorite food delivery services, but that doesn't mean you have to pick just one. Unless you sign up for a rewards program, these services are free, so you can download and use each of these apps. You can check which service is cheapest and fastest for you in your area by downloading each.

You can also download apps that compare these food delivery services for you so you aren't switching back and forth between apps. Many restaurants also have their own apps or websites you can order from directly, which could save you money on service fees.

If you choose to pick up your food from these restaurants, that could save you money on delivery fees, too, but that also applies to each of the above food delivery apps. You could also get your food quicker if you choose pickup rather than delivery, as pickup times are usually about 15 minutes.

For more, check out the best meal kit delivery services , the best cheap meal delivery services and the best healthy meal delivery services. Best Food Delivery Services of We compare Uber Eats, DoorDash and more so you don't have to. Written by Zachary McAuliffe Alison DeNisco Rayome. Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks.

If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement. Zachary McAuliffe Staff writer. Zach began writing for CNET in November, after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years. You can usually find him reading and drinking coffee or watching a TV series with his wife and their dog.

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You may unsubscribe at any time. Sign up using this link. Eligible merchants include CVS, Walgreens, The Convenience Store and 7-Eleven.

Eligible merchants include CVS, Walgreens, The Convenience Store, Rite Aid and 7-Eleven. No code necessary; sign up from this link. Earn up to 6x Marriott Bonvoy points on Uber Eats deliveries when linking your Uber and Marriott accounts.