Best AI for meal planning
You want a week of dinners planned around your constraints, with recipes and one shopping list you can actually shop from. We gave nine assistants the same brief, five vegetarian dinners for two under sixty dollars, then checked every ingredient in every recipe against the list they produced, and re-added their totals.
People also look for this as meal plan, weekly meal planner, what to cook this week or recipe planner.
Our picks, side by side
Rated for this task · 0–3
Measured
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tier
From
Why
★ Best overall
Claude
$20/mo · free tier: usableMeasured0 missing · adds up
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tierChat with web search and file uploads, with a usage cap per five-hour session
From$20/mo
Why
The only plan that was both shoppable and cookable as delivered. Nothing the recipes use is missing from the list, the total is the real sum of the lines, and each recipe is an interactive card with per-step timers. We ran it with Sonnet 5, which is what the free plan gives you by default; we checked on a free account.
Best list to shop from
Perplexity
$20/mo · free tier: usableMeasured1 missing · adds up
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tierUnlimited basic searches with a weekly cap on Pro-model searches
From$20/mo
Why
Grouped by aisle with five subtotals that are all correct, then a separately priced pantry section so you decide what you already own. It is one of three answers whose arithmetic held at every level, and the only one to price the pantry separately. It forgot a quarter-teaspoon of turmeric.
Best for local prices
ChatGPT
$8/mo · free tier: usableMeasured1 missing · total off by ฿185
Quality
Effort
Cost
Free tierUnlimited text chat on the default model, with limits on uploads, images, voice and deep research
From$8/mo
Why
The only tool that priced the list for the supermarket near you - it searched a local chain and quoted its current prices rather than a national average. Check the total yourself, because it stated three different ones and none was the real sum.
Evidence
0 of the recipes' ingredients missing from the list; pantry assumptions declared explicitly. 26 lines sum to $50.30, exactly as stated.
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All 9 tools we tested
Rated for this task only · 0–3| Tool | Quality | Effort | Cost | Free tier | Measured | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ClaudeFree: Chat with web search and file uploads, with a usage cap per five-hour session | 0 missing · adds up | $20/mo | ||||
| ChatGPTFree: Unlimited text chat on the default model, with limits on uploads, images, voice and deep research | 1 missing · total off by ฿185 | $8/mo | ||||
| GeminiFree: The default model with usage limits, plus Gemini inside Maps, Gmail and Docs on a free Google account | 1 missing · total off by $1.95 | $19.99/mo | ||||
| PerplexityFree: Unlimited basic searches with a weekly cap on Pro-model searches | 1 missing · adds up | $20/mo | ||||
| Microsoft CopilotFree: The Copilot app on web, Windows and mobile with usage limits | 4 missing · total off by $5 | $19.99/mo | ||||
| DeepSeekFree: The full chat app with web search and file uploads; there is no paid consumer tier | 3 missing · adds up · $5.40 over budget | Free | ||||
| GrokFree: Chat with web and X search within generous limits, no card required | 1 missing · ranges, not a total | $30/mo | ||||
| QwenFree: The full chat app; there is no paid consumer tier | 0 missing · total off by $0.75 | Free | ||||
| KimiFree: Unlimited basic chat, file upload and web access on the free plan | ½ can short · adds up | $19/mo |
How we tested
One brief, sent once to each of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Grok, Qwen and Kimi on their free tiers, with no follow-up questions on the first pass. It asked for five vegetarian dinners for two adults, a sixty-dollar grocery budget, no nuts, about forty minutes each, every recipe with ingredients and steps, and one consolidated shopping list with quantities and estimated prices that adds up.
The check is mechanical and unforgiving. Every ingredient in every recipe was looked for on the shopping list; it counts as covered if the list names it or the tool explicitly says it assumes you have it. Optional ingredients and stated alternatives were not counted against anyone. Then every list's stated total was compared with the sum of its own lines, because "adds up" was part of the brief.
Eight of the nine tools honoured every constraint - DeepSeek came in $5.40 over budget and said so - and most produced a plan you could cook from without asking again. The differences were all in the shopping list, which is exactly where a meal plan fails on a Tuesday evening. Only three lists added up, and only Claude's both added up and covered every ingredient in full.
The test was run by, or under the direction of, the one person who runs this site, with AI assistance, and every output and fact-check was reviewed by them. The surrounding text was drafted with AI assistance from our own ratings and evidence, then checked and edited by the same person. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say so.
Questions people ask
Do the prices mean anything?
Treat them as a sanity check on the budget, not a forecast. Four tools quoted U.S. national averages from memory. ChatGPT was the exception - it searched a supermarket chain in the country the browser was in and quoted current prices in the local currency, which is a real feature if you live somewhere the others do not know about.
Why does a missing ingredient matter so much?
Because the whole point of one consolidated list is that you shop once. A list that forgets the soy sauce or the flour sends you back to the shop mid-recipe, and that is the failure a meal planner exists to prevent. It is also the easiest thing to get wrong, which is why we counted it.
Can I just ask for the shopping list again if it is wrong?
Yes, and with any of these tools a second message fixes it. We scored the first answer because that is what most people use, but the honest advice is to paste the recipes back and ask for the list to be rebuilt and re-totalled before you go out.
Which one should I use if I want to cook from my phone?
Claude, if the recipe cards it produced for us are what you get too - each step has a timer you can tap. Otherwise any of them will do, and the plan matters far more than the wrapper.