Member Kitchens is the established product in this space and the more complete one. If you want a membership with meal plans, nutrition tracking and grocery integration, and you want somebody to hold your hand through the migration, buy theirs. This page is for the case where you do not.
Last checked against their published pricing on 5 August 2026.
| Choose Member Kitchens | You want a meal-planning membership, not a recipe app. You want nutrition data, grocery lists that reach a store, and a person to migrate you. You would rather have a demo call than work it out yourself. |
|---|---|
| Choose Textual Chef | You want your existing recipes readable and ad-free for your loyal readers, you want to know your bill in advance, and you would rather paste a URL than book a call. |
This is the difference that actually matters, because the two are priced on different things. Member Kitchens charges a plan fee plus a fee per active member. We charge a flat fee plus a percentage of what your readers pay you. Their bill grows with your audience whether or not that audience pays you. Ours grows only when you get paid.
| 500 readers paying you $4/month | Member Kitchens (Launch) | Textual Chef |
|---|---|---|
| Plan fee | $99 | $49 |
| Per member | 500 x $0.99 = $495 | none |
| Share of reader revenue | none | 5% of $2,000 = $100 |
| Monthly total | $594 | $149 |
Their tiers are Discover from $49, Launch $99 and Growth $199 a month, with per-active-user fees quoted on Launch at $0.99 for the first 500 members and $0.75 for the next 500, plus a fee for video above the included allotment. Payment processing is extra on both sides, as it is everywhere.
It should be said, because it is true. If you charge a high price to a large membership, a percentage becomes the expensive option. At 1,000 members paying $20 a month, 5% is $1,000 a month and a per-seat plan is cheaper. Somewhere around $15 to $20 a member the arithmetic flips.
Most food bloggers charge $3 to $6, which is well below that line, and that is who we built for. If you are charging $20 and have a thousand people paying it, you are not the case this was designed for and you should do the sum yourself before believing anybody's comparison page.
| Member Kitchens | Textual Chef | |
|---|---|---|
| Branded app on your own name | Yes | Yes |
| Import your existing recipes | Yes, via WP Recipe Maker bulk import, one-by-one URL, or manual entry | Yes, read from the schema markup your site already publishes |
| Time from starting to seeing your own content | A demo call, then a migration | About a minute, before you give an email address |
| Meal-plan builder | Yes | No |
| Nutrition tracking | Yes | No |
| Grocery checkout integration | Yes | No |
| Hands-on migration support | Yes | No. There is an email address and a person on the end of it |
| Per-member fees | Yes | No |
| Predictable bill | Depends on member count and video | $49 plus 5% of what you are paid |
| Sales call to find out the price | Yes | No |
Genuinely, yes, though there is little reason to. They solve the same job and you would be paying two bills to serve one audience. The more sensible pairing is either of these alongside your existing ad-funded blog, which keeps doing what it is good at. We wrote about why the blog should stay separately.
Member Kitchens is a real, running business with real customers. Textual Chef for creators is a prototype: the preview below works, the rest is intent. We are not going to pretend otherwise to win a comparison. If you need something today, they have something today.
What we would like is your opinion, and the fastest way to give one is to look at your own blog through it.