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When I first tried Thrive Market, I was just coming out of essentially a reverse-cleanse: a 12-pack of macaroni and cheese that I bought at a "great deal" discount on Amazon groceries. After a couple of months of eating that and an unrelated health scare, I was ready to commit to a complete pantry overhaul. That's when I started shopping at Thrive Market.
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What is Thrive Market?
Thrive Market bills itself as "wholesome food at wholesale prices." It's an online wholesale grocery store that curates the best organic, non-GMO products at a discounted rate of 25% to 50% off retail prices to its members. Similar to Costco, you need a membership to shop or even just see the prices.
You have two membership options. The annual membership costs $59.95 (or $5/month), billed once yearly. If you opt to do a monthly membership instead, you'll pay $12 per month. You'll get free shipping on your first order over $25, plus all orders $49 or more. Thrive Market currently ships to all contiguous US states.
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How it works
Sign up for free: You can browse the catalog, see member savings, and receive 25% off your first purchase.
Start a free 30-day trial: You can start a free 30-day membership trial with your first purchase on Thrive Market. Cancel anytime.
Join as a member: After your trial, you can sign up for a paid membership. If you do, you're also sponsoring a free membership for a low-income family.
What you can buy
Thrive Market carries over 6,000 products, and you can shop food, beauty, bath and body, health, babies and kids, home, pet supplies, and other items from brands like Burt's Bees, Annie's, KIND, Califa, and Primal Kitchen.
While you can buy staples like meats and seafood, the rest of Thrive Market's selection is mostly shelf-stable options. For produce, you'll probably still want to stop at your neighborhood store, farmers' market, or another grocery delivery service.
In addition to offering thousands of organic brands you could find at your local grocery store and online, they also have an in-house Thrive Market brand that packages organic products (the equivalent of your supermarket chain's generic brand).
Is Thrive Market worth it?
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You can shop Thrive Market by category, by values (e.g., gluten-free, paleo, raw, vegan, etc.), or by current deals. Thrive Market/Facebook
Quality is a concern with organic substitutes, and it's helpful to have customer ratings to simplify things as you go on Thrive Market. The healthy eating community is an intense one, so it's nice that Thrive Market makes use of all that helpful, accumulative passion in a way that I, a newcomer, can utilize too.
The 25% to 50% price difference could help close the gap between the sometimes inflated "organic" prices at some grocery stores, making Thrive Market a viable choice for the average person on a budget.
When we price-checked some of the items, Thrive Market was not always cheaper, but when it was, it usually offered a large enough gap in savings to be substantial overall. You could save more by buying local, though your selection may not be as wide or the process as convenient.
And if you're concerned about getting value out of your membership, Thrive Market guarantees its annual membership will pay for itself. If your membership fee was $60, but you only saved $40 in a year, they will automatically give you the difference ($20) in Thrive Market credit after you renew.
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Review of Thrive Market
Thrive Market stocks popular brands like Annie's and Simple Mills, and has its own in-house Thrive Market brand too. Thrive Market/Facebook
In my first Thrive order, the total was $99.16 and the savings listed were $145.33. If I had signed up for an annual membership, I would have paid off the $60 fee in my first order. The food was delicious, and I discovered new better-for-you snacks. I also found Thrive to be surprisingly cheaper for some of my favorite skincare products.
Thrive Market carries ethically sourced meat and seafood in large bulk "box" options, but the options are slightly more limited than the average meat and seafood counter at a grocery store. I also don't have space in my freezer or fridge to handle over $100 worth of meat, but it could be another great place to see savings if you do.
Former senior reporter Owen Burke, a lifelong fisherman with a background in commercial fishing and tending oyster bars, tried out Thrive's bevy of seafood on offer: "This is not something you'll want to buy unless you have a solid shelf of freezer space to spare, but I'll commend Thrive and call this nothing short of a feat on their part."
Burke received six different species of seafood and everything was wild-caught. His final take: "It varies depending on what you get, but in all, you're looking at 10-15 meals of fresh-frozen (that's fish that was frozen fresh, as soon as it was processed) wild-caught protein of high quality. That's something like $11-$17 dollars a dish, which is about as good as you're going to do with high-quality fresh seafood unless you've got friends at the fishing docks."
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The bottom line
Thrive Market
I wish it were possible to find everything here (fresh fruit, more options for meat), but ultimately the discounts and the easy delivery make using Thrive worth it. And I wish it was always free shipping instead of just orders of $49 and up, but I typically clear that just by restocking my favorite basics. All in all, I liked using Thrive Market regularly for healthy snacks, healthy-but-fast foods, and kitchen basics like pasta sauce and olive oil.
