Thrive Market Review: Worth It If You Regularly Buy Organic And Non-gmo Pantry Staples

When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

If you research healthy foods, have a dedicated diet or food restrictions, or consistently buy organic or non-GMO foods, you'll get the most value with Thrive Market.

Thrive Market

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.

We've had good experiences with Thrive, from the quality of the food to the promised and delivered savings. However, memberships are difficult to cancel and inflexible, so only sign-up if you track your subscription costs closely and plan to order frequently.

 

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. 

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.

Thrive Market memberships

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.

How to cancel a Thrive Market membership

You must talk to the customer service team to cancel both monthly and annual memberships. From this FAQ page, a link will take you to the homepage, where a chat window will appear.

What you can buy

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?

You can shop Thrive Market by category, by values (e.g., gluten-free, paleo, raw, vegan, etc.), or by current deals.

Thrive Market/Facebook

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.

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 locally, 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. 

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."

The bottom line

Thrive Market

I wish it were possible to find everything here (fresh fruit, more options for meat) and that there was always free shipping (instead of just on orders $49 and up), but ultimately the discounts and the easy delivery make using Thrive worth it. 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.

If you need an added incentive, Thrive Market also has a program called "Thrive Gives," which gifts a free membership to someone in need through Feeding America and the Boys and Girls Club or directly through the site for every paid membership. The free membership also includes teachers, veterans, and first responders.