TL;DR
Fresh subscription food runs roughly 3-5x the cost of mid-tier kibble for a 40-lb dog. Homemade with a vet-formulated recipe lands in the middle. The right answer depends more on your dog than your budget.
Kibble: the baseline
For a 40-lb dog, a mid-tier kibble runs about $60-90 a month. It's shelf-stable, easy to measure, and — from a nutritional-completeness standpoint — the most tested category of pet food on the market.
Fresh subscription: the premium tier
Fresh subscription services (the ones that show up frozen every two weeks) landed between $220 and $340 a month for the same dog. That's real money. What you get is human-grade ingredients, portion control by weight, and — for picky eaters — usually much better appetite.
Homemade: cheaper than you'd think, harder than you'd think
With a vet-formulated recipe and a Costco run, we hit about $130 a month. But homemade only works if you actually follow the recipe — dogs on unbalanced homemade diets end up nutrient-deficient in ways that take months to show up.
How to decide
Start with your dog. A young, healthy, food-motivated dog does fine on quality kibble. A senior with dental issues, a picky eater, or a dog with a chronic condition often benefits from fresh. Budget matters, but it's the tiebreaker, not the first question.
