UK fresh dog food cost comparison
How much does fresh dog food really cost?
Every fresh brand we track, whether raw, gently cooked or dehydrated, priced at what you'll actually pay once the introductory offer ends. Personalised kibble is deliberately left out. If you've already ruled out dry food, the cheapest dry food on the market isn't the answer you came for. Enter your dog's details and the ranking is worked out for their exact size.
- Raw, gently cooked and dehydrated plans, ranked by ongoing price
- Prices sampled from each brand's own quote process, re-verified monthly
- Cheapest for your dog ranks first, and commission never changes the order
Price up your dog
Your dog's real bill
✓ PRICES VERIFIED 13 JUL 2026
| Brand | Intro price/day | Real price/day | Per month | First year | Deal link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bella & DukeBest valueraw frozen | £2.09 | £63.62 | £751.15 | View deal | |
| Pure Pet Fooddehydrated | £2.35 | £71.53 | £850.70 | View deal | |
| Butternut Boxfresh cooked | £3.26 | £99.23 | £1,144.26 | View deal | |
| Different Dogfresh cooked | £3.45 | £105.02 | £1,250.80 | View deal |
Prices sampled from each brand's own quote process, last verified 13 July 2026. Intro prices shown struck through because they only last a few weeks . The real price is what you'll pay from then on. Age, activity and neutering change how much food your dog needs; we price those portions from each brand's sampled pricing curve.
Who's cheapest at each dog size
Fresh brands don't price in a straight line. The rate per gram falls as portions get bigger, and every brand's curve bends at a different point. A brand that's cheapest for a spaniel isn't necessarily cheapest for a Labrador. These are ongoing prices per day for a neutered adult dog on typical walks, taken from the same sampled models the calculator uses.
| Dog | Bella & DukeRaw | Butternut BoxGently cooked | Different DogGently cooked | Pure Pet FoodDehydrated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chihuahua3kg | £0.79 (cheapest for this dog) | £1.80 | £1.70 | £1.17 |
| Dachshund9kg | £1.65 (cheapest for this dog) | £2.52 | £2.74 | £1.81 |
| Cocker Spaniel14kg | £2.09 (cheapest for this dog) | £3.26 | £3.45 | £2.35 |
| Border Collie19kg | £2.56 (cheapest for this dog) | £3.77 | £3.83 | £2.57 |
| Labrador30kg | £3.61 | £4.88 | £4.65 | £3.04 (cheapest for this dog) |
| Rottweiler40kg | £4.81 | £5.40 | £5.09 | £3.47 (cheapest for this dog) |
Cheapest by weight
- 2–19kgBella & Duke
- 20–60kgPure Pet Food
The order changes because the formats scale differently: raw prices climb steadily with portion size, while dehydrated flattens out towards the top of the range, where a big dog's food is mostly water you add at home.
What counts as fresh dog food?
"Fresh" is a marketing category rather than a regulated one, and it covers three genuinely different formats. Raw plans deliver uncooked meat, bone and offal frozen. Gently cooked plans cook human-grade ingredients at low temperature and deliver them chilled or frozen. Dehydrated plans air-dry whole ingredients into a shelf-stable mix that you rehydrate with warm water at home.
We compare all three here because they share what makes fresh food hard to price: each brand portions to your individual dog, so a real number only appears once you've completed a signup quiz. What they don't share is freezer space, prep time and cost. As the table above shows, which format works out cheapest depends on how big your dog is.
What actually drives the price you're quoted
Portion size is the biggest factor, and brands don't agree on it. For the same 14kg adult dog we sampled in July 2026, Butternut Box built a 396g daily portion and Different Dog 400g, while Pure Pet Food worked to 596 kcal and Bella & Duke to 350g of raw, differences of 10–20% for one dog. That's why price per day, quoted for your dog, is the only fair comparison, and why price per kilo tells you very little.
Delivery cadence matters too. Pure Pet Food's price per day depends on how often you take a delivery. The longer cadence worked out roughly 10–12% cheaper per day when we sampled it. We record the default, shorter cadence, because that's what you're quoted unless you actively change it.
So do menu choices. Butternut Box prices its recipes individually, and the default four-recipe selection we sampled included two premium ones, about £0.25 a day above a base-recipe plan for a mid-size dog. We record the price at the final review step with the default selections in place, since that's what someone who doesn't edit their menu pays; choosing base recipes brings it down.
Finally, the offer. When we sampled all five signup funnels in July 2026, every brand's live introductory offer differed from what third-party guides were reporting, because offers change faster than most comparison content is updated. That's why we lead with the ongoing price and stamp every result with the date we verified it.
Cheapest fresh food for a typical 14kg adult dog
Bella & Duke£2.09/day · £63.62/month ongoing
Brands we track that aren't on this page
This comparison covers raw, dehydrated and gently cooked food only. The one other brand we track sells something different, so ranking it here would answer a question you didn't ask. You should still know it's there:
- tails.comPersonalised kibbleA dry food blended to your dog's profile and delivered on subscription. It sits in a different category from fresh food, and is consistently the cheapest option we track.
Compare a different kind of food
Fresh dog food costs: your questions
Is raw dog food cheaper than gently cooked?
For most dogs, yes. For a 14kg adult, Bella & Duke's raw plan came out at about £2.09 a day against £3.26 for Butternut Box and £3.45 for Different Dog (July 2026 sampling). Raw keeps that advantage up to roughly 44kg, above which the gently cooked plans converge with it. Raw pricing climbs more steadily with portion size than the cooked brands' does.
Does dehydrated food count as fresh dog food?
It's usually sold alongside fresh food and shops the same way: whole ingredients, portioned to your dog, delivered on subscription. That is why we include it here. The practical difference is water: you add it at home rather than paying to ship and freeze it. That's why dehydrated plans get relatively cheaper as dogs get bigger, and why they need no freezer space.
How much does fresh dog food cost per month in the UK?
Roughly £24 a month for a 3kg dog on the cheapest raw plan, up to about £172 for a giant breed on gently cooked food (July 2026 sampling, ongoing prices). A typical 14kg adult lands between £64 and £105 a month depending on the brand and format. The calculator works out the figure for your dog's actual weight, age and activity.
Why is fresh dog food priced per day rather than per month?
Because that's how the brands themselves quote it, and because delivery cycles differ, and a four-weekly box and a monthly box aren't the same month. Price per day is the only number that compares like with like across brands. We show the monthly and first-year totals alongside it so you can sanity-check against your bank statement.
Do fresh dog food prices go up after the first delivery?
The price rises when the introductory offer ends, which is usually after the first one or two boxes. That's the single biggest reason quotes surprise people. The ongoing price we show is the post-offer one. Separately, brands do change their standard pricing over time; we re-sample every brand monthly and keep a dated log of what moved.