Personalised kibble vs dehydrated
tails.com vs Pure Pet Food on price
The only pairing on this site where neither plan needs a freezer. Both arrive dry and live in a cupboard: one is kibble blended to your dog and scooped straight into the bowl, the other is air dried food you bring back to life with warm water at each meal. If freezer room has already ruled out the frozen brands, these two are the comparison left, and we priced both by completing each signup ourselves at six dog sizes.
- The two freezer-free plans we track, priced side by side
- Why the gap narrows for mid-size dogs and opens again above them
- A year on each, and what switching does to the first one
Ongoing prices for a neutered 14kg adult dog on typical walks. Both verified 14 Oct 2026 from the brands' own quote processes.
Six dog sizes, both plans, one table
Every row is priced for a neutered adult on everyday walks, at the rate that runs once the opening offer is spent. Neither brand prints a price list a table like this could be copied from, so each figure goes back to a quote we completed in that brand's own signup.
| Dog | tails.com Personalised kibble | Pure Pet Food Dehydrated |
|---|---|---|
| Chihuahua 3kg | £0.52 (cheaper for this dog) | £1.28 |
| Dachshund 9kg | £1.00 (cheaper for this dog) | £2.21 |
| Cocker Spaniel 14kg | £1.25 (cheaper for this dog) | £2.57 |
| Border Collie 19kg | £1.47 (cheaper for this dog) | £2.66 |
| Labrador 30kg | £1.95 (cheaper for this dog) | £2.85 |
| Rottweiler 40kg | £2.26 (cheaper for this dog) | £3.61 |
Cheaper by weight
- 2–60kg tails.com
The distance between the columns is not a straight line. Pure charges in bands of daily calories rather than by the gram, so its price barely moves across a stretch of mid-size dogs and then steps up, while the dry plan rises steadily. That is why the gap closes through the middle of the table and opens again at the top.
What if your dog won't eat it? Compare tails.com's and Pure Pet Food's terms.
Twelve months on each, and the twelve after a switch
A new brand means a new opening offer, and the two offers here are shaped differently: one is built around a calendar month, the other around a short transition box. The block below runs a whole year on each for a mid-size adult so both are counted at the length they last.
- £40.10 more a month on Pure Pet Food, once both are at their ongoing price
- £480.85 more a year at the ongoing prices, for the same dog
- 0 days that Pure Pet Food's offer keeps its running total below tails.com's: its discounted price is already above the other's ongoing price
- £930.34 a first year on Pure Pet Food with its offer, against £457.20 staying on tails.com
Your current plan is read at its settled price, on the basis that its own offer is behind you. When one brand's discounted daily figure still sits above the other's ordinary one, the offer cannot close the gap on any day, and the block says so rather than printing a date the totals never reach.
Anything that comes in under both
For this dog nothing we track undercuts both. With a dry plan in the pair that is close to the expected result: kibble is the least costly format we price to make and to post, and until we sample a second dry brand there is nothing on our books positioned to beat it. A different dog size or the next re-sample could still change the list.
Cupboard against cupboard
Storage decides a lot of these comparisons before price is consulted, and here it decides nothing, because both plans keep at room temperature. The practical difference moves to the bowl instead. tails.com is measured out with the scoop that comes with it and served as it is. Pure comes with a scoop too, and its own feeding guide pairs each scoop of food with a scoop of warm water, so it asks for a small job at every meal and gives a soft, wet meal in return.
That wet meal is the reason the two cost what they do. A dry plan ships a dense food and nothing else, while Pure ships the solids of a wetter meal and leaves the water to your tap. Both are cheaper to move than anything frozen, and the dry plan is cheaper again, so the columns sit apart at every size even though neither pays to chill anything.
What each signup charges for
tails.com turns more of your answers into money than any other brand we track. The walk length you pick changes the portion and the price with it, and an entire dog is charged more than a neutered one for the same amount of food. For an active or unneutered dog the tails.com column in the table above is therefore on the low side, and the calculator is the place to see by how much.
Pure asks the same things and spends them on calories, not on price bands directly. For the mid-size dog we tested, more exercise raised the daily calorie figure without moving the quote, because it stayed inside the same band, while a quieter routine dropped it into a lower band and a lower price. Neutering nudged the calories and left the price where it was. Pure's figures here are for its gently dried, just-add-water range. Its signup also offers gently baked clusters and a mix of the two, which we have not priced.
Big puppies change the picture
For a small puppy the two brands add a similar amount over an adult of the same weight. For a large one they part company: tails.com feeds a big growing dog much like an adult well over its own weight, while Pure's quote for the same puppy sits close to its adult price. Anyone buying for a large-breed puppy will find the two columns much nearer to each other than the adult table suggests.
Cheaper of the two for a typical 14kg adult dog
tails.com £1.25/day · £38.13/month ongoing
Take either one on its own
What tails.com costs
Prices by dog size, what the introductory offer does, and every brand we track that undercuts it.
What Pure Pet Food costs
Prices by dog size, what the introductory offer does, and every brand we track that undercuts it.
Fresh food only
Raw, gently cooked and dehydrated plans compared without kibble in the ranking.
tails.com vs Pure Pet Food: your questions
Which of the two costs less?
At every size in the table above, when we last sampled them, the tails.com dry plan came out lower per day than Pure. The gap is widest for small dogs and narrowest in the middle of the range, where Pure's price climbs only slowly. The calculator prices your own dog, including the activity and neutering answers that move tails.com more than most.
Is dehydrated food the same thing as kibble?
Both are dry when they arrive, but they are made and served differently. Kibble is cooked and formed into pieces that are fed as they come. Dehydrated food is gently dried from whole ingredients and turned back into a wet meal with water before serving. The two are priced some way apart per day of feeding, as the table above shows, even though neither ships frozen.
Do either of these need a freezer or fridge?
Neither does, which is what makes this pairing different from every other one on the site. Both deliveries arrive shelf stable and store in a cupboard, so the question of how much freezer a growing dog will claim, which shapes most comparisons on this site, does not come up here at all.
Can I lower the Pure price by changing the delivery schedule?
Yes. Pure offers less frequent, larger deliveries, and those work out cheaper per day than the default schedule we record here. tails.com bills by calendar month, so its column is already the figure you would pay. If you have the cupboard space, a longer Pure delivery cycle narrows this comparison without changing what your dog eats.