It's 5:30 PM in suburban Denver. A working mom stares into her refrigerator: leftover rice, some vegetables, half a chicken breast, and condiments. She has 30 minutes before soccer practice and no plan. She orders DoorDash for the third time this week — another $45 that wasn't in the budget. She knows meal planning would save money and time, but planning takes time she doesn't have.
American families spend $3,500+ per year on food delivery and takeout, often not because they prefer it, but because they failed to plan. Meal planning apps promise to solve this, but they require upfront investment: browse recipes, build a plan, generate a list, shop for ingredients you might not use. Mealime ($5.99/mo) and Plan to Eat ($5.95/mo) are solid but still assume you have time to browse and decide. For the overwhelmed parent, even meal planning is one more task.
The opportunity is an AI meal planner at $4.99-9.99/mo that reduces friction to zero: tell it your dietary preferences, family size, and cooking skill once. Each week, it generates a complete meal plan based on what's on sale at your preferred grocery stores, creates the shopping list organized by aisle, and lets you swap individual meals with one tap. Not browsing recipes — receiving a ready plan that accounts for realistic weeknight constraints. Target busy families spending $200+/month on unplanned takeout who would cook if someone just told them what to make.
📊 Market Evidence
🏆 Competitor Landscape
How existing players stack up in this market
| Competitor | Pricing | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mealime | Free / $5.99/mo | Meal planning + shopping lists |
| Plan to Eat | $5.95/mo | Recipe + meal planner |
| Eat This Much | Free / $9/mo | Auto meal planning |
| Yummly | Free / $5/mo Pro | Recipes + smart shopping |
| Prepear | $4.99-9.99/mo | Family meal planning |
Meal planning + shopping lists
Recipe + meal planner
Auto meal planning
Recipes + smart shopping
Family meal planning
Score Breakdown
Good market signals with room for growth
Market (20%) + Revenue (20%) + Trend (15%) + Competition (15%) + Build (15%) + Pricing (15%)
🚀 Start Building
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Build a SaaS product called "Meal Planner with Grocery Lists". ## Product Overview Drag-drop recipes into weekly planner with auto shopping lists ## Problem Drag-drop recipes into weekly planner with auto shopping lists ## Solution Build Meal Planner with Grocery Lists ## Target Audience indie hackers, small businesses, and solopreneurs ## Tech Stack - Next.js 15 (App Router) with TypeScript - Tailwind CSS v4 for styling - Supabase for auth, database, and storage - Vercel for deployment - shadcn/ui for UI components - Framer Motion for animations ## MVP Features to Build 1. Landing page with clear value proposition 2. User authentication (sign up, sign in, forgot password) 3. Core product functionality based on the solution above 4. Dashboard for users to manage their data 5. Pricing page with at least 2 tiers (free + paid) 6. Basic settings/profile page ## Known Competitors Mealime, Plan to Eat, Eat This Much, Yummly, Prepear ## Key Risks to Address Standard market entry risks ## Deployment 1. Set up Supabase project and configure environment variables 2. Deploy to Vercel with `npx vercel --prod` 3. Set up custom domain 4. Configure Supabase RLS policies for security ## Instructions Start by creating the project structure, then build the landing page first. Use server components where possible. Make it mobile-responsive from the start. Focus on getting the core value loop working before adding polish.