Sam’s Club’s 2026 Member’s Mark Thanksgiving Meal Serves Up to 16 for Just Under $160, With Orders Opening Oct. 28
For just under $160 before tax, Sam’s Club is selling a fully cooked Thanksgiving spread with a boneless ham, a hickory smoked turkey, a lineup of sides and gravy, a charcuterie tray and two pumpkin pies, enough for up to 16 people. The warehouse club announced the 2026 Member’s Mark Thanksgiving meal on Oct. 15 and says orders open Oct. 28 in clubs, in the app and online. Split across a full table, that works out to less than $10 a person.
Everything in the Member’s Mark Box
According to Sam’s Club’s announcement, the meal bundles 11 Member’s Mark items, with double portions of three of them:
- Boneless carver ham
- Hickory smoked turkey
- Yukon Gold mashed potatoes and turkey gravy
- Green beans with dried cranberries and almonds (two)
- Macaroni and cheese (two)
- Sweet corn with garlic butter
- Cranberry crunch salad
- Yeast dinner rolls
- A charcuterie entertainment tray
- Two 12-inch pumpkin pies
Sam’s Club says the whole meal reheats in about two hours, compared with an estimated seven to nine hours to cook the same dishes from scratch. The company notes that weights, totals and availability may vary by club and that substitutions can apply.
Ashley Peoples, Sam’s Club’s senior director of product development, said in the release that the two-hour prep time is meant to give members more time with friends and family instead of in the kitchen.
The “less than $10 a person” figure assumes a full table of 16. A smaller household pays the same price for the same box, so the per-person cost climbs as the guest list shrinks: about $20 a person for a group of eight, or roughly $13 for a group of 12. Families with fewer guests can still order the bundle and remove items, which Sam’s Club says is allowed once the meal is in the cart.
Ordering Starts Oct. 28
Members can add the full meal to their cart in one click starting Oct. 28, then add or remove individual items. Pickup is curbside, or the order can be delivered. Express delivery, which Sam’s Club says can arrive in as little as an hour at participating locations, costs an extra $10 for Plus members and $22 for Club members, with no minimum order.
The delivery surcharge is a little higher than last season. When Sam’s Club sold its first precooked holiday meal in 2025, Express Delivery was $8 for Plus members, according to the company’s announcement that year.
The release does not list a final order date or a pickup cutoff, and it says order time limits and other restrictions may apply. Families planning around a specific day will want to check their local club’s dates once ordering opens. The meal is sold through Sam’s Club, which requires a membership to shop.
How It Compares With Last Year’s Sam’s Club Meal
The 2026 bundle is bigger and pricier than the club’s first version. In October 2025, Sam’s Club launched a precooked feast that fed 10 people for under $100. That menu had nine items built around a smoked turkey, with no ham or charcuterie, and it went on sale Nov. 1, 2025.
Some dishes carried over. Yukon Gold mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, yeast dinner rolls, pumpkin pie and the green beans with cranberries and almonds appeared on both menus. Last year’s sweet potato mash and harvest salad are gone, replaced by sweet corn with garlic butter and a cranberry crunch salad, and this year’s box doubles up on the pies, the macaroni and the green beans.
On a per-person basis, the two years land in a similar place: roughly $10 a head in 2025 and just under $10 a head this year, with six more seats at the table.
Target, Aldi and the Cost of Cooking It Yourself
Unlike the Target and Aldi bundles, which are groceries families still have to cook, the Sam’s Club meal arrives fully cooked.
Target’s $30 meal for six, announced Oct. 22, includes a Butterball turkey up to 10 pounds, potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole ingredients, stuffing, gravy and two take-and-bake baguettes. It runs Nov. 8 through Nov. 29 and is not valid in Alaska or Hawaii.
Aldi’s version, announced Oct. 14, feeds 10 for under $39, or less than $4 a person, with a 16-pound turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls, cranberries, peas, a veggie tray and pumpkin pie ingredients. Aldi says those prices hold through Nov. 25, with the turkey arriving in stores Nov. 4. Both offers are covered in more detail in the Target and Aldi Thanksgiving deals.
For a broader yardstick, the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual survey put the cost of a classic Thanksgiving dinner for 10 at $55.18 in 2025, about $5.52 a person and 5% less than in 2024. That figure covers raw ingredients only. The Farm Bureau typically releases its updated survey in November.
Retailers are pitching these bundles to a busy season. Walmart, which owns Sam’s Club, said in an Oct. 7 holiday announcement that 42% of shoppers expect to host or attend three to four holiday gatherings this year, based on its own September 2026 customer data.
The trade-off for families is time against money. The Sam’s Club meal costs roughly twice as much per person as the scratch-cooking benchmarks, but it removes most of the day’s cooking. Households hosting a large group, or juggling kids and travel, may find the premium worth it, while those with a cook in the family can feed a crowd for far less.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Ms Jones from California, USA – CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons
