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This comparison will examine two popular dog food brands: Nom Nom vs Spot and Tango. We analyzed the prices, ingredients, and options delivered by both brands and fed them to our dog, Hobbes, to see how he responded to them. Keep reading to learn more.
In this comparison:
Spot and Tango vs Nom Nom: At a glance
 |  | |
| Price | Starts at $2 a day* | Starts at $2 a day for Fresh frozen* |
| Shipping | Free | Free |
| Promo discount | Get 40% off your first order | 50% off your first order |
| Protein options | Beef, Turkey, Chicken, Pork, Turkey & Chicken, Lamb | Beef & Brown Rice, Turkey & Quinoa, Lamb & Sweet Potato |
| Sourcing | USDA-certified premium ingredients from local U.S. suppliers | USDA-certified premium ingredients from local U.S. suppliers |
| Accreditation | Recipes by board-certified veterinary nutritionists; meets USDA and AAFCO standards | Recipes by board-certified veterinary nutritionists; meets USDA and AAFCO standards |
| Offers topper portions? | Yes | Yes |
| Treats | 5 treat options | 5 treat options |
| Offers dog & cat food? | Yes | No |
| Offers supplements | Full spectrum and GI Targeted probiotics | Hip & Joint, Allergy & Immune, and Calming |
| Offers kibble alternative | No | Yes, UnKibble starts at $1/day |
| Money-back guarantee? | Yes | Yes |
| Giving back | $50 donation in your name when you adopt through a partner shelter | No official charitable donation |
Keep reading below to see how each service compares in important categories. If you want to dig deeper into one company, you can learn more in our full Nom Nom Dog Food review or our Spot and Tango Dog Food review. You can also compare other fresh frozen dog food options at the links at the bottom of this post.
Nom Nom vs Spot and Tango: head-to-head comparison
Next we’ll see how Nom Nom and Spot and Tango compare in important categories. We’ve assigned each category a point value based on its importance to most pet owners. At the end we’ll tally the scores to see which brand wins, but the choice that’s best for you may depend on your own preferences.
Click an option below to jump to that section.
- Price (2 points)
- Ingredient quality & sourcing (2 points)
- Wet food options (2 points)
- Kibble options (1 point)
- Treats (1 point)
- Supplements (1 point)
- Portioning (1 point)
- Packaging & sustainability (1 point)
- Shipping (1 point)
- Overall winner
Slow-Feeder & Water Bowl Set by The Dog Tale
- Dishwasher, microwave, and freezer-safe silicone, so cleanup is easy
- Slow down your dog's eating to improve digestion
- Slow-feed bowl doubles as a frozen lick mat
- Suction cups help keep your dog's bowls in place on hard floors.
- Pair with our matching placemat
Price
Both Nom Nom and Spot and Tango’s Freshly made food start at around $2+ per day. However, this price would only apply to the smallest dogs, so most dog owners will end up paying more.
The table below will give you a more accurate idea of what you might pay, but you should get a quote from each company to see your actual cost, since pricing depends on your dog’s size, activity level, neutered status, and ultimately the number of calories they require per day.
The recipe(s) you choose can also impact your price, especially with Spot and Tango. Their turkey recipe is the cheapest option, so we used this recipe to estimate the daily cost. If you’d like more variety, your price will increase slightly.
| Nom Nom Dog Food | Spot and Tango (Wet food) | |
| 5-lb. Chihuahua female | Full portion: $3.21 / day | Full portion: $2.86 / day |
| 50-lb. Airedale Terrier male | Full portion: $9.94 / day | Full portion: $8.46 / day |
| 100-lb. Scottish Deerhound male | Full portion: $17.34 / day | Full portion: $14.63 / day |
>> Read more:
Nom Nom’s chicken recipe is the cheapest, while their lamb and beef recipes are more expensive. Nom Nom allows you to choose up to two recipes per shipment. However, you can also rotate your recipe each shipment for no extra fee. Half portions are available for large dogs, so that you can mix the food with kibble to keep costs down.
Spot and Tango allow you to choose all three recipes, but some recipes are significantly more expensive than others. For example, for our Airedale Terrier in the table above, the Turkey & Red Quinoa recipe came out to $8.46 per day, but the Lamb & Sweet Potato meal cost $12.38 per day, so you’ll need to pay more for Spot and Tango if you like to rotate meals.
We should also note that Spot and Tango’s UnKibble option is substantially cheaper than their wet food prices, although it may also offer less nutritional value. You can learn more about it in the kibble category below.
Winner: Spot & Tango (2 points)
Based on the tests we ran, Spot & Tango consistently came out cheaper for freshly made food, when calculating only their cheapest recipe, the turkey recipe. It’s likely that Spot & Tango’s cost is similar to Nom Nom when choosing to order multiple recipes.
We’re giving this category two points since it’s a major factor for most pet owners.
Ingredient quality & sourcing
Both Nom Nom and Spot and Tango source their ingredients from U.S. suppliers that grow USDA crops. Additionally, both services use whole-food ingredients in their recipes. Whole meat is always used—no mysterious meat meals or cheap fillers. All recipes from both brands, with the exception of UnKibble’s Beef & Barley, are gluten-free and non-GMO.
On top of this, both companies employ board-certified veterinary nutritionists to craft their recipes, so you can relax knowing your dog is getting a nutritionally appropriate, high-quality diet.
In either case, your food is cooked slowly at low temperatures to preserve each ingredient’s nutritional value. This is in contrast to the high temperatures and pressure used to extrude kibble and make it shelf-stable—a process that destroys much of the ingredients’ original nutrients.
All that to say, you really can’t go wrong with feeding your pup food from either company.
If you put each recipe under a microscope, you’ll notice Nom Nom’s recipes use ingredients such as potato, sweet potato, or brown rice as the first or second ingredient. On the other hand, Spot and Tango uses liver as their second ingredient, providing more protein per meal, averaging 10%, whereas Nom Nom averages 7.6% protein per meal.
Spot and Tango’s list of recognizable, whole-food ingredients is longer than Nom Nom’s, since they also include fruits. Fruits aren’t a necessary part of a canine diet, but they can include healthy antioxidants and vitamins, so we’ll count that as a point for them. I noticed that the Lamb and Sweet Potato recipe actually smelled sweet because of the included apples, and my dog seemed to enjoy it.
Nom Nom, on the other hand, looks better when you examine the food itself (see the photo at the top of the article). No premium dog food that we’ve tested has more clearly identifiable chunks of real, whole-food ingredients. Although, this could be an issue if you have a picky pup, like our Yorkie, who picks out certain undesired ingredients.
Winner: Spot & Tango (2 points)
Spot and Tango’s meals are higher in protein as the first two ingredients are meat and liver. They also include real fruits in their recipe list, while Nom Nom doesn’t. None of Nom Nom’s recipes contain organ meat. But Nom Nom’s food clearly looks better than any premium dog food we’ve tried.
Wet food options
Nom Nom
Nom Nom offers six premium dog food recipes with whole foods and oils that create healthy bodies and coats:
- Beef Mash: Beef, potatoes, eggs, carrots, peas, fish oil…
- Chicken Cuisine: Chicken, sweet potatoes, yellow squash, spinach, fish oil…
- Pork Potluck: Pork, potatoes, green beans, yellow squash, mushrooms, kale, fish oil…
- Turkey Fare: Turkey, eggs, brown rice, carrots, spinach, fish oil…
- Turkey & Chicken Cookout: Sweet potato, turkey, chicken, kale, eggs…
- Lamb Pilaf: Lamb, rice, eggs, carrots, peas…
>> See Nom Nom’s full recipes…
Nom Nom allows you to select up to two recipes per shipment for small dogs and four recipes for larger breeds. You can change these recipes at any time, and you can automatically rotate between recipes each shipment for free. The turkey (9%) and the beef, chicken, and pork (8%) have a higher protein count than the other two, so we recommend those for growing puppies.
On the other hand, if you want your dog to lose some weight, you may want to choose the lamb recipe or the turkey & chicken recipe. Of course, Nom Nom will also take your dog’s weight goals into account when they create your meal plan, so you can go with any recipes you’d like.
Spot & Tango
Spot and Tango only offers three Freshly made recipes, but they’re all excellent options:
- Turkey & Red Quinoa: Turkey, Turkey Livers, Spinach, Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, Chickpeas, Quinoa…
- Beef & Brown Rice: Beef, Beef Livers, Butternut Squash, Spinach, Carrots, Brown Rice, Potatoes…
- Lamb & Sweet Potato: Lamb, Lamb Livers, Sweet Potatoes, Kale, Carrots, Brown Rice…
>> See Spot & Tango’s full recipes…
Spot and Tango allows you to select up to three recipes per shipment, so you can enjoy even more variety. All three of Spot and Tango’s meal options are high in protein, so they’re great for growing puppies.
If your dog is sensitive to common meats, the lamb recipe may offer a good alternative. However, it’s also the most expensive meal by a significant margin.
Winner: Nom Nom (2 points)
Nom Nom offers more recipes and makes it easy to rotate between recipes each shipment. However, it’s usually best not to change your pup’s diet too frequently to avoid indigestion.
High-quality kibble
Most dog food subscription services offer freshly cooked food that’s more similar to wet food than kibble. After all, the whole point of these services is to upgrade your dog’s nutrition. However, Spot & Tango has developed a way to improve your dog’s diet and maintain the convenience of dry food.
UnKibble is a “Fresh Dry” kibble alternative that is dried at low temperatures, whereas kibble is extruded at high temperatures that can destroy nutrient integrity. The result of UnKibble is a crunchy, kibble-like texture that doesn’t need to be stored in the fridge or freezer, but it’s still made with the same whole ingredients you’d get with freshly cooked food.
We fed our dog, Hobbes, two UnKibble recipes: Beef + Barley and Chicken + Brown Rice. He was far more enthusiastic about every meal than he ever has been when feeding him a store-bought kibble, and his poops improved in consistency as well. We also liked that you could see actual ingredients like dehydrated green beans in the bowl.
Aside from saving your freezer space, Spot and Tango also gives you a custom scoop that tells you exactly how much food your dog needs, and it’s cheaper than the wet food option.
There are four UnKibble recipes: Beef + Barley, Turkey + Sweet Potato, Chicken + Brown Rice, and Cod + Salmon.
| UnKibble price | |
| 5-lb. Chihuahua female | $2.11 / day |
| 50-lb. Airedale Terrier male | $5.15 / day |
| 100-lb. Scottish Deerhound male | $9.11 / day |
However, because of the processing required to turn it into kibble, we don’t believe UnKibble is nutritionally as good as the brand’s wet food. So, if you can afford it and have the freezer space, freshly cooked food from either Nom Nom or Spot and Tango is better.
Winner: Spot & Tango (1 point)
Nom Nom doesn’t currently offer a kibble-based option. If you’re interested in other high-quality dry foods, check out our Sundays Dog Food review. We’ve also fed it to our dog and we were big fans.
Treats
Cutting overprocessed kibble out of your dog’s diet is great, but what about all those treats they eat in between meals? Dog treats are notoriously filled with artificial preservatives and chemicals.
Spot and Tango offers Sweet Potato Bites, Chicken Bites, Cheese Bites, Bison Bites, and Beef Trainers. These are all single-ingredient treats, and some of them are made of nutrient-dense organ meat. I like the variety of options. However, the bags are smaller than Nom Nom’s and, therefore, cost more per ounce for most flavors. Each flavor varies in price, from $10 to $16 a bag and can be added to your recurring subscription.
Nom Nom offers five treat options. Three are tough, single-ingredient chew treats: Chicken Jerky, Beef Sirloin Jerky, and Sweet Potato Chews. The jerkies have a crunchy texture similar to tough beef jerky. The Sweet Potato chew is a rawhide alternative.
The other two treat options are Beef & Blueberry Wafers and Chicken and Cranberry Wafers. These offer a great balance between sweet and savory, and they include chickpeas for added plant-based protein.
Nom Nom’s treats vary in price from $9.99 to $14.99 and you can add them to your regular subscription.
Winner: Both are good (.5 point each)
Ultimately, they’re all good options, so I’d decide based on other factors, like the price of the meals or the recipe options. But overall, Spot and Tango’s treats are more expensive than Nom Nom’s.
Supplements
Nom Nom also offers two probiotic supplements. The Full Spectrum Probiotics can help boost your pet’s overall digestive health and immunity. The GI Targeted Probiotics for Dogs help rebalance a dog’s inflamed digestive system, which is common in pets with food sensitivities.
Spot & Tango offers three supplements. The Hip & Joint contains Glucosamine, Green Lipped Mussel, Chondroitin, and Methylsulfonylmethane for easing joint pain in senior dogs. The Allergy + Immune contains Wild Alaskan Salmon Oil, Evening Primrose Oil, and Biotin to promote healthy skin and a strong immune response. The Calming Supplement contains L-Theanine, Passionflower Powder, Ashwagandha Powder, and Chamomile Powder to encourage a calm disposition by helping regulate cortisol levels.
Winner: It depends (.5 point each)
Here each brand’s offerings are different, so it depends on your dog’s health needs.
Portioning
For our dog, both companies individually portioned each meal in small, easy-peel plastic pouches. This makes feeding your pup super simple. You just move two pouches from the freezer to the fridge each evening and feed them to your dog the next day. No measuring or cleanup is needed.
This is easier than some other services, such as The Farmer’s Dog, which often requires you to measure out multiple meals from each packet. On the other hand, having multiple meals per pack means fewer food packs and less plastic waste. (You can learn more in our Nom Nom vs Farmers Dog comparison.)
It’s possible that very small dogs eating Spot and Tango may receive more than one meal per packet, which would require you to simply feed your dog half a pack per meal. Your custom instructions included with each shipment will explain what to do.
Spot and Tango’s UnKibble product is delivered in one or two bags, and you’ll use the custom scoop to measure each meal.
Editing your portions
Both services will automatically adjust your dog’s portions as your pet ages and after you update their weight or activity level.
You can also contact Nom Nom to have them manually make a portion change if you think your dog needs more or less food.
Spot and Tango makes it easy to increase or decrease your dog’s portions yourself; you just log into your account and view your dog’s current subscription. From there you’ll be able to increase or decrease the number of calories they receive per meal. However, you should be cautious about doing this without first consulting a representative from the company or your own vet, since they’re better equipped to calculate an appropriate daily calorie amount.
Winner: Tie (.5 point each)
Both companies make perfect portioning super easy.
Packaging & sustainability
Both companies use eco-friendly packaging. The cardboard boxes and meal packs can be recycled (after being rinsed), and the insulating liners are compostable. If you want to be as sustainable as possible, edit your shipping schedule to receive larger shipments with more time in between deliveries. Currently, only Nom Nom allows you to do this (explained in the following section).
Winner: Tie (.5 point each)
Both companies have done a good job removing long-lasting, non-recyclable plastics from their shipments.
Shipping flexibility
For both services, shipping is always free anywhere in the contiguous 48 states.
Spot and Tango ships every 2 weeks for Fresh and every 4 weeks for UnKibble.
After your two-week starter box, Nom Nom automatically shifts to a two-week shipping schedule, but you can adjust it to weekly shipments (if you have less freezer space) or every four weeks (if you want to cut down on packaging waste).
Both services bill you as food is packaged for delivery, so changing your shipping preferences will also change your billing amount and frequency.
Winner: Nom Nom by a hair (.75 point to Nom Nom, .25 point to Spot & Tango)
Both services ship for free, which is the most important factor. But Nom Nom’s shipping flexibility is nice if you want to cut down on waste or have more food on hand for trips away from home.d
Overall winner: Spot & Tango
| Points won (out of 12) | |
| Nom Nom | 4.75 |
| Spot & Tango | 7.25 |
Both dog food services do an excellent job of feeding your pup healthy, whole-food ingredients that should do wonders for their holistic health over the long term. You can’t go wrong with either option, but Spot & Tango has an edge with its use of organ meat and it’s UnKibble dry food alternative.
