My agility instructor feeds her dogs homemade food, has for years, and competes with them, so after a talk with my vet I went to the nutritionist she uses. She examined the dogs and interviewed me about their age, history, activity level, etc, and came up with a diet.
I chose to go with cooked meat, as I feel it is safer. Wild canines may survive on raw, but I have domesticated dogs.
I spend about 10min every four days making their stew.
If I buy all the ingredients at the grocery store, it costs about $0.75 per day per 3yr old, 60 pound, highly active dog. That is just a little bit cheaper than Iams Large Dog bought on sale, with coupon, and when they put out the 48lb bags in place of the 40lb bags. However, I actually make my own bone meal, use veggies from the garden or stuff that I'm not going to eat in time (can't finish a bag of spinach before it turns), buy veggies marked down for quick sale, and buy meat when it's real cheap (I have three freezers), so it turns out to be pretty cheap.
It's nice to know what is in their food. The treats I make them actually taste pretty good. I haven't tried the stew, but only because I don't think I'd like it.
Back in the day when we bred a few hunting Labs and tried raising a few pigs...
The pig raising was not going so well so I had them go to market/our freezer early.
I bought all the other ing. and along with the pork made homemade dog food for our female with pups on board.
Cooked her a pot of that homemade dog food a week through out her months and post whelping.
Had 13 big healthy pups.