Search for a free calorie counter and every app claims to be one. In practice, “free” covers four very different things: an app that stays useful without paying, a free plan with the key feature locked, a free trial, and “free to download”. This page shows what 13 popular calorie apps actually include without paying, checked on each app’s own website, help centre or App Store listing on October 23, 2026.
We make Calorix, a calorie app with a free version and a paid plan. To keep this page fair, Calorix isn’t in the table, the apps are in alphabetical order rather than ranked, and our own app has a separate, labelled section at the end. No app paid to be included.
Free with a barcode scanner
Scanning a barcode is the fastest way to log packaged food, and it’s where free plans differ most.
- Cronometer: “Unlimited use of our Barcode Scanner is included in a Basic account”, and Basic has no time limit (Cronometer).
- MyNetDiary: its free plan “includes the barcode scanner, voice logging, 13 charts, reports across your full history, and a shopping list, with no ads and no account required to start” (MyNetDiary).
- Yazio: “Calorie tracker with barcode scanner” in the free version, per its App Store listing.
- Lifesum: the traditional tracker, free, has a barcode scanner; AI tracking is Premium (Lifesum help).
- FatSecret: “Best of all, fatsecret is free”, with “A barcode scanner” among its features, per its App Store listing.
Not free: MyFitnessPal (“As of October 1, 2022, Barcode Scan is available only with a Premium subscription”), Fitia (barcode scanning is Premium on its comparison page) and, increasingly, Lose It!, which is “moving the barcode scanner (Scan It) and nutrition label scanner to part of our Premium features” (Lose It! help).
Free photo logging
Logging a meal from a photo is the feature most apps now charge for.
- SnapCalorie is “FREE for up to 3 AI logs per day”, with a premium subscription for more (SnapCalorie).
- FatSecret lists “Image recognition of foods, meals and products” among its standard features; its Premium list doesn’t include it.
- Paid elsewhere: Cal AI (“Food scanning analysis results require a subscription”), Foodvisor (photo analysis is Premium; the free version is manual logging), Yazio (AI tracking “was initially available to all users for free and is now part of Yazio Pro”), Lifesum (AI tracking is Premium), MyFitnessPal (Meal Scan is Premium), MyNetDiary (Meal Scan is Premium), Cronometer (Photo Log is Gold) and Lose It! (photo logging is Premium).
How accurate photo estimates are is a separate question: see photo calorie counter apps.
Free without ads
Most free plans pay for themselves with ads. MyNetDiary is the only app here whose free plan states it has none. Cronometer, MyFitnessPal, Lose It! and Fitia show ads on their free plans, and Yazio lists an ad-free experience as a PRO benefit. Lose It! also sells a one-time ad removal without Premium.
No free version, only a trial
- MacroFactor: “Is there a free version? No, there isn’t (and will never be) a free version.” A 7-day trial, then $71.99 a year (MacroFactor). See MacroFactor price.
- Cal AI: free to download, but food scanning results need a subscription after a short trial. See Cal AI price.
- BitePal: doesn’t describe a free version on its site or listing. See BitePal price.
If you don’t want a subscription
Some apps stay useful for free indefinitely (Cronometer, MyNetDiary and FatSecret are the clearest). If you want paid features without a renewing subscription, two apps sell a one-time option: Lose It! Lifetime for $299.99 ($229.99 for current Premium members) and MyNetDiary Lifetime Premium for $179.99. See Lose It! Premium price and MyNetDiary price.
When paying is worth it
A free plan is enough if you mostly log packaged and home-cooked food with search and a scanner. Paying tends to make sense if you’ll log by photo or voice every day, want fasting, recipes or meal plans in the same app, or want targets that adapt to your progress. Yearly plans for these apps range from $23.90 (Yazio PRO’s cheapest US offer) to $149.00 (SnapCalorie’s annual plan); see calorie app prices in 2026 for the full table.
Our app: Calorix
We make Calorix, so it’s not in the table. It’s an iPhone-only calorie app with a free version and a paid Pro plan. Free, without a daily limit: barcode lookups, food search and manual logging, water and weight tracking, the basic fasting plans and Toasty, its pet. You also get 3 AI scans a day, shared between photo, label, voice and text logging. Pro removes the scan limit and costs $3.99 a week, $9.99 a month or $39.99 a year in the US, after a 3-day free trial. It’s not a free app in the MyNetDiary or Cronometer sense, and it has no Android or web version. Calorix pricing.
How we checked
For each app we read its own pricing page, help centre or comparison page and its US App Store listing on October 23, 2026, and wrote down only what the company itself says is free. Where an app says nothing, the table says “Not stated” rather than guessing. FatSecret’s website blocked our checks, so its facts come from its App Store listing. Free plans change often (Lose It! and Yazio have both moved features from free to paid), so we re-check this page monthly.
Change log
- October 23, 2026: page published, with 13 apps checked on their official pages and US App Store listings.
Updated October 23, 2026
