MealSaidFree calorie counter without a subscription: what you get
Nine free calorie apps list 89 in-app purchases between them, $0.99 to $119.99. What each free tier still does, from the US App Store, 22 October 2026.
On this page
Every calorie counter in the top of the App Store is free to download, and nine of the best known list 89 in-app purchases between them, priced from $0.99 to $119.99. Free is the install, not the app. What matters is what the free tier still does the day the trial ends.
On 22 October 2026 I opened the In-App Purchases panel on nine US App Store listings and wrote down every purchase Apple shows, then read each company's own page on what the free version keeps.
If you want a free calorie counter without a subscription hanging over it, the shortlist is short. Cronometer and MyNetDiary hand you a working tracker for nothing, Lose It! does not, and two of the nine have no free tier at all.
I built MealSaid, which is free and has no purchases, so take my last section with the salt it deserves. The table is from their pages.
What does free actually mean on the App Store?
It means free to install. All nine apps I checked sell a subscription inside, and the listed prices span $0.99 to $119.99.
Apple shows an In-App Purchases panel on every listing, up to ten entries long. Eight of the nine apps fill all ten slots. FatSecret shows nine.
Ten is a display cap, not a count. An app selling twice that many looks the same on the page as one selling ten.
Which free tiers actually track food?
Cronometer and MyNetDiary. Both keep the barcode scanner and the whole database free, which is the part everyone else charges for.
Cronometer's free features page is specific: "Unlimited use of our Barcode Scanner is included in a Basic account", along with the million-entry database and up to 95 nutrients (Cronometer). Gold buys you no ads and long-term charts (Cronometer support).
MyNetDiary goes further on paper. Its free tier page claims the barcode scanner, voice logging, 13 charts, reports across your full history and 108 nutrients, with no ads (MyNetDiary).
Lose It! is the surprise. Its App Store listing names three free basic features: calorie tracking, a weight loss plan and community groups. It puts the barcode scanner, photo logging, voice logging and macronutrients in Premium (App Store). A calorie counter whose free tier does not break out protein is a narrower product than the download button suggests.
| App | Free tier keeps | Paid tier adds | Purchases Apple lists | Advertising declared |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cronometer | Barcode scanner, full database, 95 nutrients, 7 days of history | No ads, long-term charts, fasting, recipe importer | 10, from $10.99 to $59.99 | Yes |
| MyNetDiary | Barcode scanner, voice logging, 13 charts, full history, no ads | Meal plans and the PlateAI extras | 10, from $8.99 to $59.99 | No |
| MyFitnessPal | Food and exercise logging, recipes, viewing macros, partner app links | Barcode scanner, Meal Scan, Voice Log, no ads | 10, from $9.99 to $79.99 | Yes |
| FatSecret | Logging, database, account sync on the web | Dietitian meal plans, advanced planning, water tracking | 9, from $10.49 to $59.99 | No |
| Yazio | Not stated; the listing calls the tracker itself free | Pro, which the listing never separates from free | 10, from $11.90 to $47.90 | Yes |
| Lifesum | Logging "with limited features", which the listing never names | The full Lifesum experience, in its words | 10, from $21.99 to $119.99 | No |
| Lose It! | Calorie tracking, a weight loss plan, community groups | Barcode scanner, photo and voice logging, macros, fasting | 10, from $9.99 to $79.99 | Yes |
| MacroFactor | Nothing past a 7 day trial | Everything | 10, from $9.99 to $89.99 | No |
| Cal AI | Nothing, a 3 day trial, scan results need a subscription | Everything | 10, from $0.99 to $29.99 | No |
| MealSaid | Everything it does | Nothing, there is no purchase screen | None | No |
MacroFactor is at least blunt. Its listing says: "MacroFactor has a free trial, but does not offer a free subscription tier" (App Store). Cal AI's listing carries one line in capitals at the bottom, that scanning results require a subscription, and its site offers a 3 day trial (Cal AI). Its cheapest listed purchase, $0.99, is a Streak Restore, which buys back a logging streak you broke.
Why does one app show seven different prices?
Because the panel lists what people buy, and the bigger apps run several price points at the same time. Lose It! shows seven of them under one name.
Seven separate purchases on the Lose It! listing are named exactly "Lose It! Premium", at $9.99, $11.99, $19.99, $23.99, $29.99, $39.99 and $79.99 (App Store). Its own help centre quotes one number: "$79.99 USD / Year" (Lose It! help).
The pattern repeats. MyFitnessPal shows Yearly Premium at $79.99 and at $49.99, Lifesum shows a one-year subscription at $119.99 and at $99.99, and Yazio shows 12 Months at $23.90 and at $47.90 (App Store).
The price you are shown in the app is one of several, and the renewal is the one that matters. The Lose It! help centre also sells a Lifetime unlock at $299.99, or $229.99 if you already pay for Premium (Lose It! help). I cannot reconcile that with the two Premium Lifetime purchases on the listing at $49.99 and $59.99.
Which free calorie counters show you ads?
Four of the nine declare advertising to Apple: MyFitnessPal, Lose It!, Cronometer and Yazio. The other five do not.
The declaration sits in the age rating panel of each listing, under Contains. It is what the developer told Apple rather than a test I ran, so treat it as a minimum.
MyFitnessPal is the only one that explains the trade in writing. The core of the app is free, it says, and "it stays that way because ads help pay for it" (MyFitnessPal support). Premium removes banners, sponsored posts and ads in the forums.
Cronometer sells the same thing, listing "No Advertisements" first among Gold benefits (Cronometer support). So on the two best free tiers here, one of them is funded by ads and the other says it is not.
So which one should you install?
If you want a free tracker that will still work in a year, install Cronometer or MyNetDiary. Everything else on this page is a trial with a database attached.
Pick by what you log. Packaged food means you need the barcode scanner, which rules out the free tiers of MyFitnessPal and Lose It!. Micronutrients mean Cronometer. No ads and free means MyNetDiary, on its own account.
If you are leaving MyFitnessPal specifically, the paywall history and the full price comparison are in our MyFitnessPal alternatives post.
MealSaid, which I built, is free with no ads and no in-app purchases. That is the only claim on this page I cannot show you an App Store panel for, because the listing is not public yet.
You say what you ate and it writes calories and macros to Apple Health, and at times you pick it calls your phone and asks. It has no barcode scanner, no photo logging, no database to search and no way to import food other apps wrote to Apple Health. It needs iOS 26 on an iPhone and it is English only. How MealSaid works has the detail.
Free with nothing to buy is easy when an app does less. Cronometer gives you 95 nutrients for nothing, which is more generous than anything I have built.
How I checked this
Checked 22 October 2026. I fetched the nine US App Store listings and read the In-App Purchases panel on each one, recording the purchase name and price exactly as Apple shows them, plus the advertising flag in the age rating panel. Counts are 10 for every app except FatSecret at 9, and ten is Apple's cap.
Free tier contents come from each company's own page: Cronometer's free features page and Subscription Types article, MyNetDiary's free tier page, the MyFitnessPal plan comparison, and the App Store descriptions for Lose It!, MacroFactor, FatSecret, Lifesum, Yazio and Cal AI. The Lose It! lifetime prices are from its help centre.
What I could not verify: FatSecret's own premium page returns 403 to anything scripted, so its free and paid split here comes from the App Store description instead. Lifesum and Yazio never name which features the free tier loses, so those two cells say so rather than guess.
A third-party pricing blog puts Yazio's barcode scanner behind Pro, and I am not repeating a split Yazio itself does not publish. I installed none of these apps for this post, so every ad claim is a declaration rather than an observation. Corrections to ohmbrock42@gmail.com.
Questions
Is there a calorie counter with no subscription at all?
MealSaid has no in-app purchases of any kind. Among the apps on the App Store today, Cronometer and MyNetDiary run free tiers you can use forever, but both still sell a subscription inside the app.
Which free calorie app has barcode scanning without paying?
Cronometer and MyNetDiary both state that barcode scanning is in the free tier. MyFitnessPal and Lose It! put the scanner behind Premium, and Yazio never says which side of the line it falls on.
Is Cal AI free?
No. Cal AI's App Store listing says food scanning analysis results require a subscription, and its site offers a 3 day trial. Its listed purchases run from $0.99 to $29.99.
Which calorie counter is free with no ads?
MyNetDiary's own free tier page says no ads, and its listing does not declare advertising to Apple. MealSaid has no ads and nothing to buy. MyFitnessPal, Lose It!, Cronometer and Yazio all declare advertising.
What is the most expensive calorie app subscription?
Of the purchases Apple shows, Lifesum's one-year subscription at $119.99 is the highest, with MacroFactor's $89.99 bundle next. The cheapest purchase named as twelve months is Yazio at $23.90.