Lose It vs MyFitnessPal in 2026: same price, same paywall

Lose It! and MyFitnessPal both charge $79.99 a year, and in 2026 both put every fast way of logging behind that paywall. The thing that actually separates them is Apple Health: Lose It can read food back out of it, MyFitnessPal cannot.

I checked this because the comparison posts I found were quoting barcode scanning as a free Lose It feature, and Lose It's own help centre says otherwise. Every row below comes from one of the two companies' own pages or their US App Store listing, read on 23 October 2026.

What does each one cost in October 2026?

The same: $79.99 a year. The difference is how many other prices each one shows you.

Lose It's membership article gives one number for Premium, "$79.99 USD / Year (Auto-renews annually)", plus a Lifetime unlock at $299.99, or $229.99 for an active Premium member (Lose It! help centre). New users get a 7 day Premium trial.

MyFitnessPal's US App Store listing shows ten purchases at four distinct prices: $9.99, $19.99, $49.99 and $79.99, with $79.99 attached to three separate yearly SKUs (App Store).

Lose It's listing shows ten purchases at seven distinct prices for subscriptions, from $9.99 to $79.99, plus two more named Premium Lifetime at $49.99 and $59.99 (App Store). Those two do not match the $299.99 in the help centre, and I cannot reconcile them.

Lose It and MyFitnessPal, line by line

Eleven things people actually ask about, each cell read off a MyFitnessPal or Lose It page on 23 October 2026.

Can you still scan a barcode without paying?

Not in MyFitnessPal since 1 October 2022, and Lose It is in the middle of making the same change.

MyFitnessPal states it flatly: as of 1 October 2022, Barcode Scan requires a Premium subscription (MyFitnessPal help centre). That one is old news.

Lose It is the new part. Its article on unlocking the scanner says Scan It and the nutrition label scanner are becoming Premium features, and that "some free members will still have access as we transition, while others will not" (Lose It! help centre, read 23 October 2026).

So your Lose It free account may still scan today and stop next month, and the roundups that list barcode scanning as a free Lose It feature are describing a state that is being retired. I had it that way in the MyFitnessPal alternatives table too, and that row needs correcting.

How much of MyFitnessPal is actually free?

Eight features out of the 33 in its own comparison table, by my count.

MyFitnessPal publishes a Free, Premium and Premium+ grid. I counted the rows on 23 October 2026: 33 features listed, 8 ticked for Free, 21 starting at Premium, 4 exclusive to Premium+ (MyFitnessPal help centre).

The eight free ones are the boring essentials: food and exercise logging, weights and measurements, your own recipes, macronutrient views, goals by percentage, diary sharing, partner app links and a printable report.

Lose It publishes no equivalent grid, which is why this count exists for one app and not both. Its membership article describes Premium in a sentence rather than a table.

Both free tiers are paid for by promotion. MyFitnessPal is unusually direct about it: the core is free and "it stays that way because ads help pay for it" (MyFitnessPal help centre). Lose It runs in-app pop-ups instead, and the toggle to switch them off is a Premium control (Lose It! help centre).

Which one fits Apple Health better?

Lose It, and it is not close, because it reads food back.

MyFitnessPal's Apple Health article gives a four-row sync table. Food goes one way only, out to Apple Health, minus caffeine and vitamin A and minus timestamps. Exercise, sleep and weight come in (MyFitnessPal help centre).

Lose It moves weight, food and exercise in both directions. Food written to Apple Health by another app shows up in your Lose It log with a heart icon, once you grant Dietary Energy read permission (Lose It! help centre).

That is the one row here with a real consequence. If you ever log from a second app, a watch or a Shortcut, Lose It will show you the total and MyFitnessPal will not. The full read and write matrix across six apps is in our Apple Health comparison.

Does either one remind you to log?

MyFitnessPal does, per meal, only when you have not logged. I could find no reminder feature in Lose It's help centre.

MyFitnessPal's reminders screen lets you add a notification per meal, and the setting is literally worded "Remind me if I haven't logged" (MyFitnessPal help centre). It is free, not Premium.

Searching Lose It's help centre for reminders on 23 October 2026 returned subscription renewal notices and fasting guides, nothing about logging prompts. Absence from a help centre is weaker evidence than a documented feature, so treat that cell as unconfirmed rather than proven false.

So which should you pick?

Lose It if your food total in Apple Health has to be real. MyFitnessPal if you want a logging reminder that costs nothing.

At an identical $79.99 a year, the paid tiers are close enough that the free tiers decide it, and both free tiers are now a search box with promotions attached. That is the honest state of play, and it is the reason this blog exists.

My own app, MealSaid, is the footnote here: free with no in-app purchases, you say what you ate and it writes calories and macros to Apple Health. It has no barcode scanner, no photo logging, no food database to search and no Android build. It needs iOS 26 and it is English only. For what is genuinely free across the wider market, see the free calorie counter breakdown.

How I checked this

Checked 23 October 2026. Every feature row came from a MyFitnessPal or Lose It help centre article read through each site's public Help Center API, because both sit behind a bot wall that returns 403 to scripted page fetches. Article update dates ranged from 1 April 2026 (Lose It's barcode notice) to 20 October 2026 (MyFitnessPal's cancellation article).

Prices came from two places: each company's own help article, and the In-App Purchases panel on each US App Store listing, which shows at most ten purchases. The count of 8 free features out of 33 is mine, made by counting rows in MyFitnessPal's published grid.

What I could not verify: MyFitnessPal's own pricing page, which returns a Cloudflare challenge to everything I tried, so there is no trial length in the table. I also could not reconcile Lose It's $299.99 Lifetime price with the $49.99 and $59.99 Premium Lifetime purchases on its App Store listing. Corrections to ohmbrock42@gmail.com.