Best Food Tracking App: Which Ones Scan Barcodes Free
Cronometer, MyNetDiary and FatSecret scan barcodes free. MyFitnessPal and Lose It! put the scanner in their paid plans. What each subscription costs.
A food tracking app is a diary with a food database behind it. You search for what you ate, or scan the packet, and it adds up the calories and nutrients for the day. Nearly every app gives the diary away. Where they differ is the barcode scanner, the ads, and the price of the subscription that lifts the limits.
We read each maker’s own website and its Google Play and App Store listings. Every app in the table is on both stores, and each name links to its Google Play page. Prices are the US ones, and they change from country to country. A food diary is a record and not advice: if a health condition affects what you should eat, your doctor or dietitian comes first.
Food tracking apps compared
| App | What is free | What the subscription adds | Subscription price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cronometer | Diary with barcode scanner, up to 95 nutrients, seven days of reports. Has ads | No ads, photo and voice logging, a fasting timer, reports over any period | Gold: $10.99 a month or $59.99 a year |
| MyNetDiary | Diary with barcode scanner, voice logging, up to 108 nutrients. No ads | Photo logging, diet plans, fasting, Fitbit and Garmin sync | Premium: $8.99 a month or $59.99 a year |
| FatSecret | Diary with barcode scanner, macro tracking, reports | Photo and voice logging, meal plans, a meal planner | Premium: up to $14.99 a month or $59.99 a year on the US App Store |
| Lifesum | Calorie counter with barcode scanner, a fasting timer | Logging by photo, voice or text, saved favourites | Premium: no price on its website |
| Yazio | Calorie counter with barcode scanner, going by its listing. Has ads | No ads, photo logging, the recipe database, Fitbit and Garmin sync | Pro: no price on its website |
| MyFitnessPal | Food, weight and exercise diary. Has ads. No barcode scanner | Barcode and meal scan, voice logging, no ads, custom macro goals | Premium: $9.99 to $19.99 a month, or $49.99 to $79.99 a year |
| Lose It! | Calorie tracking and a weight plan. Has ads. Barcode scanner listed as paid | Barcode scanner, photo and voice logging, macro tracking, fitness tracker sync | Premium: no fixed price |
| MacroFactor | Nothing after a 7-day trial | The whole app, barcode scanner included, with no ads | $11.99 a month or $71.99 a year |
Apps that scan barcodes free
Cronometer
Cronometer’s website says a Basic account is free for as long as you need it, and that unlimited use of the barcode scanner is included. So is the whole food database, custom meals and recipes, and tracking of up to 95 nutrients. The free version carries ads and limits reports and charts to a seven-day window.
Gold removes the ads and adds logging by photo or voice, a fasting timer and a recipe importer. It costs $10.99 billed monthly or $59.99 billed yearly. Twelve monthly payments come to $131.88, so the yearly plan is the cheaper one from the sixth month on. It is also on the App Store.
MyNetDiary
MyNetDiary’s free tier is the most generous of the ones we read. Its website lists the barcode scanner, voice logging, up to 108 nutrients and reports across your whole history, with no ads and no account needed to start. Google Play bears that out with no ads label on the listing.
Premium is $8.99 a month or $59.99 a year and adds photo logging, diet plans, intermittent fasting and sync with Fitbit, Garmin and Withings. Premium Plus, at $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year, adds AI features such as a coach and menu scanning. There is also a $179.99 lifetime option. The site does not say which tier it buys, and three years of Premium costs about the same. The iPhone version is on the App Store.
FatSecret
FatSecret’s website sits behind a prove-you-are-human check, so we used the Internet Archive’s copy of its Premium page along with the store listings. The comparison on that page puts the barcode scanner, macro tracking, reports and the community in the free column. Premium adds logging by photo or by dictating a meal, a meal planner, dietitian-designed meal plans and a water tracker.
The website names monthly, quarterly and annual plans without a figure. The US App Store listing shows monthly subscriptions at $10.49 and $14.99 and annual ones at $38.99 and $59.99, so the offer you see may vary.
Lifesum and Yazio
Lifesum’s website advertises a free barcode scanner, a free calorie counter and a fasting timer. Its help centre says logging by photo, voice or text is a Premium feature, and marks saved favourites as Premium too. Lifesum prints no price on its site. The US App Store listing shows three months at $29.99 to $39.99 and a year at $99.99 to $119.99.
Yazio’s listing puts the barcode scanner in its free calorie counter and leaves it off the Pro list. An archived copy of its help centre says Pro adds photo logging, the full recipe database, automatic sync with Fitbit and Garmin, more fasting plans and an ad-free app. The price is not on its website either. The US App Store listing shows twelve months at $23.90 to $47.90.
Apps where the scanner is paid
MyFitnessPal
The free version still exists. The comparison on MyFitnessPal’s Premium page lists nutrition, weight and exercise tracking as free. Barcode scan, meal scan, voice logging, custom macro goals, intermittent fasting and ad-free logging are all Premium.
The price depends on where you look. MyFitnessPal’s own guide to its plans, which we read in an archived copy, gives Premium as $19.99 a month or $79.99 a year, and Premium+, which adds a meal planner, as $24.99 or $99.99. Its Premium sign-up page showed us $9.99 a month or $49.99 a year. The US App Store listing carries in-app purchases at both levels. Go by the figure on the payment screen.
Lose It!
Lose It! lists its free features in its store listings as calorie tracking, a personal weight plan and community support. The barcode scanner is under Premium there, with photo and voice logging, macro and nutrient tracking, fasting and fitness tracker sync. An archived copy of its help centre says the scanner was being moved to Premium and that some free members would keep it during the change, so yours may still work.
There is no fixed price. The same help centre says Lose It! adjusts prices by promotion and by how often you use the app. The US App Store listing shows Premium purchases from $9.99 to $79.99.
MacroFactor
MacroFactor is the only app here with no free tier. Its website says there is not one and never will be, and that the app carries no ads as a result. You get a 7-day trial, then pay $11.99 a month, $47.99 for half a year or $71.99 a year. The maker says barcode support is strongest in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Japan, France and Spain. The iPhone version is on the App Store.
A tracker for Indian food
Google’s suggestions show people in India looking for a calorie counter that knows Indian food. Healthify, from HealthifyMe in Bengaluru, is the home-grown option on both stores. Its listing describes logging a meal by photo, an AI coach called Ria and a food database covering a wide range of cuisines.
Neither the listing nor the company’s website says which of those tools need a paid plan. The Indian App Store shows in-app purchases called Smart Plan from ₹499 to ₹4,199, and the listing describes one-on-one coaching as a premium service. Install it, see what the free version lets you log, and read the plan price before you agree to anything.
Which one to pick
- You want a free diary with a barcode scanner: MyNetDiary, because its free tier has no ads and no cap on reports. Cronometer is the alternative if you can live with ads and a seven-day view.
- You are on MyFitnessPal and miss the scanner: it costs up to $79.99 a year to get it back. Cronometer, MyNetDiary and FatSecret include it for nothing.
- You want to log by photo: that is a paid feature in every app here that says which tier it belongs to. Cronometer Gold and MyNetDiary Premium are both $59.99 a year.
- You refuse to subscribe: stay on a free tier, or look at MyNetDiary’s one-off $179.99.
- You have a Samsung phone and simple needs: Samsung Health is free and its listing says it records daily meals and snacks.
Several of these apps also pull in exercise from a watch or strap. If you want your pulse on the phone as well, see our guides to heart rate apps for Android and for iPhone.
What happened to the old list
The 2019 version of this article named seven apps, and none of them was a plain food diary. HealthyOut, OptUp, Rise and Yummly no longer turn up when you search Google Play or the App Store. Tasty is still there, and it is BuzzFeed’s recipe app.
Noom and WeightWatchers remain on both stores as paid programmes. Noom’s listing prices its weight plan at $209 a year, which it presents as $17 a month. WeightWatchers sells memberships built around its Points system in place of calorie counting.
Quick answers
Which food tracking apps have a free barcode scanner?
Cronometer, MyNetDiary and FatSecret all state that the scanner is in the free version. Lifesum’s website says the same, and Yazio’s listing places it in its free calorie counter.
Is MyFitnessPal still free?
The diary is, with ads. Barcode scanning, meal scan and voice logging are listed under Premium on MyFitnessPal’s own comparison.
Is there a calorie counter app with no subscription?
The free tiers of Cronometer, MyNetDiary and FatSecret need none. MyNetDiary says its free tier does not even need an account to start.
Can I track food by taking a picture?
Yes, but expect to pay. Cronometer, MyNetDiary, FatSecret, Lifesum, Yazio, MyFitnessPal and Lose It! all place photo logging in their paid plans.
Does Apple Health track food?
Apple’s guide says the Health app stores data from compatible third-party apps. FatSecret’s App Store listing, for one, says it adds your foods and their nutritional information to Health.
