The yearly report on calorie counting apps

The desk

Editorial standards

Maintained by Imogen Hartley ยท Last reviewed October 22, 2026

The rules we work to when we grade apps, publish prices, compile calorie charts and write about health.

App facts and prices

Features, plans and prices come from each company's own website, help pages and app-store listings. US prices are printed with the date they were checked. When a company does not describe a feature in a way we can confirm, we write a dash rather than guess, and we do not infer that a feature is missing because a page does not mention it.

Grades

Grades are editorial judgments against five published criteria, explained on how we compare. They are the same on every page of the site. A grade changes only when an app's features, data or price change, and every change is logged in the changelog.

Calorie and nutrition data

The calorie charts are rounded from the USDA's FoodData Central database. Where foods vary by brand, size or preparation, we give a range and say why. We do not publish figures we cannot trace to a source.

Health information

Our explainers describe general principles of calorie counting for healthy adults and cite established guidance, such as the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, where it exists. They are not medical advice. People who are pregnant, under 18, managing a medical condition or with a history of eating disorders should set targets with a clinician, and we say so where it matters.

What we do not do

Corrections

If something on the site is wrong, we fix it and record the change, with the date, in the changelog. Small typo fixes are not logged; factual changes always are.

Updates

The report is published once a year and kept current through the year. Prices and features are re-read when companies announce changes and at least every few months; each page shows the date it was last checked.