Best Calorie Counting Apps in 2026

Counting calories is simply keeping score of the energy in what you eat, and an app does the adding up for you. The hard part is never the maths. It is remembering to log, finding the right food, and not giving up when a meal is messy. So the best calorie counting app is the one that makes every meal quick to record and keeps the numbers honest. In 2026, that app is PlateLens for most people.

Below are the seven apps worth knowing, what each one is good at, and how to pick the one that fits your life. If you are new to the idea, start with our guide to what a calorie is and what a calorie deficit means.

How we chose these apps

We looked at the things that decide whether people keep counting after the first fortnight:

• How many ways you can log a meal. Typing every ingredient is where most people quit. Photo, barcode, voice and saved meals all help.
• Whether the food data can be trusted. A database with one checked entry per food beats one where the same banana appears six times with six different numbers.
• What you get without paying. A free plan that lasts lets you build the habit before spending money.
• The price of the paid tier, for when you want extras.
• Comfort. A calm, encouraging app beats one that shouts at you in red.

Prices below are US list prices: PlateLens checked August 10, 2026, Cronometer Gold checked September 20, 2026, and Lose It! from its App Store listing.

1. PlateLens: best calorie counting app for most people

PlateLens works the way people actually eat. If you made dinner, you take a photo; the app suggests the foods and portions on the plate, asks when something could go either way (say, white rice or cauliflower rice), and lets you change anything before you save. If you are eating a cereal bar, you scan the barcode. If you are walking to work with a flat white, you say what it is. Everything lands in the same diary, so you never juggle apps.

Searches cover everyday foods, packaged products and restaurant dishes. Each food carries 82+ nutrients, so your diary quietly tracks fiber, sodium and iron as well as calories, and net carbs are worked out for you if you eat low-carb.

When you sign up, PlateLens sets a daily calorie target and protein, carb and fat goals from your height, weight, age, activity and aim.

It has grown into a full kit around the diary: adaptive TDEE, which tunes that calorie target to your weight trend, an intermittent-fasting timer with 16:8, 14:10 and custom windows, blood glucose logging beside your meals, alcohol tracking, a recipe and meal planner that writes grocery lists, and a body scan that works out waist, hip and chest sizes from a dozen pictures taken with your phone. Phones, the watch and a proper browser version all open the same account, and your entire log can be saved as a JSON file at any time.

Price: you can stay on the free version for good, and nobody asks for a card. Scanning and typing have no ceiling; photos are capped at three a day and coach chats at five. Paying $34.99 for the year (or $9.99 month by month) lifts both caps, and no other big-name counter charges less for a year.

2. Lose It!: the gentlest start

Lose It! is lovely for someone counting for the very first time. You enter your goal weight and how quickly you want to get there, and it gives you one daily calorie budget. The design is cheerful and uncluttered, and challenges and meal plans keep people coming back. Snap It reads photos and a scanner handles packets. Foods carry less nutrient detail than in the leading apps, and a good share of the insights wait behind Premium, which the App Store lists at $39.99 a year.

3. Cronometer: for vitamin and mineral detail

If you want to know whether you are getting enough iron, B12 or potassium, Cronometer is the specialist. Its makers say a single food can show as many as 95 nutrients and compounds, drawn from what they call lab-analysed data. Scanning is free, paid for by adverts. Upgrading to Gold ($59.99 annually or $10.99 monthly) unlocks photo and voice entry and Crono Coach, which turns your diary into short pointers. Logging takes more care than with a photo-first app.

PlateLens or Cronometer? Choose Cronometer when a detailed micronutrient report is the goal, for example on a vegan diet or when a clinician has asked you to watch something specific. For counting calories day to day, PlateLens asks less of you: three free photo scans a day where Cronometer keeps photo logging in Gold, unlimited free barcode scanning, a fasting timer, and a cheaper upgrade ($34.99 against $59.99 a year).

4. MyFitnessPal: the biggest food catalogue

MyFitnessPal has the largest crowd-sourced food catalogue there is, with very wide coverage of chain restaurants and regional brands. If you eat out at chains most days, it will find your order more often than anything else. Because members add the entries, you will often see the same food several times with different numbers, so pick carefully. Packet scanning, photo-based Meal Scan and spoken entries are sold as part of Premium, which costs $79.99 for a year or $19.99 for a month.

5. FatSecret: free counting with company

FatSecret has kept most of its core app free for years: a food diary, barcode scanner, and exercise and weight logs. Its forums are busy with people sharing meals and progress, which some readers find motivating. It has fewer modern ways to log than the apps above and less nutrient detail per food. Paid options are priced by country.

6. MyNetDiary: calm and structured

MyNetDiary feels orderly: even unpaid, it sets your calorie and macro goals and reads barcodes, whether you open it on a phone or a computer. A sister app from the same makers is aimed at people living with diabetes. Some planning and analysis tools are paid, priced by country.

7. MacroFactor: for experienced lifters

MacroFactor watches your food log and scale readings, judges how much energy you burn, and rewrites your calorie and macro goals weekly. Its logging is quick once you know it, and it is popular with people running structured training phases. You pay from the start: $71.99 for twelve months, $47.99 for six or $11.99 for one. It has no browser version, and the coaching needs several weeks of steady logs to settle.

Choosing the right app for you

• You want one app that makes every meal easy: PlateLens.
• You are nervous about starting and want the simplest screen: Lose It!
• You need to watch particular vitamins or minerals: Cronometer.
• Most of your meals come from chain restaurants: MyFitnessPal.
• You want free counting and a community: FatSecret.
• You lift seriously and want an algorithm steering your targets: MacroFactor.

Whichever you choose, give it three weeks. Log everything, including drinks and cooking oil, save the meals you repeat, and judge progress by your weekly average rather than one day. Our guides to portion control and macros help with the next step.