Comparison

FatSecret vs MyFitnessPal

By Eric Parker, founder of TrueCal. Updated October 16, 2026.

FatSecret includes barcode scanning and macro tracking for free on FatSecret's Premium page. MyFitnessPal has required Premium for barcode scanning since October 1, 2022, according to MyFitnessPal's barcode help article, while its Premium+ help article keeps food search and logging free. Photo and voice logging require paid plans in both apps. FatSecret's Premium page includes Smart Food Scan and Smart Assistant, and MyFitnessPal's Premium page includes Meal Scan and Voice Log.

MyFitnessPal's Premium page lists $79.99 a year or $19.99 a month. FatSecret's Premium page sends readers to the app for prices, with no amount on the web page, while its US App Store listing lists FatSecret Premium items from $10.49 to $59.99. This comparison uses the companies' pages and store listings read October 16, 2026 and does not rank the apps. Our MyFitnessPal review takes a separate look at that app.

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FatSecret and MyFitnessPal, feature by feature

What we checked	FatSecret	MyFitnessPal
Barcode scanning on the free version	Included on Free in FatSecret's Premium comparison. checked October 16, 2026	Premium and Premium+ only since October 1, 2022, in MyFitnessPal's barcode help article and plan table. checked October 16, 2026
Food search and database, in each company's words	Over 2.3 million human-verified food items, as described on FatSecret's App page. Missing branded foods can be submitted for review under its missing food guide. checked October 16, 2026	Company and user entries, according to MyFitnessPal's food data article. A check mark identifies entries it reviewed or added, per its check mark article. The homepage gives 20.5M foods. checked October 16, 2026
Photo or AI logging, and its plan	Smart Food Scan requires Premium, according to FatSecret's Smart Food Scan guide. checked October 16, 2026	Meal Scan requires Premium or Premium+, per MyFitnessPal's plan table. Its Meal Scan guide specifies English on iOS and Android, with no website access. checked October 16, 2026
Voice logging, and its plan	Smart Assistant requires Premium and accepts spoken or typed meals, per FatSecret's Smart Assistant guide. checked October 16, 2026	Voice Log is Premium on MyFitnessPal's voice help article and is also included in its Premium+ article. checked October 16, 2026
Calorie and macro goals on the free version	Macro tracking is free in FatSecret's Premium comparison. Its reports guide describes percent or gram goals. Plan required for setting goals is Not stated. checked October 16, 2026	Free includes calorie goals and percentage macro goals in 5 percent steps. Grams require Premium, according to MyFitnessPal's free version article and goal settings guide. checked October 16, 2026
Meal plans or recipes	Dietitian-designed Meal Plans and Meal Planner require Premium on FatSecret's Premium page. Anyone can browse recipes, but logging them requires Premium under its recipe guide. checked October 16, 2026	Meal Planner requires Premium+ in six countries and is app-only, per MyFitnessPal's Meal Planner guide. Creating foods, meals and recipes is free in its plan table. Logging or saving Recipe Discovery recipes requires Premium or Premium+ under its Recipe Discovery guide. checked October 16, 2026
Ads on the free version	Not stated	Free shows ads and Premium removes them, per MyFitnessPal's ad-free help article. checked October 16, 2026
Paid plan names and listed prices	FatSecret Premium has monthly, quarterly and annual plans. Its Premium page gives no price. The US App Store listing lists monthly items at $14.99 and $10.49, quarterly items at $28.99, $20.00 and $19.99, and annual items at $59.99 and $38.99. It does not identify the item a new subscriber sees. checked October 16, 2026	Premium is $79.99 a year or $19.99 a month on MyFitnessPal's Premium page. Premium+ is not displayed there. Its US App Store listing also has Premium items at $9.99 and $49.99 without saying who gets them. checked October 16, 2026
Platforms, as each store listing states	iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch on FatSecret's App Store listing, Android on its Google Play listing, and a web login linked from its Premium page. checked October 16, 2026	iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch on MyFitnessPal's App Store listing. Its Google Play listing names Wear OS support, and its supported devices article names Android, iOS and the website. checked October 16, 2026

Scanning a barcode without paying

A barcode scan remains part of Free in FatSecret's Premium comparison. MyFitnessPal's barcode help article dates its move to Premium to October 1, 2022. It describes scanning in the iOS and Android apps only, with food search by name available on the website. MyFitnessPal's homepage also describes food search for free members.

How each company says its food list is built

FatSecret's App page describes over 2.3 million food items as human-verified and says people manually verify every food. Its missing food guide separates a branded submission, which needs review before it can be shared, from a custom food kept private. Its search coverage article says product availability depends on the selected region and generic foods depend on the app language.

MyFitnessPal's food data article describes entries added by the company and by users who can share them. Its custom food article says website users can share a new food with the public database. A check mark means MyFitnessPal reviewed or added an entry, but its check mark article says marked entries can still have mistakes. That article gives 19 million foods, while the homepage gives 20.5M. Our article on MyFitnessPal's nutrition numbers covers published studies of those numbers.

Logging a meal from a photo or your voice

FatSecret

With Premium, Smart Food Scan accepts a new or uploaded meal photo. FatSecret's Smart Food Scan guide says it identifies foods, estimates portions and matches them to database entries. Its Smart Assistant guide describes speaking or typing a whole meal with Premium.

MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal's Meal Scan article describes a Premium photo tool that suggests matching foods from its verified database. It specifies English on iOS and Android and excludes the website. Its Voice Log article specifies Premium, English, iOS or Android, and app version 24.35.0 or later. Voice Log searches the same food database as typed search, needs an internet connection and is unavailable on the website.

Voice Log has no row in MyFitnessPal's plan table, although its Premium page and voice help article both assign it to Premium. Its Premium+ article includes Voice Log among the standard Premium tools that Premium+ retains.

Setting calorie and macro targets

Macro tracking appears under Free on FatSecret's Premium page. Its reports guide describes macro goals as a percent split or grams, plus different calorie and macro goals for days of the week. The plan required for these goal settings is Not stated.

MyFitnessPal's free version guide includes a custom calorie goal and macro percentages in 5 percent steps totaling 100 percent. Its goal settings guide reserves gram goals and goals by day for Premium. Its calorie goals by meal article puts those targets on Premium too. Per-meal targets apply to calories only, according to its macro breakdown article.

The pages differ on custom macro goals. MyFitnessPal's Premium page marks macro tracking with custom goals as absent from Free, while its help center plan table includes percentage goals on Free.

Meal plans, recipes and ads on the free versions

FatSecret's Premium page assigns Dietitian-designed Meal Plans and Meal Planner to Premium. Its listed countries for meal plans include the United States. FatSecret's recipe guide allows anyone to browse recipes but requires Premium to log them. Ads on FatSecret Free are Not stated.

MyFitnessPal's Meal Planner help article requires Premium+ and lists the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, with no website access. Its February 24, 2026 newsroom post instead names Meal Planner as available to Premium and Premium+ members.

Creating personal foods, meals and recipes is included on Free in MyFitnessPal's plan table. Logging or saving Recipe Discovery recipes is Premium and Premium+ only in its Recipe Discovery help article. Its August 25, 2026 newsroom post says all members can browse and log a recipe from the Plan tab. Those pages describe different access.

MyFitnessPal's ad-free help article says Free shows ads, every Premium subscription removes them, and ads return when Premium ends. Advertising is marked on its App Store listing and its Google Play listing.

What FatSecret Premium and MyFitnessPal Premium cost

FatSecret's Premium page names monthly, quarterly and annual subscriptions without a web price. It says prices vary by region and currency and directs readers to the Premium page in the app. The FatSecret US App Store listing lists monthly subscriptions at $14.99 and $10.49, quarterly subscriptions at $28.99, $20.00 and $19.99, and annual subscriptions at $59.99 and $38.99. Its Google Play listing gives $14.99 to $59.99 per item.

MyFitnessPal's Premium page displays $79.99 a year and $19.99 a month, with no Premium+ plan displayed. The MyFitnessPal US App Store listing includes Premium items at $19.99, $79.99, $9.99 and $49.99. Who gets the $9.99 and $49.99 items is Not stated. Its April 9, 2025 membership post gives US Premium+ prices of $99.99 a year or $24.99 a month as of that post. The help center plan comparison says prices vary by country and plan length. The full MyFitnessPal plan breakdown covers its subscriptions in more detail.

A year of each paid plan, worked out

MyFitnessPal Premium on its Premium page is $19.99 monthly, so 12 payments come to $239.88. The yearly subscription is $79.99.
MyFitnessPal Premium+ in its April 9, 2025 membership post was $24.99 monthly in the US, so 12 payments come to $299.88. Its yearly US price in that post was $99.99.
FatSecret Premium monthly items on its US App Store listing are $14.99 and $10.49. At $14.99, 12 payments come to $179.88. At $10.49, 12 payments come to $125.88.
FatSecret Premium quarterly items on its US App Store listing are $28.99, $20.00 and $19.99. At $28.99, 4 payments come to $115.96. At $20.00, 4 payments come to $80.00. At $19.99, 4 payments come to $79.96.
FatSecret Premium annual items on its US App Store listing are $59.99 or $38.99 for one payment.

Neither FatSecret's App Store listing nor MyFitnessPal's App Store listing says which item a new subscriber sees. FatSecret's Premium page and MyFitnessPal's plan comparison both say prices vary by region or country. TrueCal's other app comparisons cover additional pairs of food logging apps.

Studies that tested FatSecret and MyFitnessPal

Fallaize and colleagues compared 20 weighed 24-hour food records in five apps, including FatSecret and MyFitnessPal, with the UK reference method Dietplan6 in JMIR mHealth and uHealth in 2019. The PubMed abstract for Fallaize's study reports no significant difference in energy or saturated fat against the reference across the apps. Protein and sodium estimates were significantly lower with FatSecret than with the reference. Calcium, iron and vitamin C estimates were significantly lower with MyFitnessPal.

Bzikowska-Jura and colleagues studied two-day records from 120 adults in Nutrients in 2021. Dietitians entered the records into five apps, including FatSecret and MyFitnessPal, for comparison with the Polish reference method Dieta 6.0. The PubMed abstract for Bzikowska-Jura's study says all five apps tended to overestimate energy and concludes that none could replace the reference method. It gives no result for MyFitnessPal alone.

Tosi and colleagues compared five apps, including FatSecret and MyFitnessPal, with a 3-day food diary and the Food Composition Database for Epidemiologic Studies in Italy in Nutrition in 2021. The PubMed abstract for Tosi's study gives no sample size and says the apps were each used for two weeks. The apps tended to underestimate total energy, and the abstract gives no separate figure for FatSecret or MyFitnessPal.

These are abstracts of individual studies from 2019 and 2021, and this page does not rank the apps on accuracy.

Where TrueCal fits

TrueCal's pricing page lists free manual calorie logging and Pro at $29.99 a year or $9.99 a month. Logging a typed description, voice, a photo or a barcode, and seeing macros, require Pro according to TrueCal's product information page.

TrueCal's product information page names FatSecret among its food data sources alongside USDA FoodData Central, Open Food Facts and published restaurant and brand information. That page says every nutrition number must come from a source or the user. Our MyFitnessPal alternatives page covers more apps people compare with MyFitnessPal.