Lifesum review

Lifesum features by plan

A single complete list of free features is Not stated in the help center. Its Premium features article says Premium provides access to all content in the app.

How food gets into the Lifesum diary

• Database search is the free entry method described in the food database article. That article names six database sources, including USDA data and foods created by users. A blue badge marks verified items. It warns that user-created entries may have errors, allows Premium users to keep their own corrected version and lets anyone report an item. The Lifesum home page describes the database size only as millions of foods. Lifesum's Food Rating help article says Lifesum cannot guarantee the accuracy of its nutrition information.
• Barcode scanning has instructions for AI Tracking on or off in the barcode scanner article, updated September 29, 2026. It also allows typing the barcode number. A plan is Not stated in that article. Free access rests on the Traditional Tracking list, which says its methods are available to all users. That list includes Favorites too, although the Traditional food tracking article calls Favorites a Premium feature.
• Quick Track records calories and optional macros without selecting a food. The Quick Track article limits each field to 5 characters and allows no decimals. A plan is Not stated there, although Quick Track appears in the Traditional Tracking list available to all users.
• Photo, voice and typed text require Premium, according to the AI Tracking help article, and AI Tracking begins turned off after purchase. The AI Tracking accuracy article describes its results as estimates and says every logged item can be corrected. The March 2026 entry in the What is new article puts photo, typed chat, Search Food and barcode on the same screen. The meal rating article says meal ratings are unavailable with Multimodal Tracking on. The Health Connect article says Android food entries logged that way are not sent to Health Connect.
• Siri on iOS can repeat a previously logged meal or read remaining calories. The Siri commands article names those actions, but a plan is Not stated.

Lifesum Premium prices in US dollars

The US dollar view of Lifesum's upgrade page shows a monthly bill of $14.99 for 1 month, a quarterly bill of $29.99 for 3 months, displayed as $10 a month, and an annual bill of $99.99 for 12 months, displayed as $8.33 a month.

• At the monthly amount on the upgrade page, 12 payments of $14.99 come to $179.88.
• At the quarterly amount on the upgrade page, 4 payments of $29.99 come to $119.96.
• The 12 month plan on the upgrade page is one payment of $99.99.

Ten entries appear in the App Store in-app purchase list. The 1 year name appears twice at $99.99 and once at $119.99. The 3 Months name appears twice at $39.99 and once at $29.99. There is one 6 Months entry at $69.99. The remaining three names give no length and have prices of $44.99, $21.99 and $29.99. Which price a given US account is charged is Not stated.

Elsewhere on the App Store page, the Subscriptions section marks three prices with the word Trial. They are $49.99 for 1 year, $14.99 for 3 Months and $7.49 for 1 Month. The page data gives standard prices of $99.99, $39.99 and $14.99 for those items. An explanation of the Trial prices is Not stated on any Lifesum page read, and none of the pages or listings read uses the words free trial.

The Google Play listing indicates in-app purchases and gives $3.99 to $99.99 per item. Plan names for those amounts are Not stated. The descriptions on the App Store listing and Google Play name 1-month, 3-month and annual subscriptions. The upgrade page offers 1, 3 and 12 months, while the help article on subscription lengths names 1, 3, 6, 12 or 24 months.

The Family Sharing help article says Lifesum purchases cannot be shared through Apple's Family Sharing. Each user buys a separate subscription. For another app's division of free and paid tools, the MyFitnessPal review describes its plans.

Does the free version show ads?

Whether the free app shows ads is Not stated on the Lifesum pages read, and none names ad-free use as a Premium feature. The Google Play listing has no Contains ads label as read October 18, 2026.

Phones, watches and the web

Compatibility on the App Store listing includes iPhone with iOS 17.0 or later, iPad with iPadOS 17.0 or later, Apple Vision and Apple Watch with watchOS 9.0 or later. A Mac version is Not stated. The Apple Watch help article describes a daily dashboard and water tracking. Food logging on Apple Watch is Not stated.

The Google Play listing says the Wear OS app works without the phone app and tracks calories and water. Its Wear OS help article describes quick food entries based on meal size.

Food and exercise logging are unavailable on the website, according to the web browser help article. Website functions include managing a website subscription, exporting food data 7 days at a time and deleting an account. The multiple devices article says using one account on several devices at once is not fully supported.

What App Store and Google Play users rate Lifesum

On October 18, 2026, the App Store listing showed 4.6 out of 5 from 151K ratings and an Editors' Choice award. The Google Play listing showed 4.4, with 379K reviews at the top and 370K reviews in the ratings section, 10 million or more downloads and an Editors' Choice badge. These are figures reported by the stores, and TrueCal gives no score of its own.

Published studies that tested Lifesum

Six peer-reviewed studies found through PubMed on October 18, 2026 give results for Lifesum by name. Researchers or experts entered food or rated the app in all six, so none measured people doing their own daily logging. Every study evaluated a version of Lifesum from 2024 or earlier.

Griffiths 2018 compared nutrient calculations

In the Griffiths 2018 study, researchers entered 30 dietary recalls from lower-income US adults into five free apps and compared the outputs with NDSR research software. Lifesum gave a significantly lower mean total fat figure. Only the abstract was read for this review, and it does not report Lifesum's own figures. The authors call for further research with consumers entering food themselves.

Ferrara 2019 measured usability and food coding

Three nutrition-trained reviewers used each of seven apps for two weeks in the Ferrara 2019 study. The apps were found in April 2017. Lifesum scored highest for usability, 89.2 on the System Usability Scale, but the paper found it least accurate of the seven for calories and macronutrients against USDA coding. It overestimated calories by 7.29 percent.

Its single banana entry was 130 grams with 131 calories, compared with 105 calories for USDA. The authors caution that the reviewers had nutrition training, so their ratings and coding may differ from those of typical users.

Tosi 2021 checked an Italian food diary

The Tosi 2021 study used five Italian-language apps for two weeks each and compared them with a 3-day food diary coded using an Italian food database. Lifesum had the smallest average calorie difference, 2 calories under the reference per food item. Both Lifesum and Yazio overestimated protein. Only the abstract was read, the calorie difference is per item rather than per day, and neither the diary count nor the app version is given there. The Yazio review covers what published comparisons found about Yazio.

Mistura 2021 tried exact weights and app portions

For the Mistura 2021 study, specialists entered twenty 24-hour recalls into five apps selected in February 2020. Italy's Foodsoft 1.0 software was the reference. With exact weights, Lifesum's mean energy figure was 2115.7 against 2096.9 in the reference. None of Lifesum's mean energy, carbohydrate, protein or fat figures differed significantly from the reference.

A second step used seven recalls and the app portions a typical consumer would use. Lifesum carbohydrate figures had a correlation of 0.04 with the reference. The authors identify the small recall count, professional data entry and use of free app versions as limits.

Li 2024 rated quality and compared sample diets

Australian researchers rated 18 apps with the Mobile App Rating Scale in the Li 2024 study. Lifesum version 18.3.0 received 2.87 out of 5, third lowest, against an average of 3.86. With dietitian-written sample diets, carbohydrates accounted for 57 percent of energy in Lifesum against 46 percent in the Asian diet food record. For the Recommended diet, the shares were 60 percent and 48 percent.

Only free features were assessed. The authors also note that all three raters were trained in nutrition and dietetics.

Zamora Zamorano 2026 reviewed app content

Nutrition and behavior change experts assessed healthy-eating app content in rounds running from 2022 to January 2024 in the Zamora Zamorano 2026 study. They placed Lifesum among their top 5. They noted that goals and recipes require the premium version, the basis for its score is unclear and studies supporting its content were difficult to find. The authors report low reviewer agreement and apps changing faster than evaluations as limits.

TrueCal next to Lifesum

TrueCal pricing lists free manual calorie logging and Pro at $29.99 a year or $9.99 a month. The TrueCal fact sheet says free accounts see calories and macros require Pro. Logging a typed description, voice, photo or barcode also requires Pro.

According to the TrueCal fact sheet, TrueCal runs on iPhone, Android and the web, and its nutrition results are estimates that can be wrong. Published studies of TrueCal are Not stated on its pages. The TrueCal app comparisons cover other apps.

Lifesum questions people search