MyFitnessPal Alternatives for Coaches and Their Clients

Most coaching clients already have a food app on their phone, and for years that app was MyFitnessPal. This guide answers two questions. If you are a user, what does it cost and what are the alternatives? If you are a coach, which app lets you see what your clients log? Prices come from each vendor's own page, checked on 8 October 2026.

How much does MyFitnessPal cost?

The MyFitnessPal Premium page lists two plans: $19.99 a month, or $79.99 a year, which MyFitnessPal describes as 67% off the monthly plan. New users can try Premium free for 7 days. After that the subscription renews unless you cancel.

There is also a free plan. What Premium adds is what the page highlights: barcode scanning and voice logging, custom macro tracking, and an ad-free experience. In our experience, barcode scanning is the feature people miss most when they drop to free, because typing in every packaged food is slow.

What are the best MyFitnessPal alternatives?

There are eight that come up again and again, plus the coaching platform option at the end. Each does the basic job of logging food and counting calories and macros. They differ in database quality, price and who they are built for.

Cronometer

Cronometer is the pick for people who care about data quality. The free Basic plan already tracks up to 84 nutrients (Gold lists up to 95), sets custom macro and micronutrient targets, and includes a barcode scanner. Its database is described as over 1M lab-analyzed or verified foods, which matters when you are chasing precise numbers. Gold adds photo logging, a recipe importer and a macro scheduler for different targets on different days.

MacroFactor

MacroFactor, per its App Store listing, costs $11.99 a month, $47.99 for six months or $71.99 a year, with a free trial and no free tier. Its pitch is an algorithm that adjusts your calorie and macro targets from what you log, plus fast logging with barcode scan and custom foods. It is a strong choice for individuals who want the app to do the thinking. It is not a coach dashboard.

Carb Manager

Carb Manager is aimed at low-carb and keto eating. The Basic account is free and Premium is listed at $3.33 a month, billed annually. Premium adds meal planning tools, a recipe importer, per-meal goals and the ability to print and export daily logs. If your client follows keto, it is a cheap option. For everyone else, the carb focus is more than they need.

Lose It!

Lose It! is best for people whose goal is weight loss and who want a simple calorie budget. It has a Basic and a Premium plan. The price is shown in the app, so we leave it out here. Per the App Store listing, free Basic covers calorie tracking, a weight loss plan and community support, while Premium adds the barcode scanner, photo and voice logging, and advanced tracking of macros and nutrients with meal targets. The listing describes a food database of 56+ million items and recipes. We found no coach or shared diary view described.

Yazio

Yazio is best for people who want food, fasting and recipes in one app. Its site lists AI photo tracking, barcode and manual logging, intermittent fasting timers and 3,000+ recipes, with macro tracking as one of its goals. The App Store listing describes a free calorie counter with a barcode scanner and a database of 4 million+ searchable items. Yazio Pro adds advanced tools and removes ads; the App Store lists 12 month plans from $23.90. We found no coach or shared diary view described.

FatSecret

FatSecret is best for a coach on a budget who wants the client to share a free diary. Its App Store listing says the app is free and lists a barcode scanner, photo recognition, and reporting and goals for calories and macros. It also describes sharing with a professional: the app syncs with fatsecret Professional, where a health professional gets free access to monitor food, exercise and weight. Premium adds dietitian meal plans, advanced meal planning and water tracking, billed monthly, quarterly or annually. The App Store listing shows Premium from $10.49 a month or $38.99 a year (store listing prices, which can differ from the price in the app). The fatsecret.com site would not load for us, so this comes from the listing only.

Lifesum

Lifesum is best for general healthy eating with meal plans and food ratings. Its Premium page says from $8.33 a month, and the App Store lists 1 year plans at $99.99 and $119.99. The free plan is limited: per its comparison table, setting your own carb, protein, fat and calorie goals, meal plans and food ratings are Premium features. The home page describes a barcode scanner for millions of food items, plus photo, voice and text logging. We found no coach or shared diary view described.

MyNetDiary

MyNetDiary is best for a coach who wants a verified database and a free way to see the diary. Its App Store listing says the free version includes a barcode scanner and full macro tracking, with a staff-verified food database of over 2 million foods. It also lists Professional Connect: share your diary with a dietitian, coach or doctor, used by professionals at no cost. Premium adds macro cycling, adaptive targets and a meal planner, and Premium Plus adds an AI coach; the price is shown in the app. Test the sharing flow with one client before you rely on it.

A coaching platform with a built-in food diary

The last option is not a consumer app. Coaching platforms such as Scraler put the food diary inside the client app and show it to you in the client profile. The client logs, you see it. We compare the wider field of tools in best apps for nutritionists, including dietitian software like Nutrium and Practice Better.

Is there a free alternative to MyFitnessPal?

Yes, several. Cronometer Basic is free and includes the barcode scanner, which MyFitnessPal keeps behind Premium. MyNetDiary lists a free barcode scanner and full macro tracking, and FatSecret describes itself as free with a barcode scanner. Carb Manager Basic is free too, though it is built around keto. Lose It! lists its barcode scanner under Premium. MyFitnessPal itself still has a free plan, so the real question is whether the missing barcode scanner costs you more in time than $79.99 a year.

Can a coach see a client's food diary?

With a consumer app, mostly no. The MyFitnessPal Premium page describes barcode logging, custom macros and no ads. It does not describe a coach view. MacroFactor's listing describes weekly check-ins and an algorithmic coach inside the app, not a dashboard for a human coach. A blank on a vendor page is not proof a feature is missing, so test this before you promise anything to a client.

Two exceptions are FatSecret, where a health professional gets free access through fatsecret Professional, and MyNetDiary, whose Professional Connect shares a diary with a dietitian, coach or doctor at no cost to the professional. A third is Cronometer, which sells a separate product for professionals. Cronometer Pro costs $39.99 a month and includes 10 client seats, with extra seats at $2.50 each. You can view and manage each client's diet, exercise and health metrics, message them, and share foods and recipes. Clients get Cronometer Gold. As a worked example from the vendor's own pricing rule, 12 clients costs $39.99 plus 2 x $2.50, which is $44.99 a month.

Is MyFitnessPal Premium worth it?

It depends on what you lose without it. At $79.99 a year the annual plan works out well under the $19.99 monthly price, so the sensible way to buy it is the 7 day trial first, then annual if you are still logging at the end of it. The things you pay for are speed (barcode and voice logging), control (custom macro tracking) and quiet (no ads). If you rarely eat packaged food and do not need custom macro splits, the free plan may be enough.

For a coaching client the calculation is different. The app cost is small next to the cost of a diary the coach cannot see. If the client logs for a month and the coach never looks, the subscription bought them a private journal. If your clients already use MyFitnessPal and love it, keep it: ask them to export a weekly summary or share screenshots at check-in. But if you are choosing a tool for your whole client base, choose one where the diary is visible by design.

How do you choose a food logging app for coaching?

Choose on what happens in week six, not week one. In week one everyone is motivated and any app works. By week six the diary is either quick enough to keep up or it is not. Check these three things.

• Database quality. Crowd-sourced entries can be wrong, and a macro target means little if the numbers are off. Cronometer calls out lab-analyzed and verified foods. Ask any app how entries are checked.
• Speed of logging. Barcode scanning, saved meals and repeat items cut the time per meal. Test with a real packaged meal, not an apple.
• Visibility. Can you see the diary without asking? If not, build a weekly check-in, our client check-in form template is a start, and ask for a photo of the day's log. A daily habit tracker can cover the habit of logging every day.

Targets matter as much as logging. Work them out with the macro calculator or the protein calculator, then put them in the app. If you are building the plan around them, see our personalized nutrition plan guide.

Where does a coaching platform fit in?

A coaching platform replaces the app plus the screenshots. In Scraler the client logs food in the client app from a database of more than 3 million foods, searchable by name or barcode. You set the daily calorie and macro targets, then see the log in real time and a compliance calendar that shows which days they hit it. The diary sits next to their workouts, check-ins and chat, so one open tab tells you how the week went.

For a coach the price comparison looks different. A consumer app costs from nothing to $20 a month per client, paid by the client, with no view for you. Scraler Plus is $49 a month for up to 50 clients and Premium is $69 for up to 100, so the cost per client falls as you grow. Premium also adds AI generation, payments and the community. It is not a lighter MyFitnessPal. It is a different job: coaching, with the food diary as one part.

If you are still deciding how to structure the nutrition side of your offer, nutrition coaching software covers the tool options and nutrition coach pricing covers what to charge. For progress that a food diary does not show, use a body measurement chart.