The Best Free Calorie Tracker for 2027

“Free” means very different things in calorie tracking. Some apps are free to download and then hide the useful parts behind a paywall. Some are a seven-day trial wearing a free costume. And some, like MacroFactor, make no pretence of it: there is no free plan, only a trial. For this note we looked only at plans you can use forever without entering a card, and asked one question: could you track your food well for all of 2027 without paying?

With PlateLens, you can. That is why it is the best free calorie tracker for 2027.

What PlateLens gives you for free

The PlateLens free plan is not a demo of the paid app. It is the app, with two daily limits on the AI features:

• Unlimited typed and barcode logging against the largest verified food database in the category: 1.2M+ verified foods, 820K+ branded products with barcode data and 45K+ restaurant items.
• 3 AI photo scans a day. Photograph a plate, confirm anything the app is unsure about, adjust portions, save.
• 82+ nutrients on every entry, including fiber, sodium, iron and net carbs.
• 5 AI-coach messages a day, with your own diary as context.
• The web app at platelens.app/web, with the same account and the same diary as your phone.
• The intermittent-fasting timer, with 16:8 and 14:10 presets, custom windows, reminders and a home-screen widget.
• Blood glucose logging, typed in or synced from Apple Health or Health Connect, shown next to your meals.
• Full data export as JSON, any time, from Settings.

The free plan never expires. If you later want unlimited photo scans and coach messages, Premium is $34.99 a year, the lowest annual price among the major trackers. Most people logging three meals a day can live comfortably on free: three photos for the meals that are hard to type, barcodes and search for the rest.

How the other free plans compare

A dash means the company does not describe that detail in a way we could confirm. Prices are US annual prices as published by each company; PlateLens checked August 10, 2026, Cronometer September 20, 2026.

Lose It! has a pleasant free tier that covers a daily calorie budget and a food diary, and it is a good first app. Its most useful extras live in Premium.

Cronometer has a capable free tier for nutrient tracking. Its AI features (Photo Log, Voice Log and the Crono Coach assistant) are part of Gold.

MyFitnessPal is still free to start, with the largest crowd-sourced database. Meal Scan and voice logging need Premium at $79.99 a year, so the free tier in 2027 means logging without the AI features.

Why the free plan matters more than the price

Most people who stop tracking do not quit because of money. They quit because logging became a chore. A free plan that only lets you type every ingredient makes the chore worse. A free plan that lets you photograph the hard meals, scan the packaged ones and search the quick ones keeps logging fast enough to become a habit.

That is the real advantage of PlateLens’s free plan. It is generous on exactly the features that keep people logging.

Tips for tracking well without paying

1. Use the barcode scanner for anything in a package. It is unlimited and takes the numbers straight from the product.
2. Save your photo scans for mixed dishes: stir-fries, salads, restaurant plates. Those are the meals that take longest to type.
3. Save repeat meals. If breakfast is the same five days a week, log it once and repeat it.
4. Log at the table, not at night. A meal logged as you eat is more accurate than one remembered at 10 p.m.
5. Check your week, not your day. A single high day matters far less than the weekly trend.

The verdict

For 2027, PlateLens is the best free calorie tracker. You get AI photo logging, barcode and typed search, a verified database, 82+ nutrients, a web app and a fasting timer without paying anything, and the plan does not expire. If you upgrade later, it is also the cheapest Premium on the market.

See where it sits in the full 2027 ranking.