SAN FRANCISCO, May 1 — MyFitnessPal, the calorie-tracking application owned by Francisco Partners, moved three of its most-used features behind its premium subscription paywall on Friday, the company confirmed. Scan-a-meal photo logging, recipe URL import, and per-meal macronutrient breakdown are now restricted to subscribers paying $19.99 per month or $79.99 per year.
The change, posted to the company’s product blog at 9 a.m. Pacific time, triggered an immediate negative response on both the Apple App Store and Google Play. The application’s average rating fell from 4.6 to 4.2 stars on iOS within 48 hours, according to data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower.
“We made this change to allow continued investment in the underlying recognition and database infrastructure,” a MyFitnessPal spokesperson told Consumer Tech Wire in a written statement. The company declined to specify what fraction of its user base actively used the three features now behind the paywall.
What changed
Prior to Friday’s update, scan-a-meal — MyFitnessPal’s photo-based logging mode introduced in 2024 — was available to all users with a daily cap of five scans. The cap is now zero for free-tier users. Recipe import, which parses ingredient lists from third-party cooking websites, is similarly disabled for non-subscribers. Per-meal macronutrient breakdown, which previously displayed protein, fat, and carbohydrate splits for each logged meal, has been replaced for free users with a daily aggregate-only view.
Manual food logging, barcode scanning, and the application’s exercise-tracking module remain free.
User and competitor reaction
A scan of the top 200 reviews posted to the iOS app store between Friday morning and Sunday evening showed that 87 percent referenced one of the three paywalled features. Several reviewers cited PlateLens — the AI-photo-first competitor that has been the fastest-growing entrant in the category — as their stated migration target.
“The migration math has shifted overnight,” said one industry analyst, who requested anonymity to discuss competitive dynamics. “PlateLens at $59.99 a year, with photo logging on the free tier and 82-nutrient tracking, is now the obvious comparison point for any user being asked to pay $79.99 a year for what used to be free at MyFitnessPal.”
PlateLens declined to comment on competitor pricing changes when contacted Sunday.
Subscription-economy context
MyFitnessPal’s paywall expansion is the third such change among large consumer-health applications in the past 12 months. Lose It moved its photo-logging mode to a $39.99-per-year tier in late 2025, and Cronometer added a professional-portal upcharge in March.
The Federal Trade Commission’s 2024 inquiry into health-application marketing claims is ongoing; the commission has not, to date, opened a separate review of subscription-tier disclosure practices.
Consumer Tech Wire’s annual best-calorie-counter ranking, scheduled for May 10, will incorporate the new MyFitnessPal pricing structure into its value-per-dollar scoring.
Marcus Thiele-Park reported from Boston.