MyFitnessPal Review 2026: Still the Biggest, No Longer the Best
Best for: Users who primarily eat US restaurant chain food and need the widest database coverage
Skip if: Anyone serious about accuracy, anyone who primarily logs home cooking, anyone on a budget
Price floor: Free (but barcode scanner requires Premium at £64/year)
MyFitnessPal was the correct answer to “which calorie app” from approximately 2012 to 2022. In late 2022, it moved the barcode scanner — the single feature most users opened the app for — behind a £64/year paywall. This review covers the app as it exists in 2026, not as it was.
The database problem nobody talks about
MyFitnessPal has 14 million food entries. This is presented as a feature. An independent measurement published in peer-reviewed nutrition research found an 18% average error rate on calorie counts for user-submitted entries.
What this means in practice: a food logged by another user as 350 kcal may actually be 413 kcal. On a 2,000 kcal/day target, an 18% error rate across your logged meals means you could be eating 2,360 kcal and your app says 2,000. After 12 weeks, you have not lost the weight you expected, you do not understand why, and you assume the problem is you. The problem is the database.
This error rate does not affect foods with USDA-verified entries — the banana, the egg, the plain chicken breast are fine. It primarily affects branded packaged foods where multiple user-submitted duplicates exist with conflicting numbers, and where the most-used entry is not necessarily the most accurate.
Cronometer solves this problem by accepting only verified entries. MacroFactor and Lose It have partial solutions. MyFitnessPal has acknowledged the problem without materially fixing it.
The barcode paywall
In late 2022, MyFitnessPal moved the mobile barcode scanner to Premium. The scanner is available on the web version and on Android (with limitations), but the iOS app — which is how most users interact with it — requires Premium.
Premium costs £64/year (frequently £49.99 in year one via promo), renewing at a higher rate in year two. This is a tax on the feature that made the app popular. The MFP Premium tier is difficult to recommend at this price when Lose It’s free tier includes a barcode scanner and Cronometer’s free tier includes one on web.
Pricing
What logging this seriously looks like
The typical user who logs 5+ days per week for 12 weeks loses 4–8 lb. Heavier starting weights see more; smaller deficits see less. If you log ad-hoc 2–3 days per week, expect roughly no change — the difference between "tracking" and "tracking enough" is the whole game.
Real annual cost in 2026: Truly-free track-only = £0 (Lose It free, Cronometer free, FatSecret). Solid mid-tier = £24–£60/year (Cronometer Gold £48, Yazio Pro £35, MacroFactor £72). Coaching-included = £150–£300/year (Noom 6-month £159, WW Core £276/year).
What still works
The community is real. With nine years of custom foods entered by hundreds of millions of users, MFP’s restaurant chain coverage is broader than any competitor. For US fast food, Starbucks, and national chain restaurants, MFP’s entries are typically accurate (chain restaurants are required to publish verified nutrition data in the US).
The integration ecosystem is mature: Apple Health, Google Fit, Garmin, Fitbit, and dozens of other health apps have MFP connectors. Switching away means losing those integrations.
If you have historical data in MFP from years of logging, the export path (CSV download) exists but is imperfect — custom food entries do not always survive the migration to other apps.
Verdict
MyFitnessPal is the right answer if you eat primarily at US restaurant chains and need the widest possible coverage. For anyone else, the combination of a paywalled barcode scanner and an 18% user-submitted error rate makes it a hard recommendation in 2026. Lose It Free covers the same use case with a free scanner and a cleaner database. Cronometer Gold covers the accuracy use case better at a similar price.
Score: 5.5 / 10. The database moat is eroding and the paywall decision damaged the product. Still useful for a specific use case.
We score every app on five eating-disorder safety criteria. No incumbent review site does this. If you or someone you live with has a history of disordered eating, read our safety-floor guide before installing any calorie tracker.
- ✗ Clinical floor enforced (1,200 kcal women / 1,500 men)
- ✗ Deficit alert after 7-day streak of >1,000 kcal/day deficit
- ✗ Recovery mode (hides numbers, shows food groups only)
- ✗ Clinical resource links at signup (Beat / NEDA)
- ✗ Age gate beyond self-declared checkbox
Realism note: MyFitnessPal's 14 million entry database is its only remaining moat. An 18% error rate on user-submitted calorie counts — measured in independent studies — means the number you see may be materially wrong.
Try MyFitnessPal →Change log
- 5 May 2026 — Full re-test on MyFitnessPal v24.5 (iOS)
- Jan 2026 — Initial review published