Short answer. MacroFactor has no free tier at all: its App Store description says so in plain words, "MacroFactor has a free trial, but does not offer a free subscription tier," and gives you 7 days. MyFitnessPal has a free tier, but it no longer includes the barcode scanner. So the real question is not free versus paid. It is whether you want targets that adjust themselves each week from your data, or the largest food database in the category with a coach, a program or a friend already plugged into it.
Affiliation: MacroLog wrote this and sells a rival calorie tracker. There are no affiliate links on this page. Prices and features come from each company's own page or its US App Store listing, read on 10 September 2026; every URL is listed near the end.
What each costs
| MacroFactor | MyFitnessPal | |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Stronger By Science Technologies LLC | MyFitnessPal, Inc. |
| Free tier | None | Yes, calories and macros |
| Trial | 7 days free | No trial stated on the pricing page |
| Monthly (US) | $9.99 and $11.99 listed | Premium+ $24.99/mo |
| Six months (US) | $47.99 | Not offered |
| Annual (US) | $59.99 and $71.99 listed; bundle $89.99 | Premium $79.99; Premium+ $99.99 |
| US App Store rating | 4.8, 22K ratings | 4.7, 2.4M ratings |
| Barcode scanning | Included, no free tier to exclude it from | Premium |
| Adaptive weekly targets | Yes, the core feature | No |
| Meal planner and recipes | Not listed | Premium+, 1,500+ recipes |
| Workout tracking | Separate MacroFactor Workouts product | Exercise logging built in |
US App Store and US web pricing, 10 September 2026. App Store listings show every configured price point, promotional ones included, so MacroFactor's two annual figures are both real and you will be offered one of them.
The adaptive algorithm is the actual product
MyFitnessPal asks for your stats, applies a formula, and hands you a calorie number. If your weight stalls, correcting the number is your job. MacroFactor's pitch is that this job should not be yours: it describes an algorithm that "learns from your data to deliver far more accurate targets," runs a weekly check-in, and revises the targets from your logged intake and your weight trend.
This is worth money to a specific person: someone who logs almost every day and whose expenditure moves. It is worth nothing to someone who logs three days a week, because the algorithm's inputs are your logs, and sparse logs produce a confident-looking target built on very little. MacroFactor is also honest about hierarchy in its own sync rules: an entry you made by hand inside the app always beats data pulled in from Apple Health.
Health sync, in both directions
| MacroFactor | MyFitnessPal | |
|---|---|---|
| Imports nutrition | Daily calories and macros, not individual foods or meals | No |
| Exports nutrition | Yes, announced March 2022 for Apple Health and Google Fit | Meal summaries, calories and some nutrients; caffeine and vitamin A excluded |
| Weight | Import and export | Both directions |
| Exercise | Targets adjust from logged intake and weight trend; wearable data is for display/import only, and wearable expenditure does not feed the algorithm | Imports same-day exercise only, does not export |
| Android | Health Connect | Health Connect |
The detail that catches people: MacroFactor's imported nutrition lands on its Nutrition page, not the Food Log, so a day pulled in from Apple Health does not become an editable list of meals.
Cronometer vs MacroFactor, briefly
These two get compared constantly and they answer different questions. Cronometer is a measurement instrument. Its free tier tracks up to 84 nutrients and compounds against a database it describes as lab-analyzed, includes the barcode scanner, and reads a long list of biometrics out of Apple Health: sleep stages, heart rate, blood glucose, body fat, waist circumference. Gold costs $59.99 a year, or $10.99 a month.
MacroFactor is a coach. It does not try to tell you your magnesium intake; it tries to tell you what to eat next week. There is nothing to use for free, and the annual price sits in the same place as Cronometer Gold at $59.99, with $71.99 also listed.
| Cronometer | MacroFactor | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes, including barcode and 84 nutrients | None, 7-day trial |
| Annual (US) | Gold $59.99 | $59.99 and $71.99 listed |
| Micronutrients | Up to 84 | Calories and macros are the focus |
| Targets adjust automatically | No | Yes, weekly |
| Biometrics from Apple Health | Long list including sleep and glucose | Weight; wearable data is for display/import only |
Pick Cronometer if you want to know what you ate. Pick MacroFactor if you already know and want to be told what to change.
Strengths worth naming
MacroFactor. 4.8 across 22K ratings is a strong score for a paid-only app, which is the hardest place to earn one, since every rater paid. It ships a verified food database rather than an open one, and it is built by the Stronger By Science team, whose public work is where much of the evidence-based lifting audience already reads.
MyFitnessPal. Fifteen years of user submissions produced a database no newcomer can rebuild, and the free tier still covers calories and macros without a card. If the people around you use an app, statistically it is this one, and shared food entries and shared recipes only work when you are on the same platform.
Verdict by use case
| You | Pick | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Log daily and want targets managed for you | MacroFactor | Weekly algorithmic revision from your own data |
| Log a few days a week | MyFitnessPal | Adaptive targets need dense data to be worth the price |
| Will not pay anything | MyFitnessPal free, or Cronometer free | MacroFactor has no free tier |
| Want micronutrients | Cronometer | 84 nutrients on the free tier |
| Bulking or cutting in phases | MacroFactor | Expenditure modifiers and weekly check-ins fit phase changes |
| Eat out most days | MyFitnessPal | Restaurant coverage |
MacroLog's column
Ours is the cheapest of the four and the shallowest. Free: manual search, unlimited barcode scanning, basic stats, local storage. Pro: $5.99 a month or $49 a year in the US, with a $2 first week rather than a free trial, adding AI photo logging, voice logging, 12 micronutrients and CSV/JSON export. There is no adaptive algorithm, no coaching check-in and no meal planner. Photo and voice logging run on Gemini and flag low-confidence items for you to review, because they get things wrong.
Frequent questions
Is MacroFactor free?
No. The App Store description states it "does not offer a free subscription tier" and gives a 7-day trial.
Is MacroFactor better than MyFitnessPal for bulking?
For a phase where your expenditure changes as you gain, the weekly target revision does work you would otherwise do by hand. That is a design difference, not a measured outcome; neither company publishes a trial comparing results.
Does MacroFactor sync nutrition to Apple Health?
It announced nutrition export to Apple Health and Google Fit in March 2022, and it also imports daily calories and macros from those platforms into its Nutrition page.
Which has the better food database?
MyFitnessPal's is larger, MacroFactor's is described as verified. Larger and verified pull in opposite directions, and neither publishes an error rate.
What this is based on
- MacroFactor: wearables and nutrition targets, read 10 September 2026. Targets use logged intake and weight trend, not wearable expenditure.
- MacroFactor on the US App Store, read 10 September 2026. Source for the developer, 4.8 / 22K ratings, every listed price, the 7-day trial and the quoted "does not offer a free subscription tier".
- MacroFactor help centre: where nutrition is synced, read 10 September 2026. Source for the import behaviour and the Nutrition-page detail.
- MacroFactor release notes, March 2022, read 10 September 2026, source for nutrition export to Apple Health and Google Fit.
- myfitnesspal.com/premium and its US App Store listing, both read 10 September 2026, for pricing, ratings and the Premium feature list.
- cronometer.com/gold and cronometer.com/blog/apple-health, read 10 September 2026, for the Cronometer section.
- Droid Life, 24 August 2022, read 10 September 2026, non-vendor record of the MyFitnessPal barcode paywall.
What this does not settle
Whether MacroFactor's algorithm beats a person adjusting their own calories every fortnight. No published trial compares them, and the App Store rating measures satisfaction, not weight change. This page also ignores MacroFactor Workouts, sold separately, and every price here is US-only. MacroLog's own weakness is the one MacroFactor solves: we hand you a target from a formula and expect you to adjust it, and we have no coaching layer at all. Our multi-device sync is planned rather than working, so a diary lives on one phone.