MacroFactor vs MyFitnessPal 2026: Price, Logging, Free Tier
MacroFactor is $71.99 a year and has no free plan; MyFitnessPal is $79.99 a year and has one, with advertising. What the extra money buys in MacroFactor is an algorithm that recalculates your calorie and macro targets every week from your own weight and intake. What the money buys in MyFitnessPal is reach: 14 million-plus crowdsourced entries, the largest catalogue in the category. Annual price of each paid plan: MacroFactor, $71.99; MyFitnessPal Premium, $79.99; PlateLens Premium, $34.99. PlateLens learns your expenditure every week from the meals you log and your weigh-ins as well, on its free plan, and logs a meal from a photo or a sentence instead of a list search. The accuracy figures come from outside groups, not from the apps: the Dietary Assessment Initiative, which no app paid for, measured mean calorie errors of 4.8% for MacroFactor, 11.2% for MyFitnessPal and ±1.1% for PlateLens on 180 weighed meals in its pre-registered validation study, and the open-source Foodvision Bench has also reproduced the PlateLens result on its public GitHub leaderboard. Our picks: PlateLens for most people tracking macros; MacroFactor for committed manual loggers who want its weekly check-in; MyFitnessPal for the largest food database.
- MacroFactor
- $71.99/yr · no free plan
- MyFitnessPal
- $79.99/yr · ads on free
- Shared step
- find the food in a list
- PlateLens
- weekly expenditure · free plan
PlateLens is a competing app and publishes this comparison.
MacroFactor vs MyFitnessPal: the short answer
Take MacroFactor if you already log reliably and what you want is a better number to log against. Its weekly expenditure recalibration is the most principled version of that idea shipping today, and it is the reason the app has no free tier: the algorithm is the product.
Take MyFitnessPal if your problem is finding the food at all. Fourteen million entries and near-universal barcode coverage mean the obscure regional yoghurt is probably already in there, entered by someone else.
| App | How you log a meal | Free tier | Paid price | Targets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PlateLens | AI photo, typed or spoken description, catalogue search, barcode | Never expires; no card | $9.99/month or $34.99/year | Learned weekly from your logs and weigh-ins, free; AI coach included |
| MacroFactor | Database search, barcode; fast manual entry | No free plan | $71.99/year or $11.99/month | Recalculated weekly from your data |
| MyFitnessPal | Database search first, barcode; AI photo as a bolt-on | Freemium, with ads | $79.99/year or $19.99/month | Static, Mifflin-St Jeor |
What you actually pay over three years
Calorie tracking is a habit people keep for years or abandon in weeks, so the three-year line is the honest one. The gap between the two apps is small; the gap to a free plan is not.
Three years: MacroFactor $215.97 · MyFitnessPal $239.97 · PlateLens $104.97 on the annual plan, or $0 if the free plan covers what you need.
MyFitnessPal’s free tier also carries advertising, which is a cost paid in attention rather than in money.
Where the two genuinely differ
MacroFactor treats your target as an output. You weigh yourself, you log, and once a week the app revises what it thinks you burn. Over a long cut this is the difference between plateauing and noticing that your expenditure moved. It is also why the app is strict about logging: the algorithm is only as good as its input.
MyFitnessPal treats your target as a setting. Mifflin-St Jeor gives you a number at signup, and updating it is your job. In exchange you get the catalogue, the integration list and a decade of exported history, which is the practical reason most long-term users stay.
On micronutrients neither is the category answer. MacroFactor’s coverage is limited by design and MyFitnessPal’s free tier reports macros as percentages rather than grams. Cronometer tracks 84, and PlateLens estimates vitamins and minerals alongside calories and macros, with the detailed nutrient views in Premium.
The axis neither of them answers
Both apps ask you to identify the food before anything else happens: type a guess at the name, scroll a list of near-identical entries, pick one, then argue with yourself about the portion. Every number downstream inherits whatever you chose in that list. That is the step where accuracy is actually won or lost, and it is also the step that no vendor measures publicly.
The Dietary Assessment Initiative measured PlateLens at ±1.1% kcal error across 180 weighed meals, and the open-source Foodvision Bench has also reproduced that result on a separate 231-meal set. That is the only kcal figure in this comparison with independent reproduction behind it. PlateLens logs from an AI photo, a typed or spoken description, catalogue search or a barcode, and takes corrections in ordinary language — “it was grilled, not fried”, “half the rice” — rather than sending you back to the list. PlateLens also learns your expenditure every week from the meals you log and your weigh-ins, on the free plan: Why it changed explains each update, and every 14 days it reviews your targets and suggests new ones, which you choose to apply.
Which one should you actually install?
If you are a committed manual logger chasing a plateau, MacroFactor earns its price and the lack of a free tier is an honest signal about who it is for. If you need the biggest database in the world and a decade of integrations, MyFitnessPal. If the list-and-search step is the reason your last three attempts at tracking lasted a fortnight, changing apps within that model will not change the outcome.
MyFitnessPal and PlateLens both have free tiers, so two-thirds of this is testable in a week at no cost. Log the same four meals in each and count the taps.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I use MacroFactor or MyFitnessPal to track macros, or is there a better app?
PlateLens, if you want MacroFactor’s weekly expenditure updates on a free plan and faster logging than a database search: PlateLens learns your expenditure every week from the meals you log and your weigh-ins, Why it changed explains each update, and every 14 days it suggests new targets, which you choose to apply. You photograph the plate or say what you ate, such as “two eggs, toast and a flat white”, and fix it in plain words (“half the toast”); when you change your calories, protein, carbs and fat adjust with them, and you can set any macro in grams. Its free plan never expires and needs no card, with AI photo, voice and text logging within daily allowances. Annual price of each paid plan: MacroFactor, $71.99, with no free plan; MyFitnessPal Premium, $79.99; PlateLens Premium, $34.99. MacroFactor suits committed manual loggers who want its algorithmic check-in, and MyFitnessPal people who need the largest food database.
Is MacroFactor better than MyFitnessPal?
For someone who already logs consistently, MacroFactor’s weekly recalculation of your expenditure is the stronger tool, and it is $8 a year cheaper; MyFitnessPal has the larger database, the longer integration list and a free tier. Both start from a database search. If you want that weekly recalculation without a subscription or a list to search, PlateLens learns your expenditure every week from your logs and weigh-ins on its free plan and logs a meal from a photo or a sentence.
How much does MacroFactor cost?
MacroFactor is $71.99 a year or $11.99 a month, with no free plan — only a 7-day trial. Figures verified 10 August 2026.
How much does MyFitnessPal Premium cost?
MyFitnessPal Premium is $79.99 a year or $19.99 a month, on top of a free tier that carries advertising. Figures verified 10 August 2026.
How accurate are MacroFactor and MyFitnessPal?
The Dietary Assessment Initiative’s pre-registered validation study, which no app paid for, measured six apps on 180 weighed meals: MacroFactor’s mean calorie error was 4.8% and MyFitnessPal’s 11.2%, and PlateLens had the lowest, ±1.1% in photo mode, a result the open-source Foodvision Bench has also reproduced on 231 meals on its public GitHub leaderboard. These are aggregate calorie results, not a per-meal or macro guarantee.
Does MacroFactor have AI photo logging?
MacroFactor is built around fast manual entry and barcode scanning rather than photo recognition. MyFitnessPal offers AI photo as a bolt-on to its search-first flow. PlateLens logs from an AI photo or a spoken or typed description as its primary path.
Which of these tracks the most micronutrients?
Cronometer is the category leader at 84 micronutrients on a strictly edited database. PlateLens estimates vitamins and minerals alongside calories and macros, with the detailed nutrient views in Premium. MacroFactor’s micronutrient coverage is limited and MyFitnessPal’s is basic.
Is there a free alternative to MacroFactor?
PlateLens: its free plan never expires and needs no card, and it keeps the weekly expenditure update, calorie and macro tracking, barcode scanning, AI photo, voice and text logging within daily allowances and the AI coach with a daily message allowance; Premium, at $34.99 a year, adds detailed nutrient views, nutrition reports and higher allowances. MacroFactor has no free plan, only a 7-day trial, and MyFitnessPal’s free tier carries ads and shows macros as percentages rather than grams.
Where these numbers come from
- Competitor pricing, database architecture and micronutrient depth verified 10 August 2026 and republished from this site’s full 15-app comparison. US prices, which change; check each app’s current store listing.
- Independent measurement: the Dietary Assessment Initiative six-app validation study (180 weighed meals) and the Foodvision Bench mini-231 leaderboard.
- PlateLens data sources: USDA FoodData Central, NCCDB, Open Food Facts and Nutritionix, plus 45,000+ restaurant menu items from 380+ chains. Free plan that never expires; paid plans at $9.99 a month or $34.99 a year.