Cronometer Review: Free vs Gold and Who It Suits

Cronometer’s free plan is a real tracker. It logs food, exercise and biometrics, scans barcodes and syncs with other apps for $0, with ads. Gold adds photo and voice logging, a fasting timer and reports over any time frame, from $59.99 a year on the US App Store. This Cronometer review sorts out what each plan includes and who should pay.

Is Cronometer free, and what does the free plan include?

The catch is the reporting window. Basic charts stop at 7 days, while the help center says you can use the plan for an unlimited amount of time at $0. Around those charts Basic covers food, exercise, biometrics and notes, plus a barcode scanner and custom foods, meals and recipes. Targets and device syncing are in too, and every user can export all raw data.

Feature	Basic ($0)	Gold
Log foods, exercise, biometrics, notes	Yes	Yes
Barcode scanner	Yes	Yes
Custom foods, meals and recipes	Yes	Yes
Sync with apps and devices	Yes	Yes
Export all raw data (CSV)	Yes	Yes
Reports and charts	7-day window	Any time frame
Photo Log and Voice Log	No	Yes
Recipe Importer (from websites)	No	Yes
Fasting Timer, Macro Scheduler	No	Yes
Timestamps, Repeat Items	No	Yes
Custom Charts, Nutrition Scores	No	Yes
Crono Coach (AI guidance)	No	Yes
Print Reports (PDF)	No	Yes
Ads	Shown	Removed

I built that table from the Gold page and the Subscription Types article. The last row is my reading, because no page says “Basic has ads” outright. The Gold page lists an ad-free experience as a perk, the help center puts “No Advertisements” under Gold, and the App Store sells Gold Annual as “No Ads & all of the Cronometer Gold features”.

Start on Basic and keep a tally of every time you tap a Gold-only screen, such as the photo log or a chart past one week. I’d judge Gold by that tally, not by the feature table above. The same tally on the biggest name’s free plan takes an afternoon, and is MyFitnessPal free spells out what that plan leaves out.

How much does Cronometer Gold cost?

Gold costs $10.99 a month or $59.99 a year on the US App Store, and the other three storefronts I checked charge different numbers. The App Store shows the two purchases as “Gold Monthly” and “Gold Annual”. I read all four storefronts and worked out the yearly saving myself.

Storefront	Gold Monthly	Gold Annual	Twelve months at the monthly price	Yearly plan saves
US	$10.99	$59.99	$131.88	$71.89
UK	£9.99	£59.99	£119.88	£59.89
Canada	$14.99	$79.99	$179.88	$99.89
Australia	$18.99	$99.99	$227.88	$127.89

On Cronometer’s own site the same plans read $4.99 a month billed yearly at $59.99, or $10.99 billed monthly, in US dollars. The saving in the US is 54.5% by my division, and the Gold page says “Save 54%”. Compare the yearly figure with twelve months of the monthly one before you pick. A different app splits free and paid the same way, and Yazio reviews shows its version.

I found no free-trial length for Gold on the Gold page or in the App Store listing, so don’t plan around one. Check the checkout screen, and note the date any trial ends before you confirm.

Is Cronometer Gold worth it?

Only for people who already log daily and look back over their charts. Basic gives you the database, the barcode scanner and custom foods, so what Gold sells is depth and comfort.

Chart history is the clearest reason: Basic’s reports stop at a 7-day window, and Gold opens any time frame. The camera is the second. Photo Log and Voice Log are Gold-only, and Cronometer’s own App Store text says its AI “estimates portions,” so you still confirm the grams. A fasting timer beside the diary and the end of ads in the middle of an entry are smaller pulls.

If none of that sounds like your week, stay on Basic. That’s my rule, not Cronometer’s, and I’d apply it after two weeks of real logging, not on day one. A second free tracker is worth running the same test on, and the fatsecret app review covers one. For a direct comparison with Calsa instead, Cronometer vs Calsa sets the two side by side on prices, plans and a day of logging.

Cancelling takes a few taps. The help center gives three paths. On the web, go to More, Account, then Subscriptions and pick “Do Not Auto-Renew”. On an iPhone, open Settings, your Apple ID, Media and Purchases, then Subscriptions. On Android, open Google Play, your profile icon, then Payments and subscriptions. Your data stays exportable too, because Account Settings can export diary entries, exercises, biometrics, notes and nutrition summaries as a CSV for any date range you choose, so if you leave, the habit is all you lose.

Where does Cronometer’s nutrition data come from?

Mostly from published food databases, and Cronometer names them. Its Data Sources page says the University of Minnesota’s NCCDB makes up the bulk of the foods. It holds over 17,000 entries with data on 70 nutrients. USDA’s SR28 adds over 8,000 more. Every user-submitted food is reviewed first, and a submitted branded product carries only the facts table from the pack or the brand’s site. A label lists few nutrients, so packaged entries can be thin on micronutrients.

For whole foods, pick NCCDB or USDA entries from the Common Foods tab. The page itself says so.

What do Cronometer reviews from users say?

Recent reviewers are mostly happy. One complaint stands out: ads. I pulled the 500 most recent US App Store reviews from Apple’s public reviews feed. They run from 25 May to 8 October. Of those, 346 (69%) gave four or five stars and 109 (22%) gave one or two. The store’s own average is 4.8 from 99K ratings on the US listing, so the recent mood matches the long-run score.

Ads came up in 65 of the 500 reviews, or 13%, and in 26 of the 109 low ones. Another 97 mention Gold, a subscription, a price or paying. Among the four- and five-star reviews, 92 mention ease or speed and 51 mention scanning. People like the app. They put up with the ads, or they pay to remove them.

These counts are a rough tally. I matched words such as “ads”, “easy” and “scan” rather than reading intent, and the feed shows only the latest 500. It shows what recent users bring up, not what the typical person thinks, and people who write reviews are rarely typical.

Read the one-star reviews of any app before you pay. For Basic, the recurring problem is ads. The rest of my pre-payment checklist is in how to choose a calorie counter app.

How does Calsa compare with Cronometer?

Cronometer’s strength is its nutrient list, so the rows below leave depth alone and compare how the category handles sources, streaks, price and hidden numbers. How we compare: 15 calorie trackers sold in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, checked against their websites, help centers and App Store pages, with the paid screens left unopened.

	In the category (of 15 apps, checked 8 Oct 2026)	Calsa
Source of each number	0 of 15 show the database source of every number; 9 show a check badge or a “checked by nutritionists” claim without it	every number shows its source and database release; an unconfirmed amount is marked “estimate”
Breaks	0 of 15 are confirmed to have no streaks; 8 of 15 use streaks or badges	no streaks or badges; a break costs nothing
Price	0 of 15 show the price before the first question; 7 of 15 use timers, discount wheels or a second offer	price, trial and how to cancel before any question; no timers
No numbers	0 of 15 can hide every number	hide calories, nutrients and weight at any time
Where Calsa is weaker		no tier without a subscription; no manual workout logging; no Apple Watch app or widget; no meal plans or fasting; a smaller food database; fewer nutrients on screen by default
Choose something else if		you want a plan that costs nothing, a watch app, a fasting timer, a weekly meal plan or a deep micronutrient list

Run Basic for two weeks before you decide. If a chart past seven days or the photo log would change what you do, take the yearly plan, and since I found no trial length for Gold, write the cancel date down at checkout. The strongest reason to pick Cronometer is the source trail, where each entry says which database it came from. That matters most if micronutrients steer your choices.

If you’d rather see the source and the math on every entry, Calsa shows both, logs by text, photo or barcode, and exports everything you’ve logged.