Cronometer vs Lose It: Detail or Speed?

Cronometer vs Lose It is a choice between depth and a lighter touch. At $0, Cronometer gives you a barcode scanner and a deep nutrient log. Lose It keeps its scanner behind Premium, which was $79.99 a year in the US help center. On the US App Store, Gold was $59.99 for the year. That’s a $20.00 gap.

Cronometer vs Lose It: which one tracks more detail?

Cronometer’s plan table lists a Basic plan at $0 with custom macro and micronutrient targets and tracking of up to 95 nutrients and other compounds, though the mobile layout of the same table says 84. Lose It’s App Store description puts macronutrients under Premium. The same Premium list names vitamins, minerals, blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, body measurements and sleep.

I added up one dinner to see what “detail” means. It’s 120 g of braised chicken breast, 164 g of cooked wild rice and 76 g of raw broccoli. Energy is the USDA’s per-100 g figure times the portion, for example 166 kcal × 1.2 for the chicken.

Food	Grams	Energy	Protein	Fiber
Chicken breast, braised (Foundation, FDC ID 331960)	120 g	199 kcal	38.5 g	no value in record
Wild rice, cooked (SR Legacy, FDC ID 168897)	164 g (1 cup)	166 kcal	6.5 g	3.0 g
Broccoli, raw (Foundation, FDC ID 321900)	76 g (1 cup chopped)	24 kcal	2.0 g	1.8 g
Dinner	360 g	389 kcal	47.0 g	4.8 g

A calories-only view gives you 389 kcal and nothing else. Macros bring in the 47.0 g of protein, and fiber only shows up in a nutrient view. The chicken’s blank fiber cell is a reminder that even a USDA record has gaps.

Which one gives you more ways to log a meal?

At $0, only Cronometer hands you a barcode scanner. Lose It’s needs Premium, along with photo logging and voice logging, per its membership page.

Ads cost you time too. Both apps show ads at the entry level. Cronometer lists “No Advertisements” as a Gold benefit. Lose It sells a one-time ad removal that removes full-page ads and log banners, though upgrade prompts and some affiliate cards stay.

Way to log food	Cronometer Basic	Cronometer Gold	Lose It Basic	Lose It Premium
Search the database	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Barcode scanner	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Photo logging	No	Yes	No	Yes
Voice logging	No	Yes	No	Yes
Recipe import from a web page	No	Yes	Not found	Not found

“Not found” means I didn’t see it on the pages I opened. No fair public timer exists, so I won’t name a faster app. Time it yourself. Take three meals you eat every week, log each in both apps the way you’d really do it, and write down the seconds.

What does each one cost?

Lose It lists Basic at $0 and Premium at $79.99 a year, and it says Premium auto-renews yearly, on its tiers page. A help article adds that prices shift with seasonal promotions and how often you use the app, and that new users get a seven-day trial. I found no trial length for Cronometer Gold. What the $0 plan does and doesn’t cover is laid out in is the Lose It app free.

Gold on the Cronometer side is $10.99 a month or $59.99 a year in the US. On yearly plans that leaves a $20.00 gap, with Lose It higher. Spread over twelve months it’s $5.00 a month for Gold against $6.67 for Premium, both from list prices and before any promotion.

Other countries are harder to read. Each country’s Lose It page on the App Store lists 6 to 8 rows called “Lose It! Premium” without a billing period. I’ve shown the lowest and highest of them.

Country	Cronometer Gold monthly	Cronometer Gold annual	Lose It “Premium” rows, lowest to highest
United States	$10.99	$59.99	$9.99 to $79.99
United Kingdom	£9.99	£59.99	£9.99 to £75.99
Canada	$14.99	$79.99	$13.49 to $107.99
Australia	$18.99	$99.99	$16.49 to $124.99

The Canadian and Australian figures are in local dollars. Outside the US the pages don’t say which Lose It row is the yearly price, so don’t assume it’s the highest. Check the purchase screen. Read the renewal line. If MyFitnessPal is also on your list, Cronometer vs MyFitnessPal and Lose It vs MyFitnessPal put its prices next to each.

Which should you pick?

Pick Cronometer to see fiber, sodium and the vitamins, or to get a scanner without paying. Pick Lose It if you want the simpler app and will pay for Premium once you need a scanner. Its Basic plan is a calorie budget and a food database. If neither fits, the checks in how to choose a calorie counter app work on any tracker.

Match it to your habits:

• You scan packaged food all day: Cronometer, since scanning is part of Basic there.
• You want one number and no nutrient columns: Lose It’s Basic plan is built for that.
• You want photo or voice logging: both need a paid plan, so compare $59.99 with $79.99.
• You might leave after a month: check the cancel path first. Lose It says deleting the app doesn’t cancel the subscription, and you cancel where you bought it.

Taking your data with you is easier on one side. Cronometer exports all raw data as a CSV file from every plan. Lose It exports a full history from the website, and it says importing isn’t possible.

Where does Calsa sit between Cronometer and Lose It?

Calsa sits between them on detail. Six nutrients show by default (calories, protein, fat, carbs, fiber and sugar), and more are there on request. Each entry shows its source and the math behind the number.

	Cronometer	Lose It	Calsa
Plan at $0	Basic	Basic	None; the price and trial length are shown before the questions
Barcode scanner	Basic and Gold	Premium	Every plan
Nutrients	Up to 95	Macros and more in Premium	Six by default, more on request
Where it runs	Web, iPhone and Android	iPhone, Android and web	Web, iPhone and Android

Where Calsa is weaker: both of these have a Basic plan at $0 and Calsa does not, so you can’t test it for months. Its nutrient view is shallower than Cronometer’s, and the food database is smaller. There’s no watch app or widget, no meal plan and no manual workout logging.

Choose something else if you want either app’s $0 plan, Cronometer’s 95 nutrients, a watch app or a weekly meal plan.

I’d settle it with one dinner. Log it in grams in whichever app you’re leaning toward, and the next day see which numbers you reopened. If it’s only calories, Lose It’s Basic plan covers that, and if you keep opening fiber and sodium, that points to Cronometer.

Calsa takes that dinner as a typed line like “oatmeal 250 g, banana”, or by voice, photo or barcode.