Lifesum Review: Meal Plans, Scores and the Paid Tier

Lifesum is free to download, but the free version is a classic food diary. AI tracking, your own calorie and macro goals and the meal plans are Premium, and the US App Store lists a year of it between $99.99 and $119.99. For this Lifesum review I read its pages and four storefronts.

Lifesum Review: What Does the Free Version Include?

Lifesum’s help article on classic tracking describes a search bar, a barcode scanner and recent items, plus a “same as yesterday” shortcut and a quick-track option for plain calories and macros. Creating foods, recipes and favorites is Premium, and so is the “Track with AI” button.

Where do the foods come from? Lifesum’s own list names six sources. They are USDA, MyNetDiary, the UK Food Standards Agency, national tables from Germany and Sweden, and foods created by users. Some items carry a blue badge, which Lifesum uses to mark verified items. The article also warns that one food can exist in two versions, say a US one and a UK one. User-created entries sometimes contain errors.

In any app, the practical answer is to match the entry to your label rather than take whatever comes first in the list. I’d do that once for the five foods you eat most. After that, Recent items bring them back in one tap. How to choose a calorie counter app collects more checks like this one.

What does Lifesum Premium add?

Most of the app. The Premium help article lists AI tracking, adjustable calorie and macro goals, meal plans and your own foods and exercises. It adds extra nutrient detail, such as sodium, fiber and cholesterol, and all of the recipes. The AI side is logging by photo, voice, text or barcode, per the App Store listing.

Feature	Free	Premium
Search, barcode scanner, recent items, quick track	Yes	Yes
AI tracking (photo, voice, text)	No	Yes
Set your own calorie goal	No	Yes
Set your own carb, protein and fat goals	No	Yes
Meal plans with a shopping list	No	Yes
Your own foods, recipes and favorites	No	Yes
Sodium, fiber and cholesterol per meal	No	Yes

I built the table from those two articles. The free column is whatever they don’t put behind Premium. The company’s Premium page marks four rows as “Limited” for the free version: saving favorites, body measurements, fitness trackers and statistics. It doesn’t say what the limit is, and it shows its check marks as images. Because the help article calls everything related to Favorites a Premium feature, I list favorites as Premium.

Two features give Lifesum its character. Life Score is a weekly score based on your food and activity, and the Premium page also lists food, meal and day ratings. Meal plans are the other. The help article names four, among them a three-week weight loss plan, intermittent fasting and a vegan week, and says nutritionists developed them. If a plan is what you’re shopping for, Fitia app alternative compares meal plans with a plain food log.

Scores aren’t my taste, because a number for the day doesn’t tell me which entry moved it. If you like being graded, Lifesum is where I’d start. For the other side of that choice, a tracker that has no scores, see Lifesum vs Calsa.

How much does Lifesum Premium cost in the US, UK, Canada and Australia?

It depends on which row you tap. Each storefront lists several prices under the same plan name. I read all four, and these are the ranges for the three named periods.

Storefront	“Lifesum Premium 1 Month”	“Lifesum Premium 3 Months”	“Lifesum Premium 1 year”
United States	not listed	$29.99 to $39.99	$99.99 to $119.99
United Kingdom	£7.99 to £14.99	£16.49 to £39.99	£34.99 to £99.99
Canada	$13.99 to $19.99	$29.99 to $39.99	$62.99 to $119.99
Australia	$14.99	$34.99 to $39.99	$69.99 to $99.99

The US page also lists a “Lifesum Premium 6 Months” row at $69.99 and three rows named only “Lifesum Premium”. The storefront doesn’t say why one plan has two or three prices. Apple shows ten rows per page. A row may be missing here.

UK year rows have the widest gap: £34.99 against £99.99, a difference of £65.00. In the UK the top 3-month row (£39.99) even costs more than the lowest year row (£34.99).

Do the monthly math on a US year: $99.99 ÷ 12 = $8.33 a month, and $119.99 ÷ 12 = $10.00. Four 3-month terms at the top US price cost 4 × $39.99 = $159.96, which is $39.97 more than the top year row. Confirm on your phone’s purchase screen which row you’re buying.

Lifesum’s App Store text says Premium is billed as a 1-month, 3-month or annual auto-renewing subscription. I found no page that states a free trial length. For other price ladders to hold this one against, see MyFitnessPal Premium and the MyNetDiary review.

How do you cancel Lifesum and get your data out?

Cancel at least three days before renewal. The cancellation article gives that margin, while the App Store text only asks for 24 hours. On iPhone it’s Account, Subscriptions, Lifesum, Cancel Subscription. Lifesum can’t cancel it for you, and uninstalling the app doesn’t stop it.

Export is thinner. The export article describes a website export of the past 7 days, labeled Beta. Your full history comes only from a support request. Leaving in a year? Ask for it now and see how long it takes.

Where does Calsa differ from Lifesum, and who should pick Lifesum?

Everything above about Lifesum comes from its App Store pages, help center and Premium page, and I never opened its paid screens. Calsa publishes this blog. It also lacks the meal plans Lifesum sells, so check the comparison against those pages yourself.

	Lifesum	Calsa
Photo, voice and typed entries	Premium (AI tracking)	In every plan, with a portion you confirm
Your own calorie and macro goals	Premium	In every plan; a goal below a safe floor isn’t saved
Scores and ratings	Life Score and food, meal and day ratings	None: no good or bad foods and no health score
Source behind a number	Six named database sources, a blue badge on some items	Each entry shows where its calories come from and the math, per-100-gram value × grams
Export	Seven days from the website, the rest on request	Everything, in any plan
Meal plans	Premium, with a shopping list	Not built; ideas come from your own diary

Where Calsa is weaker: Lifesum’s basic diary costs nothing, and Calsa asks for a subscription from the start. It also has no meal plans, no fasting plan, no manual workout entry, no watch app and a smaller food database.

Choose something else if you want meal plans with a shopping list or a weekly score, or you’d rather track without paying at all.

Calsa puts plain words like “in range” or “below goal” where Lifesum puts scores, and never a color verdict.