Macroline App Alternative: Macro Targets Compared

Price is the easy part of choosing a Macroline app alternative, and the way each app sets your macro targets is much harder to compare. Macroline offers four goal presets and a protein calculator. Pro is $4.99 a month on the US App Store. The targets are the part worth checking, because a percentage split and a grams-per-kilogram target can disagree by a wide margin.

I read Macroline’s pricing, features and support pages and its App Store listings and quote only what they say.

How does Macroline set your macro targets?

It gives you a starting point and lets you edit it. The features page lists the presets as cut, maintain, bulk and lifter, with calories or macros adjustable at any time. A protein calculator turns your weight and goal into a starting protein target, and the page calls the result a starting point.

A coach is the paid step. Per the same page, it compares your logged intake with your weight changes and suggests a calorie target, but it needs “about two weeks of logging” first. It never changes your goal on its own. That’s the adaptive-target idea, and MacroFactor vs MyFitnessPal compares an app built on it with one built around a big database.

The App Store listing adds a calorie and macro estimate from a lifestyle calculator and a fiber goal you set under More, then Goals. Its version notes say that for people who track a GLP-1 medication, the Today screen opens with protein left to the goal. Whether a target suits your health is a question for your doctor.

Do percentage splits and grams per kilogram agree?

Not always, and the gap is easy to miss. Macro splits are shares of calories. One gram of protein or carbohydrate is 4 kcal and one gram of fat is 9 kcal, per the FAO conversion factors. The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans set protein per kilogram instead: 1.2–1.6 g per kilogram of body weight a day. For someone who weighs 70 kg (154 lb), the range works out to 84–112 g.

Here are three splits at 2,000 kcal, converted to grams: calories × share ÷ 4 for protein and carbs, and ÷ 9 for fat.

Split (protein / carbs / fat)	Protein	Carbs	Fat	Protein per kg at 70 kg
20 / 50 / 30	100 g	250 g	67 g	1.4 g/kg
30 / 40 / 30	150 g	200 g	67 g	2.1 g/kg
40 / 30 / 30	200 g	150 g	67 g	2.9 g/kg

Only the first row sits inside the 1.2–1.6 g/kg range. The second is above it. The third is far above. The split also moves when you eat less. With 30% protein at 1,500 kcal you get 112.5 g, about 1.6 g/kg. With 20% protein you get 75 g, about 1.1 g/kg, below the range.

So I’d pick the protein number in grams first, from your weight, and let carbs and fat share what is left. Check the protein target of any app against your own weight before you trust its percentages. Apps also differ in where the calorie target itself comes from: MacroFactor vs Cronometer puts an app that follows your food and weight trend next to one that tracks up to 95 nutrients.

With a kidney condition, none of this applies as written, and your doctor sets the protein figure.

What does Macroline cost, and what happens to your data?

Pro is the only paid plan on the store lists. The table shows the two purchases on each storefront.

Storefront	“Macroline Pro Monthly”	“Macroline Pro Yearly”	12 months at the monthly price
US	$4.99	$39.99	$59.88
UK	£4.99	£39.99	£59.88
Canada	$6.99	$49.99	$83.88
Australia	$7.99	$59.99	$95.88

Yearly saves $19.89 against twelve US monthly payments. One oddity: the descriptions on the UK, Canadian and Australian listings still quote $4.99 a month and $39.99 a year, which doesn’t match their purchase lists. Trust the number on your payment sheet. The pricing page shows a 7-day free trial for Pro, and the App Store description doesn’t mention one.

Its free tier is large. Set it beside the Lose It app free question, where the free Basic plan has a calorie budget and a food database but the barcode scanner needs Premium. The pricing page lists unlimited food logging, unlimited barcode scanning, goals, weight and Apple Health sync, medication logging and full history. The daily limits are 3 AI meal descriptions and 3 lookups for missing foods. Pro removes those limits and adds the coach.

Your data can leave. The support page says Pro users can export the full diary as CSV from Settings. Users without Pro can request a JSON export by emailing support. iOS subscriptions are cancelled in Settings, Apple ID, Subscriptions. Web ones are under Settings, Subscription on its site. Account deletion is by email on that page, with records deleted within 30 days, although the listing says it is one tap in Settings. Prices, logging and exports of Macroline and Calsa sit side by side in Macroline vs Calsa.

Which Macroline features would I miss, and which would I gain?

Macroline’s own pages sit in the middle column, and Calsa is on the right. Only built features are listed.

If you use this	Macroline, from its pages	Calsa
Goal setup	presets (cut, maintain, bulk, lifter), a protein calculator, a coach in Pro	a short quiz for a calorie goal, then edit calories or macros and the other adjusts to match
Goal by day	not stated	different goals for different days, and a training day marked with one tap
Logging	describe in words, barcode, search, saved meals; no photo logging mentioned	type or say it with grams, photo, barcode, label photo, or type just the calories
Source of a number	a source link on each food row, and a confidence badge on each parsed item	the source and the math, “per 100 g × grams”, on every entry; unconfirmed amounts marked “estimate”
Medication	a log of doses and side effects, included without Pro	no medication or dose logging
Assistants	an MCP server in Pro, so other AI assistants can log meals	an AI chat inside the app that sees your diary, with memory you can edit or delete
Platforms	iPhone and a web app; no Android app found	web, iPhone, iPad and Android with one account
Data export	CSV in Pro, JSON on request without Pro	export everything, on any plan

Is Calsa a Macroline app alternative worth trying?

Calsa fits if the checks above come out your way. The 15 trackers in this table are sold in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and I checked their websites, help centers and App Store pages. Paid screens stayed closed, and the table only counts.

	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 free of streaks; 8 of 15 use streaks or badges	no streaks or badges; a break costs nothing
AI chat	0 of 15 combine a chat without a persona, numbers from a database and memory you can delete fact by fact; all 6 chats in the set use a coach title or a persona	labelled AI with no persona; numbers from the database; memory you can see and delete one fact at a time
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
Calorie floor	0 of 15 keep a floor that cannot be switched off	a goal below the floor is not saved, and the reason is shown
No numbers	0 of 15 can hide every number	hide calories, nutrients and weight at any time
Tracking	2 of 15 declare no tracking; 13 of 15 declare tracking	no tracking; health data is used only to run the service
Crisis help	0 of 15 publish a crisis protocol	help lines come first; the protocol is published
Where Calsa is weaker		no free tier, no manual workout logging, no Apple Watch app or widget, no meal plans, fasting or medication log, and a smaller food database
Choose something else if		you want a free tier, a medication log, an MCP connection to other assistants, a watch app, manual workout logging or a weekly meal plan

The last two rows decide it. If one of them describes your day, stay where you are.

If not, run a test. The wider checklist is in how to choose a calorie counter app. Set your protein in grams from your weight, then log the same week of meals in both apps. See which one makes the day’s gap easier to read.