Welmi vs Calsa: Fasting and Coaches or Plain Logging

The Welmi vs Calsa choice turns on what else you want the app to run. Welmi bundles a fasting timer, a medication log, meal plans and selectable AI coaches. Calsa keeps to logging, with a source behind each number, a diary you can export and a plain monthly or yearly price. Welmi’s US App Store listing shows four prices under the name “Yearly”, from $23.99 to $59.99.

Welmi vs Calsa: how do they compare side by side?

I read Welmi’s four App Store pages, its Google Play page, its website and its help center, and I opened no paid screens. Calsa publishes this blog, so weigh the right-hand column as an interested party’s and hold the left one up against Welmi’s own pages. Where they said nothing, the cell says so.

	Welmi	Calsa
Maker and platforms	T-SHAPED APPS LTD; iPhone and Android, per Google Play and the website	Web, iPhone, iPad and Android, with one account on all of them
Ways to log food	Photo with an optional text hint, voice, barcode, search, favorites, and a photo sent to the coach	Type or say it, photo, barcode, nutrition-label photo, quick-add calories, search
Typing a food by hand	The plans article lists manual entry; the logging article says there is no separate manual-entry form and values are edited in Search results	Quick add takes just the calories; foods you create stay private to your account
Free version	One food scan a day and basic features	A trial, then a paid plan
Meal plans and recipes	Meal plans and 5,000 recipes, per the store text	No weekly plans; the chat can suggest a recipe for what’s left of your day
Medication	A log of GLP-1 medication doses, with reminders	No medication or dose logging
AI help	An assistant with selectable coaches and a daily message limit	A chat labelled as AI, with no coach or dietitian persona and a visible count of messages left
Fitness sync	Steps and workouts through Apple Health or Health Connect; no direct Garmin, Fitbit or Strava link	The same route; no direct Garmin or Fitbit link
Source of a number	Not stated on the pages I read	Each entry shows where its calories come from and the math
Data export	None found; account deletion is permanent	Export everything, on any plan

How does a day of logging go in Welmi and in Calsa?

One ordinary day in each app shows what a feature list hides. For Welmi that means its help articles and store text only, since I opened no paid screens. Every row is a moment any tracker has to handle.

Moment	Welmi, from its pages	Calsa
Setting a goal	A daily calorie target with protein, carb and fat targets	A short quiz; a goal below the safe floor isn’t saved, and you’re told why
Breakfast	Scan Meal takes a photo, with a text hint if you want one; Describe takes your voice	Type or say it with grams, several foods in one line, or snap a photo and confirm the portion
A packaged snack	Barcode scan	Barcode scan with UK and Australian products included; a label photo if the code has no match
Lunch out	Search, or a photo sent to the coach	Chain dishes with the numbers the chain publishes; a menu photo on the Calsa and Calsa Premium plans
Cooking dinner	Recipes from a library of 5,000	Your own recipe from ingredients or a photo, in raw or cooked weight
Fixing a slip	Edit the values in Search results	Change the grams in place, or select several entries to move, repeat or delete together, then undo
Evening	Water, steps and weight with Apple Health sync; fasting tracker and dose reminders	What’s left by meal, water by the glass, and weight, steps and active energy from Apple Health or Health Connect

Welmi’s logging article names Scan Meal, Describe, Search, Favorites and the barcode as the five routes. In Calsa, “Copy to today” repeats a meal, a whole day or only the foods you pick. Welmi’s pages say nothing more about Favorites than its name.

What the pages leave out is just as useful to know. I found no word on how a photo scan sets a portion, which database the numbers come from, or how big it is. Test it the way I would: weigh one plate, scan it, and see whether the grams are editable or fixed.

A few Calsa details only show up on a bad day. A half-finished entry survives a closed app, and your last 7 days open offline.

What do the AI features do, and what sits behind the paywall?

Welmi’s AI is spread over several products. The plans article puts AI food recognition by voice, photo and barcode in the paid plans, along with an AI trainer and nutritionist, a fasting tracker and recipes. The store text is blunter: “AI analysis results require a subscription.”

The coach article says the coach follows High Protein, Balanced, Low Carb or Keto guidance. It can log water, change your goals and read photos. It has a daily message limit that resets after 24 hours, and it can’t create meal plans.

One more purchase sits apart. The “Welmi AI Bundle” is a one-time payment for permanent access to Body Scan and an AI Health Report, and the help article on it is clear that it doesn’t include food scanning, calorie tracking, fasting, the coach or recipes. Those still need a Pro subscription.

Calsa has one chat in three sizes. The chat knows your diary, goal and weight trend, and the numbers it quotes come from the food database. You can see, edit or delete what it remembers. It’s labelled as AI, carries no coach title, never messages you first and gives no diagnoses or treatment advice. The plans differ only in chat: the Calsa and Calsa Premium plans add a weekly review, ideas drawn from your diary and help choosing what to order or cook, and Calsa Premium adds a monthly review and answers read aloud. You can always see how many messages are left. One switch turns AI off, and logging keeps working.

What does Welmi cost, and what do you get without paying?

Without paying you get one food scan a day and the basic features, according to the plans article. The same article names Pro Monthly and Pro Yearly as the paid tiers. New users may be offered a free trial with full Pro access, and the article’s example is 3 days rather than a fixed length. It turns into a paid plan on its own unless you cancel, it’s given once per Apple ID or Google account, and on the yearly plan the first payment after the trial is the whole year.

The store lists more than two names, and several prices share each one. The page doesn’t say which you’ll be shown. Here is what each storefront listed.

Storefront	“Weekly”	“Monthly”	“Yearly”	Other rows
United States (USD)	$4.99	$11.99, $14.99	$23.99, $35.99, $47.99, $59.99	“premium” $44.99 and $79.99; “Welmi AI Bundle” $24.99
United Kingdom (GBP)	£2.19, £3.49	£5.99, £8.99	£17.99, £21.99, £26.99, £29.99, £34.99, £43.99	none
Canada (CAD)	$6.99	$13.99, $15.99	$32.99, $39.99, $49.99, $54.99, $65.99, $79.99	“premium” $59.99
Australia (AUD)	$6.99	$13.99, $15.99, $19.99	$32.99, $49.99, $55.99, $65.99, $79.99	“premium” $59.99

Do the arithmetic before you tap. A US year of the lower “Monthly” row is 12 × $11.99 = $143.88, and the higher one is 12 × $14.99 = $179.88. The “Yearly” rows span $23.99, about $2.00 a month, to $59.99, about $5.00 a month. Nobody can tell from the page why a $59.99 year and a $23.99 year both exist.

The “Weekly” row is the odd one. The plans article names no weekly tier, yet every storefront lists an item with that name. Nothing I read says how it bills. If it renews each week, 52 × $4.99 = $259.48 in the US, 52 × £3.49 = £181.48 in the UK and 52 × $6.99 = $363.48 in Canada and Australia. Read the period on the payment sheet.

No period appears next to the “premium” rows on the listing, so I can’t place them either.

Calsa shows its price first. The price, trial length, first charge date and cancel route come before any question, and a reminder arrives before the trial ends. It sells monthly or yearly only, the first period costs the same as the ones after it, and your price stays fixed while your subscription is active. Because I’d rather you read the current figures in the app, I’m not copying them here.

Where is Calsa stronger than Welmi, and who should stay with Welmi?

Leaving is where Calsa is stronger. When a subscription ends you can still read, export and delete everything, and the export is open on every plan. The sign-in has no password, and your paid access follows you to every device.

It’s also stronger on proof. Log the same entry twice and you get the same number, a past day never changes without telling you, and an amount you haven’t confirmed is marked “estimate”. If a shared food looks wrong you can report it, and it changes after review.

Where Calsa is weaker: it’s a paid app after a trial. It has no medication or dose log, no weekly meal plans, no manual workout entry and no watch app yet.

Choose something else if you want a free plan with a daily scan, a fasting timer, a GLP-1 dose log, a recipe library or a choice of coaches.

Here is how I’d sort three readers.

The person logging a GLP-1 dose. Welmi lists a dose log with reminders. Calsa doesn’t handle medication at all, on purpose, so keep Welmi for that.

The person who likes a coach. Welmi sells coaches you can pick. Calsa’s chat has none. It’s labelled as AI.

The record keeper. I found no export in Welmi, and Calsa exports everything. If the diary has to outlive the app, that settles it.

How do you leave Welmi, and what happens to your data?

Cancel first, and delete nothing yet. Deleting the app doesn’t cancel the subscription. The cancellation article gives the iPhone path: Settings, your Apple ID, Subscriptions, Welmi, Cancel Subscription. For a purchase made on the website, you message support in the app chat or email [email protected] at least 24 hours before renewal. A 30-day satisfaction guarantee applies to website purchases only.

Deleting your account is the final step. The deletion article says it removes your diary, history and goals permanently. I found no export function anywhere, so your history can’t travel to another app as a file. If Welmi gives you one on request, Calsa takes history in a CSV file and shows a preview before anything is saved.

Without a file, copy what matters by hand:

1. Open Favorites and note each saved meal.
2. Write down the ten meals you eat most, with the grams you actually use.
3. Log them once in Calsa, then repeat them with “Copy to today”.
4. Keep Welmi’s renewal date in your calendar until you’ve compared a week of entries.

That week is the real test. My checklist for choosing a calorie counter app lists what to compare, the choosing a calorie app section has more pairings, and the earlier Welmi app alternative article covers the same exit from the billing side.