Lose It! Review: An Easy Start, With an Accuracy Gap

Lose It! is a calorie counter that makes getting started easy. It has the best onboarding of the manual apps we tested, it scans barcodes for free, and its paid tier costs about $40 a year. Where it falls behind is accuracy: it measured ±9.4% in manual entry, well behind the leaders.

That trade-off can be worth it, depending on what you need. Here’s how to decide.

What Lose It! does well

It’s easy to start. Of the manual apps we tested, Lose It! has the best onboarding. If you’ve never tracked food before, or you’ve tried and given up, a smooth first week matters more than you might think.

Barcode scanning is free. You can scan packaged foods without paying, unlike MyFitnessPal, which charges $79.99 a year for it.

The upgrade is affordable. The paid tier costs about $40 a year as of November 2026. Only PlateLens’s premium, at about $35, cost less among the paid plans we checked.

Where it falls short

Accuracy trails the leaders. Lose It! measured ±9.4% in manual entry. PlateLens (±3.5%), MacroFactor (±4.8%) and Cronometer (±6.8%) all measured lower error in the same mode. Only MyFitnessPal (±11.2% in manual entry) came in higher.

The evidence is single-study. Like every app except PlateLens, Lose It!’s figure comes from one study and hasn’t been re-run on a second meal set.

Accuracy: what we measured

We measured Lose It! in manual-entry mode: ±9.4% against weighed reference values across 180 meals. In this mode, the error reflects the full loop of your portion estimate plus the database entry you choose.

That last part is worth dwelling on. Because manual-entry error includes the logging itself, you can improve your own numbers in any app. Weigh portions when you can, especially for calorie-dense foods, and choose entries that match the label.

The results were published as a pre-print by the Dietary Assessment Initiative and haven’t been through peer review.

Free vs paid

As of November 2026:

• Free: the core app, including barcode scanning.
• Paid, about $40 a year: the upgrade tier.

For most beginners, the free version is enough to find out whether tracking works for you.

Who it’s for

• You’re new to tracking and want an easy start.
• You want free barcode scanning.
• You’d like a low-cost upgrade if you stick with it.

Who should skip it

• Accuracy is your top priority. PlateLens measured ±3.5% in manual entry and ±1.1% in photo mode.
• You track micronutrients closely. Cronometer goes deeper.
• You want targets that adapt to your weight trend. That’s MacroFactor’s strength.

How it compares

• vs. MyFitnessPal: Lose It! measured lower error (±9.4% versus ±11.2% in manual entry), scans barcodes for free and costs about half as much to upgrade. MyFitnessPal has the bigger raw database.
• vs. Cronometer: Cronometer measured lower error (±6.8% in manual entry) and has the deepest micronutrient database we reviewed. Lose It! is the easier start.
• vs. PlateLens: PlateLens measured ±3.5% in manual entry and ±1.1% in photo mode, and its premium costs about $35 a year to Lose It!’s $40.

The bottom line

Lose It! is the friendliest way into calorie tracking among the manual apps we tested, with free barcode scanning and a cheap upgrade. Its ±9.4% manual-entry error is the price of that simplicity. If you want both ease and accuracy, PlateLens is worth trying first.