Every feature is free. The ads are the price.
FreeCal is a calorie and macro tracker for iPhone. It works out what you actually burn from your weigh-ins and what you log, then revises your targets every two weeks. Photo scan, barcode, search, adaptive targets — nothing is locked. One banner and one short ad a day pay for it. $19.99 a year turns them off.
It is built and in testing. This page is what it is, ahead of the listing.
iPhone · US · autumn 2026
It works out what you actually burn.
A formula guesses your burn from height, weight and age. FreeCal measures it: your weigh-ins say how fast your weight is moving, your diary says what you ate, and the difference is what you burned. Every two weeks it revises your calories and all four macro targets from that — up if the trend is slower than your goal, down if faster.
Targets move on Sundays, not on moods.
This week's targets are set once, on Sunday, and stay put. When they change, the app says why in one sentence — and the band around the trend line is how sure it is, narrowing every day you log.
Target rose +40 kcal Sunday — you're burning more than we thought.
Spruce means the app worked something out on its own. It is the only colour on this page you cannot tap.
Four ways to log. All of them free.
Search covers packaged and restaurant food with real serving sizes. Barcode uses Open Food Facts. Quick add takes a number. Favourites and what you usually eat at this hour sit at the top of the sheet. None of it is ever behind an ad.
The banner slot is drawn in. This is what free looks like.
The only gate in the app, and it asks after the photo — never before.
Going over is information, not a failure.
Past the target tick the ruler keeps going, in hatching. It does not turn red. Nothing resets, nothing scolds, and the week's targets are not clawed back on Thursday. The engine already knows — it is in the arithmetic for the next revision.
No colour is spent on going over. Every hue in the app already belongs to a macro or to the engine.
A week of adherence. The hatched day went over; the app says "that's fine".
Already know your numbers? Set them.
Switch to "I set them" on the goal step, or any time from Settings. FreeCal keeps showing you what your burn looks like, but it never changes a number you set. The screen does the 4/4/9 arithmetic so your macros and your calorie line cannot quietly disagree.
You already have everything.
There is no locked feature and there will never be one. Paying turns the ads off. That is the entire difference.
Yearly — $19.99
$1.67 a month, billed once a year.
Lifetime — $49.99
One payment. No subscription. Pays for itself in year three.
These are the prices we intend to ship at. A year elsewhere: MacroFactor $71.99, MyFitnessPal Premium $79.99. Prices in USD; Apple handles billing, tax and cancellation.
What the ads know, and don't.
Your diary and your weigh-ins stay on your phone, and in Apple Health if you turn that on. They are never sent to an ad network. Ads are served by an SDK that asks iOS for tracking permission once — say no and you get the same number of ads, less targeted. There is no account, and you can export everything as CSV whenever you like.
The ones worth asking.
Why is it free?
Ads on a diary you open five times a day cover a food database, a scan API and a server. A short ad is worth several times what a photo scan costs to run, which is why the scan is gated by one and nothing else is.
What's actually locked?
Nothing. No Ads removes the banner, the daily full-screen ad, and the ad before a photo scan. That is the entire difference between the tiers.
Is it as good as MacroFactor?
MacroFactor is the best-liked app in this category and costs $71.99 a year. FreeCal is built to the same feature list, with an adaptive engine of its own. It is new, and it has no reviews yet.
Android? Outside the US?
iPhone only, United States only, at launch. The food catalogue and the ad rates are both US-specific, and doing either properly elsewhere is its own piece of work.
Will the ads be diet pills?
We keep a blocklist for weight-loss and supplement advertisers. If one gets through, every ad has a report path and the advertiser gets added.
Does my food diary go to an advertiser?
No. Your diary and your weigh-ins stay on your phone. What you eat is never sent to an ad network.
Same tokens, other half.
Every colour in FreeCal carries a light value and a dark one. Pure white or pure black underneath, and the same ink, the same three macro hues, the same spruce.
Every feature is free.
$0 with ads · $19.99 a year without · $49.99 once, forever
iPhone · US · autumn 2026