MyFitnessPal and Cal AI
Why people leave their calorie tracker
Among recent one and two-star reviews, MyFitnessPal draws the most complaints about its interface and Cal AI draws the most about money. Calorie accuracy comes up far less than we expected.
Reviews are a self-selected sample. Every percentage on this page means “among people who wrote a complaint”, not “among all users”. Nothing here measures demand for VoiceFit.
Summary
The short version
- 1
- 2
Since June, MyFitnessPal complaints are mostly about the interface.
In 100 recent one and two-star reviews, 39% mention the interface, 31% reliability and 29% money. These overlap, so they add to more than 100%.
- 3
- 4
Wrong calories are a smaller complaint than money, interface or reliability.
11% of recent Cal AI complaints and 8% of MyFitnessPal’s are about wrong numbers. Many Cal AI reviewers hit the paywall before using the app, so they never got far enough to judge accuracy.
- 5Unexplained
Cal AI’s positive reviews disappeared in June. Its negative reviews did not.
Negative reviews kept arriving at 33 to 54 a month since February. Positive ones fell from 182 in May to 14 in July. The rating drop is a loss of praise, not a rise in complaints. We don’t know why.
- 6
Almost nobody writes about voice logging.
At most 22 of 11,289 reviews match a voice phrase, and several of those are about something else. That is no signal for voice and none against it.
MyFitnessPal
A redesign, then business as usual
In late April a redesign that folds the Diary into a new Today screen rolled out widely. MyFitnessPal’s help page says food logging “works just like before”. [3] Reviewers say the foods are now hidden under each meal and that days can no longer be swiped. [7][8]
Written Google Play reviews, by week
Every written review we could collect for each week from 23 March to 4 October 2026. Negative is one or two stars.
Before the redesign, 54% of written reviews were negative (three weeks, 397 reviews). In the two peak weeks it was 87%. From June on it settled at 52–57%. Half of MyFitnessPal’s written reviews were already negative before the redesign. The store rating is a different measure: 4.71 on Apple from 2.4 million ratings, most of them without text. [13]
What recent complaints are about
100 randomly drawn one and two-star reviews from June to October 2026, read one by one. Bars show the share mentioning each topic. Whiskers show the 95% range. A review can be in several rows.
On Reddit
The three April threads hold 213 posts and comments longer than a short reaction. Up to 30% mention cancelling, asking for a refund or switching apps. About 8% complain about tapping into each meal to see its foods. Both figures come from phrase matching, with some false hits. [7][8][9]
When users in a separate thread asked for a replacement, they named Cronometer most often (8 of 43 posts and comments), then Lose It (6) and MacroFactor (5). [10]
- What is PremiumThe barcode scanner, Meal Scan, voice logging and no ads. Free covers logging food and exercise, recipes and measurements. [4][17] 157 reviews (2.8%) mention the barcode scanner and paying for it.
- Public repliesMyFitnessPal replied to 4,845 of its 5,000 newest Google Play reviews (97%). Cal AI replied to none of its 5,000.
- Logged out126 reviews (2.3%) say the app keeps logging them out, and a few add that entries were lost.
Cal AI
The complaint is the bill
Cal AI is owned by MyFitnessPal. Its complaints sit in a different place: not the app’s screens, but what happens when you pay for it and when you try to stop.
What recent complaints are about
62 randomly drawn one and two-star reviews from June to October 2026, read one by one. Whiskers show the 95% range, which is wide at this sample size.
- 2 March 2026MyFitnessPal announces it has acquired Cal AI. [6]
- Mid AprilApple removes Cal AI from the App Store. The reasons: bypassing in-app purchase, a paywall that showed the weekly price more prominently than the billed amount, a free-trial toggle that obscured auto-renewal, and a second purchase screen for people who declined the first. [1][2]
- Soon afterCal AI fixes the issues and returns to the store. [1][2]
- Early JuneReview versions jump from 1.0.236 to 26.22.0, the same numbering style as MyFitnessPal’s. Positive reviews on Google Play start falling within days and are nearly gone by July.
Complaints carried on at a lower level; praise collapsed in June
Written Google Play reviews per month, July 2025 to September 2026.
Negative reviews (1–2★)
Positive reviews (4–5★)
What we don’t know
Negative reviews drifted down from about 90 a month in 2025 to between 33 and 54 a month since February. Positive reviews fell from 182 in May to 75 in June, 14 in July and 8 in September. Total written reviews on Google Play fell from about 245 a month to about 60.
Apple shows no such collapse. Its written reviews held at 98 to 143 a month from June to September, and negatives eased from 57% to 42%. That points to something specific to Android, but it does not tell us what.
One possible cause, which we have not checked, is that the app stopped asking happy users for a rating. Do not read this chart as “users turned on Cal AI”.
- CancellingCal AI says you can’t cancel inside the app, and that deleting the app does not cancel the subscription. [5]
- One platform onlySubscriptions are tied to the platform they were bought on, iPhone or Android. A few reviewers say a new phone meant paying again (6 of 5,754 reviews). [5]
- Accuracy claimCal AI’s own FAQ says the app is “about 80% accurate”. [5]
- Store rating4.8 on Apple from 368,552 ratings, 4.56 on Google Play from 272,168. [15][16]
Across every review we collected
How often each complaint shows up
The percentages above are shares of complaints. These are different: the share of all reviews, good or bad, that use a specific phrase. People word the same problem many ways, so these are lower bounds and sit far below the hand-read shares.
MyFitnessPal
Share of 5,535 reviews, March to October 2026
Cal AI
Share of 5,754 reviews, June 2025 to October 2026
The two collections cover different date ranges. Phrase matches include false hits. In 12 random MyFitnessPal “wrong numbers” and “can’t edit” matches, about half were about steps, layout or exercise rather than food. Cal AI’s matches were mostly genuine (about 10 of 12).
Five-star reviews
Why people stay
We read 45 randomly drawn five-star reviews per app from June to October. Ease and results come first for both. Between a third and 40% of each sample said too little to tag.
MyFitnessPal
Cal AI
With 45 reviews per app, each share is accurate to about ±14 points. Years of use (8 of 45), watch syncing (5) and the free version (4) appeared only in MyFitnessPal reviews.
Verbatim
In their words
Reviews from the labelled samples, quoted exactly and trimmed only at the end. I picked the ones that illustrate each theme; they are examples, not a count.
“The new UI is terrible: - Individual foods are hidden behind the different meal-categories. - Changing the date cannot be done via swiping left or right anymore, instead via a dropdown at the top.”
“I've been using this app for years, i currently have premium+ and a 2160 days streak... overnight the UI was changed massively, the new UI is awful and unintuitive.”
“was once an easy to use, efficient logging app. now it's bloated, the paradigm 'less clicks is more' seems completely ignored, and has become super time consuming and frustrating to navigate.”
“Wanted to charge £64 to use the app, after doing the questionnaire. Just put the price at the start.”
“This was amazing in the beginning. You could use the basic features without paying for anything and didn’t have ads everywhere. Now, full of trash and you have to pay to even scan a barcode? Really disappointing.”
“Can’t log anything. Every time I attempt to log something it tells me to join Premium (I have it and have had it for nearly 6mo).”
“Keeps logging me out each day, im paying for a full year subscription and the app won't even keep me logged in. they need to fix this, its been happening for weeks now.”
“I have been on this app for 18 years and normally I would be raving about it. However, at least 3/4 of the foods that are found on the app fail to log.”
“1. Installs calAI 2.Subscription popup 3.Skips popup 4.Creates account 5.Presses + to log meal 6.Subscription popup forcing me to subscribe to continue using the app and log my meals…”
“has you go thru the whole setup process before telling you that it's a paid subscription service…”
“I deleted my account same day and I was till charged $30 after my 3 day trial. it said i can cancel anytime, but it doesn't say how.”
“I purchased this app in September 2025 on an iPhone 13. Two weeks ago I got a new phone. In communicating with support it turns out that the app is only for use with the device you used to purchase it.”
“used to be nice, I pay for this app, and it keeps losing my streaks. I had a work challenge and was at a 45 day streak and it just reverted back to zero without me missing a day which made me lose the challenge.”
“App keeps logging me out after opening it. Calories and macros arent close to all.”
“I was really excited to use this after a family member was ranting about the app. However, I’ve found when I scan barcodes, half the time the nutritional facts loaded in the database are extremely wrong.”
“it's terrible at accurately identifying food or calculating the macros, which is the one purpose it exists for in the first place. you will end up manually adding the macros from your food 99% of the time because it is wildly inaccurate.”
“I hate not being able to see all my foods from one meal in the diary easily. Many times we’re adding more than one ingredient and now have to click through to see that!”
“I'm on 796 days logged in a row and been a premium member far longer than that. I'm stopping logging as of today. 2026 changes have been awful. I dont think you…”
“I tried it. 2 chicken breast. 500 cal. Added some veggies in it and it somehow got 400 lol…”
Our read
What this means for VoiceFit
Each point separates what the data shows from what we infer. None of it tests VoiceFit with real users.
- 1
Put the price on the first screen.
- Evidence
- Money is 56% of Cal AI’s recent complaints and 29% of MyFitnessPal’s. 11% of Cal AI complainants said they only saw a price after a long questionnaire. Apple acted against Cal AI’s billing design. [1][2]
- Our read
- Whatever VoiceFit charges, show the price, billing interval and how to cancel before onboarding starts. Trial-then-charge complaints are 24% of recent Cal AI complaints.
- 2
Keep the whole day visible without taps.
- 3
Treat staying signed in and never losing an entry as launch criteria.
- Evidence
- Reliability is 31% of recent MyFitnessPal complaints and 29% of Cal AI’s: logouts, freezes, lost streaks.
- Our read
- These feel basic but they sit next to price as a top reason for one-star reviews.
- 4
Don’t build the pitch on accuracy alone.
- Evidence
- Wrong numbers are 8–11% of recent complaints and 2–3% of all reviews. Complaints that fixing an entry doesn’t work appear in about 30 of 5,754 Cal AI reviews.
- Our read
- Accuracy is table stakes. It matters, but the bigger fights are price clarity, a stable app and a diary people can read. This weakens our earlier hypothesis that corrections are the opening.
- 5
Test voice with users. The reviews can’t answer it.
- Evidence
- At most 22 of 11,289 reviews match a voice phrase. MyFitnessPal’s voice logging is Premium-only. [17]
- Our read
- People rarely talk about it, so there’s no proof of demand and no proof of indifference.
- 6
Compare against Cronometer, Lose It and MacroFactor, not just the two big names.
- Evidence
- Those were the apps named most in one thread of unhappy MyFitnessPal users asking where to go. [10]
- Our read
- One thread of 43 comments is an anecdote. It is still a better guide to where defectors land than the two apps’ own review pages.
Read before relying on the numbers
Method and limits
How we collected and counted
Store reviews. Apple: the latest 500 US reviews per app (contiguous). Google Play: the 5,000 newest English-language US reviews per app plus extra relevance and low-rating pulls, de-duplicated by review ID to 5,035 (MyFitnessPal) and 5,254 (Cal AI). Total with Apple: 11,289 unique reviews.
Windows differ. The MyFitnessPal Google Play pull reaches back to 22 March 2026 because it is so active. Cal AI’s reaches June 2025. Between-app comparisons of raw counts are not valid.
Hand reading. One reader (the assistant) tagged 100 random one and two-star MyFitnessPal reviews from June to October, and 100 Cal AI reviews from 2026, then kept the 62 Cal AI reviews from June onward to match the MyFitnessPal window. Reviews under six words were left out of the draw, which skews the sample toward people who explained themselves. Tags overlap. Whiskers are 95% Wilson intervals. A second reader might label some reviews differently.
Keyword counts. Counts in “How often” come from text patterns, then spot-checked on random hits. They miss rephrasings and include some false matches, noted above. The two Reddit percentages come from the same kind of matching.
Reddit coverage
372 posts and comments from 8 threads in r/Myfitnesspal, r/caloriedeficit and r/workout, read through Reddit’s public feeds. Reddit throttled our requests, so we stopped at the most relevant threads. Feeds are partial: long threads are cut off, and we can’t see vote counts. Reddit users skew toward people already unhappy enough to post.
Some threads include comments promoting competing apps. None of those were used in the switching tally.
What this does not tell us
Written reviews are not all users. They over-represent people with a problem. We did not install or pay for either app, so every complaint is a user report, not a verified defect. We have no data on retention, willingness to pay or whether VoiceFit would do better. Cal AI’s June drop in positive reviews is unexplained, and we saw no developer replies on Cal AI’s Google Play page, so we can’t say whether it responds elsewhere.
How this differs from the earlier, smaller brief
An earlier brief used 400 store reviews and hypothesised that a food that stays corrected is the opening. With 11,289 reviews that looks much weaker: complaints that a correction doesn’t work appear in about 0.5% of Cal AI reviews. Money, interface and reliability dominate. The earlier brief has not been updated.
Sources
- 1TechCrunch: Apple’s Cal AI crackdown signals it’s still policing the App Store (21 Apr 2026)
- 2MacRumors: Apple pulled Cal AI for deceptive billing design (21 Apr 2026)
- 3MyFitnessPal help: Your Today tab (updated 2 Oct 2026)
- 4MyFitnessPal help: Free, Premium and Premium+ (updated 5 Oct 2026)
- 5Cal AI FAQ (read October 2026)
- 6GlobeNewswire: MyFitnessPal acquires Cal AI (2 Mar 2026)
- 7r/Myfitnesspal: Why the app facelift sucks
- 8r/Myfitnesspal: MFP, y’all need to address this before you lose your userbase
- 9r/Myfitnesspal: Hate the new app, won’t be renewing
- 10r/Myfitnesspal: MyFitnessPal has become unusable. What is the actually fast alternative
- 11r/workout: Cal AI… thoughts?
- 12r/caloriedeficit: Cal AI still took my money after I cancelled
- 13MyFitnessPal on the App Store
- 14MyFitnessPal on Google Play
- 15Cal AI on the App Store
- 16Cal AI on Google Play
- 17MyFitnessPal help: How to log food with your voice (updated 21 Sep 2026)