Free meal planning: what free actually means

In this category "free" almost never means "unlimited", and where the limit sits is usually something you discover after installing. The short answer for Cookrange:logging, the weekly plan, the shopping list, gym check-in, streak tracking and progress history are on the free tier; AI generation is capped at 2 runs a day. We publish the number here because the number is the actual question.

Free tiers are gated in four different ways

Knowing which gate you are facing lets you judge an app before installing it:

• A feature gate: a capability sits entirely in the paid tier. The most honest gate, because you see the limit up front.
• A volume gate: the capability exists but carries a daily or monthly quota. You only meet the limit while using it - and the quota figure is often published nowhere.
• A time gate: everything is open, but only for a trial. When it ends the app is effectively unusable.
• A data gate: the worst of the four. If your own records - weight history, meal archive - move behind the paywall, the free tier was not storage, it was a trap.

The gate you meet in Cookrange is the volume gate: the AI generation quota. The data gate is a design decision explicitly refused.

Exactly what is in Cookrange's free tier

• Unlimited meal logging — barcode, quick add and photo
• Weekly meal plan and automatic shopping list
• Gym check-in
• Streak tracking
• Long-term progress history. Your weight log is currently kept on your phone only.
• 2 AI generations a day (plan, recipe generation, chat)

This list is identical to the one on the pricing page and comes from the same source. The quota figure was read out of the app's own code, not estimated.

How far 2 generations a day gets you

The honest answer is that it depends on the job. Three things share the same quota - plan generation, recipe generation and chat. If you want to build a week's plan and then ask a few questions on top, the quota runs out within the day. If you want to build a plan and then log against it for a week, you never touch the quota at all, becauselogging does not draw on it - barcode, quick add and photo are unlimited.

And that is precisely what Premium buys: 20 generations a day. It does not unlock a feature, it raises a quota.

The thing that is never behind the paywall: your own data

This is not a marketing line but a written design principle, and it also sits on thepricing page: the paid tier only increases generation volume. It never locks your logging history, gym data or squad. That is the most damaging of the four gates above, and it is deliberately unused.

What we are not saying

We have not yet announced what keeps the free tier sustainable in the long run. Premium - the generation quota - is currently the only real revenue line. When we announce the rest of the model we will publish its rules alongside it. A revenue line absent from this page today is a revenue line that does not exist today.

What you can do right now

The app is at v0.9.6 internal alpha and is not in the stores, so you cannot install it and try the free tier for yourself today. Access opens through thewaitlist. In the meantime every calculator is on this site and runs without an account: the tools page.