doublesResearch
We read 7,875 App Store reviews of 10 calorie apps.
Here's what people complain about when they leave a bad review, and what they praise in a good one.
Published October 19, 2026. Reviews pulled October 18, 2026.
of 1 to 3 star reviews across 10 calorie-tracking apps are about paywalls and price.
That's more than any other complaint, and more than twice the next ones: doubting the numbers (22%) and trials that charge unexpectedly or are hard to cancel (21%). Only 8% complain that logging takes too long.
What the 2,795 bad reviews are about
Share of 1 to 3 star reviews that mention each theme. A review can mention more than one.
What the 4,202 five-star reviews praise
Share of 5-star reviews that mention each theme.
How we counted
- Apps: Cal AI, MyFitnessPal, Lose It!, MacroFactor, Cronometer, Carbon Macro Coach, SnapCalorie, Foodvisor, BitePal and SnapCal.
- Reviews: Apple's public US App Store review feed for each app, both the "most recent" and "most helpful" lists (up to 500 reviews each), pulled October 18, 2026. After removing duplicates: 7,875 reviews, of which 2,795 were 1 to 3 stars.
- Coding: each review's title and text was matched against a keyword list for 22 complaint themes and 17 praise themes. A review can count toward several themes. A hand check of 40 reviews found the themes mostly right, with some false matches, so read the numbers as a ranking with roughly ±10 points of error, not exact rates.
- Skew: the feed leans toward recent reviews, and recent reviews are more negative than these apps' lifetime star ratings, which are 4.6 to 4.8.
We didn't publish results app by app, because keyword coding isn't precise enough to rank individual apps fairly.
What we do about it
Doubles has one price, shown before the trial starts along with the date of the first charge: $69.99 a year or $12.99 a month after 7 days free. You cancel in your iPhone's Settings, your history stays readable if you do, and a real person answers [email protected]. Every number is shown as an estimate you can correct.
Citing this
Doubles, "We read 7,875 App Store reviews of 10 calorie apps", October 2026, getdoubles.app/research. Questions about the method: [email protected].
Try Doubles free for 7 days.
Then $69.99 a year or $12.99 a month. iPhone, US.