How to choose a photo calorie counter (and what free means)

Searches for a calorie counter almost always carry two words: photo and free. Both are reasonable asks and both are easy to fake in a store listing. This is not a ranking of apps; we have not tested the others in a way we could defend, and listings change weekly. It is the list of questions we would ask any of them, ours included.

1. Does it know your food?

A database built around another country's supermarket will recognise a burger and miss a cocido, a tortilla or a bocadillo de calamares. Test an app with your three most common plates, not with the demo salad. Fotocal's Spanish list has 218 foods and dishes with the portions people actually serve, and each one is published (in Spanish) with its figures and sources.

2. Does it say when it is guessing?

Every photo result is an estimate. The question is whether the app admits it on screen. Look for a confidence or an "AI estimate" label on each result, and be suspicious of apps that present a photo guess with the same certainty as a barcode. Fotocal shows the confidence on every scan.

3. How fast can you correct it?

The error in a photo is usually the amount, not the food, so the correction has to be quick or nobody does it. Count the taps to change the grams, to remove an ingredient, to say it was fried. And check that nothing is saved automatically: a draft you confirm is a feature, a diary that fills itself with guesses is not.

4. What is free, exactly?

Ask three things. How many scans a day on the free plan, and for how long. Whether a card is required to start. And whether the "free trial" converts into a charge on day eight unless you remember to cancel. Free should be a plan you can stay on, not a demo with a timer. The honest version of any answer here has numbers in it.

5. Where do the numbers come from?

An app that cannot name its sources is asking you to trust a black box. The good answers are public databases, USDA and the European tables, the manufacturer's label for packaged products, and per-100 g figures derived from stated portions. Fotocal names its rows on every dish page.

6. What happens to your photos and your data?

You are photographing your meals every day; that is a diary. Find the delete-account button before you need it, and check that deletion happens inside the app rather than by e-mail request.

Fotocal, answered in the same terms

The free plan has no expiry and asks for no card. It includes 2 photo scans and 1 voice log a day, and without limit the barcode scanner, Coach Kal, the diary, weight, water, steps and the weekly report. Premium costs €6.99 a month or €34.99 a year, both with a 5-day trial, and it does two things: it removes the two daily limits and it opens the deeper panels, the full micronutrient list, the processing level and the glycemic load. Every scan carries its confidence, nothing is saved until you confirm it, the portion and the ingredients are editable before saving, the Spanish database is published with its sources, and the account deletes itself from inside the app. The pricing page has the day-by-day of the trial; the scanner page shows the real screens.

If another app answers the six questions better for the food you eat, use that one. The point of the list is that you can tell.