Counter44 vs Lose It! – Calorie Counter

Quick answer

Lose It! – Calorie Counter by FitNow, Inc. is a calorie counter with a large food database, a free basic tier and a long Premium list. It has been on the App Store since 2008 and runs on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, plus Android, where it is listed as Calorie Counter by Lose It! from the same developer. The catch is that barcode scanning, photo logging, macro tracking and Apple Health sync all need Premium, and the app shows ads.

Counter44 (listed as Calorie Tracker - Counter44 by EHM TECH LLC) is a calorie and macro tracker that logs food from a bundled list of about 7,200 USDA-derived foods, your own custom foods or Quick Add. The food log, calorie and macro targets, weight, water and exercise are free, with no ads and no account.

If you want to scan barcodes, log meals from a photo or sync a watch and fitness devices, Lose It! fits better. If you’d rather have free macros, no ads and your data kept on the device, Counter44 is the better pick.

Side-by-side

Where Lose It! – Calorie Counter wins

Faster ways to log food, with Premium. Lose It!‘s Premium list includes a barcode scanner, photo meal logging (“Log meals by taking a picture”) and AI voice logging, where you say what you ate in a sentence. Reviewers say they like the barcode scanner, but they also say it moved behind Premium. Counter44 has no barcode scanner and no photo or AI food recognition. Its photo features are progress photos of you, not of your food. You search its bundled food list, add a custom food or use Quick Add.

A much bigger food database. Lose It!‘s description lists “56+ million items and recipes,” without naming a source. Reviewers say the database is deep, though they also say some entries are inaccurate, and some mention duplicate entries for the same food. Counter44 bundles about 7,200 USDA-derived foods that work offline, and it has no online food search. If a food is not in the list, you add it as a custom food.

Apple Health, a Watch app and fitness devices. Under its Premium Fitness App Syncs, Lose It! names Healthkit, Google Fit, Fitbit, Misfit, Garmin and Withings scales. It also has an Apple Watch app. Counter44 has no Apple Health or Health Connect connection and no Watch app, and you type in the calories burned for each workout.

More to track, and people to track it with. Premium adds vitamins, minerals, blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, body measurements, sleep and intermittent fasting. The listing also describes GLP-1 medication logging (tier not stated) and a free community where you add friends and join support groups. Lose It! has been on the App Store since 2008 and holds 4.8 stars from 781,900 US ratings. Reviewers say it is easy to use. Counter44 arrived on the App Store in 2026.

Where Counter44 wins

Macros without paying. Lose It!‘s listing puts macro tracking for protein, carbs, fat and sugar, plus meal targets, under Premium, and reviewers say the daily macro breakdown now needs Premium. Counter44 sets a calorie target with Mifflin-St Jeor and a 30/40/30 protein, carb and fat split you can change, and tracks both for free. The targets are estimates, not medical advice.

No ads. Lose It!‘s age rating lists Advertising, Google Play says it contains ads, and its privacy label lists Third-Party Advertising. The listing does not say Premium removes them. Reviewers say they see ads in the app, and those who paid say ads or upgrade offers kept coming after they upgraded. Counter44 shows no ads on the free or Pro plan.

No account and no tracking on the label. Lose It!‘s privacy label declares Contact Info, Identifiers and Usage Data used to track you, and lists Health & Fitness data linked to you. Counter44 needs no account, keeps your data on the device and works offline. Its label declares no data used to track you.

Pricing

• Counter44 is free for the food log, calorie and macro targets, weight, water, exercise, photo-a-day, streaks, custom foods and Quick Add. Pro adds the Statistics tab, 90- and 365-day weight trends, more than three meal reminders and every theme (3 of the 30+ themes are free), for $29.99 a year or $2.99 a week, with a 7-day free trial.
• Lose It! – Calorie Counter by FitNow, Inc. is free for calorie tracking of meals and exercise, a weight loss plan and community support. Premium adds the barcode scanner, photo and voice logging, macro and nutrient tracking, fasting, meal plans and fitness app syncs. The App Store lists Lose It! Premium at $9.99, $11.99, $19.99, $23.99, $29.99, $39.99 and $79.99, Premium Features at $39.99, and Premium Lifetime at $49.99 and $59.99, with no billing periods. The description confirms a yearly subscription and a free trial but gives neither the yearly price nor the trial length.

A year of Counter44 Pro costs $29.99 on the annual plan, or $155.48 if you pay weekly for 52 weeks. Lose It!‘s store page does not say which price is the yearly one, and reviewers say the annual plan runs about $80. Reviewers also say cancelling can be hard, and some say the subscription does not appear in Apple’s subscription settings.

Which one should you pick?

Pick Lose It! – Calorie Counter if you want to scan barcodes, log meals by photo or voice, search a database of millions of foods, sync with Apple Health, Fitbit or Garmin, use it on an Apple Watch, track fasting or vitamins, or log alongside friends, and you are fine paying for Premium and seeing ads.

Pick Counter44 if you want calorie and macro targets for free, no ads, no account and your data kept on the device, and you are happy to log from about 7,200 bundled foods, your own custom foods or Quick Add.

Logging from a label instead of a barcode? Our free food calories by weight calculator scales a label’s calories and macros to the grams you ate, and the macros to calories calculator turns grams of protein, carbs and fat into calories. Both run in your browser, with nothing to download. The other apps we compared are in our roundup of calorie tracker apps.