Plan the week
Free Meal Planner App: What Actually Stays Free
Free meal planner app with no card needed: planning and the shopping list stay free, and this page says plainly which part costs money.
On this page
A free meal planner app should let you plan a week of dinners and produce a shopping list without a card on file. Planning your week and building the shopping list stay free in Yumzi, with no trial and no card. This page says plainly what that includes and what costs something.
What is free right now?
Everything, in practice. Planning a week of dinners is free. Building the shopping list from that plan is free, including merging duplicate ingredients across dinners into one buyable quantity and grouping the list by aisle category. Saving recipes you already have is free. Editing them is free. Cooking from them is free.
What costs something, and why?
Reading a new recipe, from a video, a photo or a recipe website. For a video, that step transcribes the spoken track and reads the on-screen text, and every read costs real money to run. Your first ten reads are free, then one a week (later with ads); Yumzi Pro removes the limit.
This is worth being straight about now, before it changes, rather than after: “free meal planner app” often means free until the feature you actually came for. Here the feature that costs something is named up front, and it is reading new recipes specifically, not planning and not the shopping list.
How does that compare to other free tiers?
Most free planner tiers meter the recipe library itself or cap the number of saved recipes. ReciMe, for instance, caps its free tier at five recipe imports a week. Others gate the planner and leave the recipe box free.
The thing worth checking on any free tier is which half is limited: the storing, or the doing. A planner that stores recipes without limit but charges to plan a week is a recipe box wearing a planner’s name.
What do you need to sign up?
An email address, and nothing else.
What are the honest limits, today?
Reading recipes is priced today: ten free, then one a week (later with ads), and Yumzi Pro removes the limit. What is settled: planning and the shopping list are not going anywhere behind a paywall.
Who should use something else?
If your recipes are already text on a food blog rather than saved video, a URL-based planner is a fine fit today and there is nothing to wait on.
Your saved videos, as recipes you can cook.
Share a reel with Yumzi. Bring the recipe to your kitchen.
Questions
Is Yumzi free to use for meal planning?
Yes. Planning a week of dinners and generating the merged, aisle-grouped shopping list are free. Reading a new recipe, from a video, a photo or a recipe website, is free for your first ten, then one a week (later with ads); Yumzi Pro removes that limit.
Do you need a credit card to sign up?
No. Yumzi needs an email address and nothing else.
Will the free plan stay free?
Planning your week and building the shopping list are staying free. The part that costs something is reading new recipes, because each read has a real cost. Your first ten reads are free, then one a week (later with ads), and Yumzi Pro removes the limit. Facts in this piece were checked on 19 September 2026. Next check: 18 December 2026.