I Tried Cronometer Gold, So You Don’t Have To

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I’ve reviewed Cronometer previously, and since that review, many people have asked whether or not the free version is enough or if their paid tier, called “Cronometer Gold,” is worth it. 

Here’s quick answer: 

Most people will be able to achieve their nutrition goals, including calorie and macro tracking, on the free version of Cronometer. However, for those with specialized diets or health conditions or for those who want to customize their nutrition data, Cronometer Gold is one of the best paid nutrition apps on the market.   

*If you use the link above, you can get 10% off when subscribing to the gold plan. No code is required, it’s automatically applied.

I’ll share all the details about what you get in each version of the app, and when and why I think it’s worth upgrading to Cronometer Gold (it’s not necessary). 

Why I Decided To Try Cronometer Gold

I first started using Cronometer in 2022, but only on the free version.  

I eventually switched to Cronometer Gold in 2023 because, at the time, the free version didn’t allow me to group my intake into different meals and snacks for the day.  It was just one long list.  

Also, the free version of Cronometer had ads—something I was trying to avoid after they took over the user experience on MyFitnessPal. My colleague Philip agreed—MyFitnessPal had become a hassle, and we both switched to Cronometer.

But, part way through 2024, Cronometer made meal groupings available in the free version.  

So, now, in 2025, I wanted to re-evaluate whether Cronometer Gold was still worth it for me.  

As such, I switched back to the free version for a few weeks so that I could report back to you and decide whether I should keep paying for Gold or not.

What Do You Get With The Free Version?

Cronometer’s free version completely blows the competition out of the water, in several key areas:

Custom Targets

Cronometer’s free version not only allows you to set custom macronutrient targets to the exact gram (many other apps’ free versions limit you to just a percentage of overall calories), but you can also set custom micronutrient targets in the free version.

Macro- and micronutrient custom targets:

This is really awesome to help you meet specific goals, and especially if one or more micronutrients is important to you for health and/or fitness reasons.  

For example, it might be important for you to get enough iodine in your diet, and you can track that specific target on the free version.

Micronutrient Tracking

Cronometer’s tracking of up to 84 nutrients and other compounds is included in the free version.

Most other free versions of apps have very limited nutrients beyond the basic macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat).  

For example, MyNetDiary’s free version only has fiber, sodium, and calcium.  

MyFitnessPal’s free version only tracks Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Sodium, and Potassium (6 micronutrients).

Plus, you can click into a Daily Report showing your micronutrient totals compared to your target (or to the RDA recommended daily allowance, if you did not set a specific custom target).

The micronutrient section of the Daily Report:

This detailed tracking helps you identify ways to improve your intake for better health. It also highlights any micronutrient gaps, so you can consider supplementation or discuss options with your healthcare provider or nutrition coach.

Logging Capabilities

Cronometer’s free version lets you track water intake, exercise, and biometrics like sleep, weight, body fat percentage, and measurements. You can also add personal notes to track things like how you’re feeling or any other details you want to remember.

You can add the note to a specific “meal” (a diary group – diary groups can be used for meals or snacks, or you can create a group that is just for recording exercise, and name it “Exercise” or a group that is just for logging supplements, and name it “Supplements”).  The notes feature can be used to record qualitative data about the diary group.

There are a total of eight diary groups available, so if you use one for Exercise and one for Supplements, you would have six diary groups left for recording your meals and snacks.  You can add a Note to any diary group.

For example, if your diary group is “Exercise” you can use a note to talk about how the exercise felt or more details about what the workout was.  

I have one diary group reserved for logging all of my biometric data (I named this diary group “Biometrics”), so I can add a Note there, for example, about the quality of my sleep.

Adding notes in Cronometer:

This makes Cronometer a “one-stop shop” for ALL of your health and fitness data, so that you don’t have to keep records in various places.  

This streamlines the experience and makes it easy for you so that you can focus more time and energy on working out and preparing and eating delicious food compared to just keeping track of it all.

Custom Foods, Meals & Recipes

I love the ability to create custom foods, meals, and recipes.  

For example, there is a local bakery here that makes high-protein donuts.  I can save the macros for their donuts as a custom food that isn’t available in the public Cronometer food database since it’s just a single local bakery.

Custom food items that aren’t available in the public database:

This gives you greater accuracy in your logging compared to just picking a random entry that seems “close enough.”  Better accuracy means better data and better results.

I also create my own custom meals for groups of foods I commonly eat together, or even a grouping of all my daily supplements so that I do not have to enter them one by one.  

With the meal functionality, there is an option to have the individual meal components show up in my diary so that I can quickly adjust the amounts of each ingredient if needed. 

Creating meals and meal display options:

This makes logging super fast and efficient.  If you’re like me and my clients, we tend to eat the same “groups of foods” (meals) often. 

This is different from a recipe, which keeps the ingredient amounts fixed unless I change the recipe itself.  If I change a recipe, Cronometer will ask if I want to change past logging of that recipe to reflect the updated nutritional information.

I also love the ability to put detailed notes and instructions in the recipe so that I don’t have to refer to a cookbook or website to make it – everything is in the app.  In MyFitnessPal, for example, a recipe would only store the ingredient amounts with nowhere to record how to prepare the recipe, such as what temperature, for how long, etc.

Recipes in Cronometer:

This is just another example of Cronometer being a one-stop shop to make it fast, easy and convenient.

Barcode Scanner

Yup, the barcode scanner in Cronometer is still free!  This is a fast and convenient way to search for a food item compared to manually typing in the search bar.  Many barcode scanners are now behind paywalls for most other apps.  

What Do You Get With The Gold Version?

With the Gold version of Cronometer, you get all of the great features of the free version that I discussed above, plus MORE! 

If you use the link above, you can get 10% off when subscribing to the gold plan. No code is required, it’s automatically applied.

There are so many additional features in the Gold version that I’m not even listing all of them here.  I’m focusing on the ones that I personally find most valuable or think would be most valuable for most of my clients.  

I’ve listed them here in order of what I find most valuable based on my goals and preferences.  

Print Reports

The Gold version of Cronometer allows you to generate an easy-to-read PDF of your results.  You can include a detailed food log for a desired date range, with or without target information, and biometric information to share with your coach or other health care professional.

I personally used this feature when I was working with a nutrition coach to compete at the national level in powerlifting. 

The ability to coordinate with other healthcare professionals is one of the top reasons I recommend people upgrade to Cronometer Gold.

Custom Charts

You can create custom charts to correlate nutrients and biometrics over time.  

For example, if a certain nutrient (or lack thereof) is impacting your sleep quality, you can actually graph this.

Since Cronometer allows you to track your “bathroom habits” (stool quality), I decided to track my fiber intake compared to my stool scores to see what was the right amount of fiber for me – not too much and not too little (both can be problematic).

A personalized custom chart in Cronometer:

Seeing these patterns allows you to tweak your intake in a way that works for you, something generic macro prescriptions cannot do for you.

If you think that your sugar intake is disrupting your sleep, you could create a custom chart to track your sleep quality score compared to your sugar intake.

Another example of a custom chart would be to track your intake of a given nutrient compared to a biometric result that you are hoping it will influence.  

For example, if you think that consuming more Omega 3 will reduce your muscle soreness, you could create a custom biometric to track your daily rating of soreness, and then a custom chart to plot Omega 3 intake and muscle soreness to see if there is a link between them.

Macro Scheduler

I personally think the macro scheduler is great because I can set different macro targets (called “Templates”) for different days of the week in advance.  

For example, if I know that I have an extra-long training session on Sundays, I can set higher targets for that day.  

Or if I want a different ratio of carbs and fat on my rest days, I can do that, too.

The macro scheduler:

You can always update your targets for the day on any given day in the free version.  The macro scheduler feature is just extra easy because it allows you to set this up in advance, and you don’t have to remember to change it.

This feature would be less relevant if you have the same calorie and macro targets every day of the week.

Timestamps

The timestamps feature allows you to record/track what time you had a certain food or logged a certain biometric.  

For example, you might want to know what time you had your post-workout snack, or what time of day you weighed yourself.

This can be a useful feature for people who want or need to ensure their meals are evenly spaced or appropriately timed near their workouts (and you can record a timestamp on your logged exercise, too).  

Timestamp settings & display:

I personally don’t pay much attention to this, and since the timestamp defaults to the current time, if I’m pre-logging my food for the day, or logging items at the end of the day, I don’t take the time to change them to reflect when the food will be or was actually eaten.

Repeat Items

Repeat items is a great way to make food logging even faster.  

If there are certain foods and/or supplements that you eat/take every day, you can set them up to pre-log – they will just repeat every day so you don’t have to take any time at all to put them in.

I take the same vitamins every night, so I’ve got my “meal” of evening supplements set up to repeat in the “Supplements” diary group.

Repeat Items:

Custom Biometrics

Custom biometrics are great if you want to keep track of a measurement or health metric that isn’t already in the app.  

I don’t personally use this feature because the pre-existing standard list of biometrics (available in the free version) is already very comprehensive.  

I haven’t found a single thing I would want to track that isn’t already in the app for my specific use case, but some custom biometrics you could add are:

• Additional body measurements (for example if you want to track your biceps circumference while flexed and your biceps circumference while relaxed, you could create an additional metric for “flexed”)
• Rating of muscle soreness
• Rating of perceived exertion during exercise
• Rating of libido
• Lab results for a specialized medical condition

Default biometric options before customization:

Recipe Importer

The Recipe Importer is great for people who like to use recipes from various websites – you just paste in the URL for the recipe, and Cronometer identifies the individual ingredients and creates a recipe.  

The recipe importer:

I don’t tend to follow recipes I’ve found; I’m usually adjusting ingredients to suit what I’ve got on hand and/or to make the recipe more macro-friendly (usually that means higher in protein and lower in fat and/or carbs), so I don’t use this feature.

Fasting Timer

I’m not personally into fasting, so this isn’t a feature I’ve explored, but it would be very valuable for someone who does intermittent fasting.  It just ties into the theme that Cronometer can be used for ALL health and fitness tracking.

My Experience Using Cronometer Gold

I’ll admit that my experience using Cronometer Gold wasn’t much better than my experience using the free version of Cronometer – and that’s because I think Cronometer is already excellent.

Of all the extra features in Cronometer Gold that I described above, I really only used three: Print Report, Macro Scheduler, and Repeat Items.

Now that my competition season is over and I’m not working with my coach, I don’t use the Print Report feature any more.

Lately, I’ve been sticking to the same targets seven days a week, so I don’t need the Macro Scheduler feature.

Since my repeat items are already saved as a meal, it is very fast to log them and the Repeat Logging feature doesn’t save me enough time in this regard to be valuable to me.

The one thing I do love is the completely ad-free experience in Cronometer Gold.  I think I’m extra sensitive to ads after they got so bad on MyFitnessPal, so that alone is worth it to me for the upgrade.

Is It Worth Upgrading?

Truthfully, the free version of Cronometer is excellent.  So, I would definitely start there.  

If you are an elite athlete, have serious fitness goals, or have fitness and nutrition as a direct part of how you make a living, then the upgrade definitely makes sense.

That said, your experience matters, so if you want to skip the ads, the upgrade is only $4.99 US per month ($59.88) if you sign up for a year or $10.99 US per month if you pay monthly.  

This is such an excellent price point; you really can’t go wrong. It’s almost half the cost of MyFitnessPal, which is $19.99 US per month.  

And if you’re the type to take your health and fitness more seriously when you’ve made a financial commitment (“Sheesh, I paid for this app; I better use it”), then take that self-knowledge and make the best decision for you.