Is the Ivy food app free? What it costs, and the free alternatives

Last reviewed: 10 June 2026

We're NutraSafe — we make a competing food scanner, so read this knowing where it comes from. We've kept every Ivy fact below to what Ivy's own UK App Store listing says, with the date we checked it. If you landed here you probably scanned a few products in Ivy, hit the subscription screen, and searched for a free way to keep doing the same thing. Here's the straight answer.

Ivy's facts below are drawn from its UK App Store listing on 10 June 2026. We only quote prices that appear on the app's own listing. If anything here has gone stale, the contact page reaches us and we'll fix it.

What the Ivy app is

Ivy — listed as Ivy: Processed Food Scanner, from developer Ramzy Nanou — is a barcode scanner focused on processed food. Its UK App Store listing (10 June 2026) says it covers a database of over 3 million products and identifies seed oils, additives, pesticides, heavy metals and microplastics, alongside allergen flags, dietary preferences and suggested alternatives. It holds a 4.7-star average across roughly 15,000 ratings on the UK store, and it's available on iOS and Android.

Those are Ivy's claims about itself, reported as the listing states them — we haven't run a head-to-head test of its detection against lab data, and we'd treat any app's per-product pesticide or microplastic figures (including anything in this category) as estimates derived from product type rather than a measurement of the packet in your hand.

What Ivy costs

The listing describes a 3-day free trial, after which the app's full features need Ivy Pro. The in-app purchases section of the UK listing shows Pro Access at six price points: £8.99, £9.99, £19.99, £29.99, £32.99 and £39.99. The listing page doesn't break out which price maps to which subscription length, so check the price screen inside the app — and the trial conversion date — before starting the trial.

One practical note that applies to any App Store trial, Ivy's included: subscriptions started through Apple are cancelled through Apple, not inside the app. Settings → your name → Subscriptions → select it → Cancel. Apple's guidance is to cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends to avoid the first charge. On Android it's Google Play → Profile → Payments and subscriptions.

Ivy vs Yuka

The two get compared constantly because they're both "point it at the barcode, get a verdict" scanners. The practical differences, kept factual:

• Cost structure. Yuka has a permanent free tier — scanning and the 0–100 score cost nothing, with Premium at £15/year adding search, offline mode and unlimited history. Ivy is subscription-first: 3-day trial, then Ivy Pro. If budget is the deciding factor, that's the whole comparison.
• What gets flagged. Yuka scores each product 0–100 from additives plus nutritional quality (sugar, salt, saturated fat, calorie density). Ivy's listing emphasises seed oils, additives, pesticides, heavy metals and microplastics — a different framing aimed at the processed-food conversation.
• Database origin. Yuka was founded in France in 2017 and its catalogue is primarily French in origin, though UK coverage has grown. Ivy's listing claims over 3 million products; it doesn't state a UK-specific figure.

Neither keeps a daily food diary — both are scan-and-verdict tools by design. If you want the scan and a record of what you ate over the week, that's a different category of app (ours included — more below). For the longer Yuka write-up, see our Yuka comparison.

The free alternatives, honestly compared

Each of these scans food without a subscription. None of them is a like-for-like Ivy clone — they make different promises, so the right pick depends on which question you're actually asking at the shelf.

Open Food Facts — free and open-source

A volunteer-built database with apps on iOS, Android and F-Droid. Free, no ads, no account needed, and it surfaces NOVA processing groups plus Nutri-Score on many products — the closest free thing to a processed-food reading. The trade-off is coverage: well-known products are usually present, smaller own-label ranges can be missing, and data quality varies because it's crowdsourced.

NHS Food Scanner — free traffic lights

The official NHS app scans a barcode and shows red/amber/green for fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt, with swap suggestions. Completely free. It doesn't analyse additives or processing — it answers "is this high in salt?", not "what's been done to this food?" — so it's a companion to the apps above rather than a replacement.

Yuka — free tier with a paid layer

Scanning and the score are free indefinitely; £15/year adds search, offline mode and unlimited history. We've answered the pricing question in detail in "Is the Yuka app free?".

NutraSafe — ours, so judge accordingly

Free to download. The free tier covers the barcode scan with the headline processing grade, up to 25 logged foods a day, and up to 5 logged reactions. NutraSafe Pro (£3.99/month, iOS, monthly only) unlocks the full additive analysis — every E-number explained in plain English with what published research has flagged — plus vitamin and mineral tracking against UK NRVs, allergen warning detail on scans, AI Coach and AI meal scan. The difference in kind from Ivy and Yuka: we're a diary as well as a scanner, so the question we answer is "what did this week actually look like?", not just "what's in this packet?". Full tier breakdown on the pricing page. iOS only at the moment — Android is in development.

Which one should you pick?

• You just want a free verdict at the shelf: Yuka's free tier or Open Food Facts.
• You're watching fat, sugar and salt for the family: NHS Food Scanner.
• You want a transparent, no-strings processing reading: Open Food Facts — the methodology is public.
• You want the scan plus a diary that shows your week: that's the job we built our app for.
• You specifically want Ivy's seed-oil and contaminant framing: Ivy is the only app on this page that markets those flags — just go in knowing it's a subscription after day three.

Common questions

Is the Ivy food app free?

Not on an ongoing basis. Ivy's UK App Store listing describes a 3-day free trial, after which full access requires an Ivy Pro subscription. The listing doesn't describe a permanent free tier. Pro Access in-app purchases on the UK listing run from £8.99 to £39.99 (checked June 2026).

How much does the Ivy food scanner app cost?

Ivy's UK App Store listing shows Pro Access in-app purchases at £8.99, £9.99, £19.99, £29.99, £32.99 and £39.99 (June 2026). The listing page doesn't break out which price maps to which subscription length, so check the price screen inside the app before the 3-day trial converts.

What is a free alternative to the Ivy food app?

Open Food Facts is completely free and open-source, and surfaces NOVA processing groups on many products. The NHS Food Scanner is free and shows traffic-light fat, sugar and salt ratings. Yuka has a permanent free tier for scanning, with Premium at £15/year. Our app, NutraSafe, is free to download — the free tier covers barcode scanning with the headline grade and up to 25 logged foods a day; NutraSafe Pro is £3.99/month.

Is Ivy better than Yuka?

They're built differently rather than one being better. Yuka has a permanent free scanning tier and gives each product a 0–100 score based on additives and nutritional quality; Premium is £15/year. Ivy is subscription-first — a 3-day trial, then Ivy Pro — and its listing emphasises flagging seed oils, additives, pesticides, heavy metals and microplastics. If the deciding factor is cost, Yuka's free tier is the difference. If you want a daily diary on top of the scan, neither keeps one — that's where a tracking app fits instead.

How do I cancel an Ivy free trial?

Subscriptions started through the App Store are cancelled through Apple, not the app: Settings → tap your name → Subscriptions → select the subscription → Cancel. Apple's guidance is to cancel at least 24 hours before a trial ends to avoid being charged. On Android, it's Google Play → Profile → Payments and subscriptions.

Try our app for yourself

Scan a UK barcode in NutraSafe and you'll see the processing grade, the full ingredients list and every E-number with what it does in the food. Free to download, with up to 25 logged foods a day on the free tier. NutraSafe Pro (£3.99/month, iOS, monthly only) unlocks the full additive analysis, vitamin and mineral tracking against UK NRVs, allergen warning detail, AI Coach, AI meal scan and full reaction-pattern analysis.

We're a tracking tool, not a clinic — if you're investigating food reactions, the diary is something to take to your GP or dietitian.

Related reading

• Is the Yuka app free? What's free and what Premium adds
• Best food scanner apps 2026 — tested with 50 products
• Best ultra-processed food app 2026 — how to tell if your food is UPF