Yuka app · UK prices · checked 1 November 2026

Is the Yuka app free? What it costs in the UK, and what you get.

Yes, the bit most people use is free. Scanning a barcode, the score out of 100 and the additive breakdown cost nothing, and there are no adverts. Premium is £10 a year.

If you'd rather know what the additives on a UK pack do, and keep your food in a diary with your calories and vitamins, that's what we built NutraSafe for.

Get NutraSafe on the App Store →What free Yuka gets you

NutraSafe is free to download, and the free version gives you the number of additives when you scan. Pro is £6.99 a month.

By Aaron Keen, founder of NutraSafe · Updated 4 November 2026

Yuka in the UK

Scanning and the score
Free
Adverts
None
Premium
£10 a year
Premium adds
Search, offline scanning, unlimited history and food preferences

From Yuka's help centre and its UK App Store listing, checked 1 November 2026

Checked 1 November 2026From Yuka's own help centreUK App Store and Google PlayWritten by the people who make NutraSafe
From UK App Store reviews of ours:It's the only app that does this UKJaneKYou Need This App Gmac2005Best App GK getting skinny

The short version

Four things people ask about Yuka, answered.

From Yuka's help centre and its UK App Store listing, both read on 1 November 2026.

Is Yuka free?

Yes.

Scan, score, additives and a better option, with no adverts.

What's Premium?

£10 a year.

A yearly subscription, with no monthly option.

Does it work in the UK?

Yes.

On the App Store and Google Play in Great Britain, in English.

Does it need signal?

Free, yes.

The free version needs a connection to scan. Premium works offline.

Free and Premium

What free Yuka does, and what Premium adds.

Yuka's list of paid features has four things on it: search, offline, unlimited history and food preferences.

Free

£0, no adverts

  • Scan a food or cosmetic barcodeA score out of 100.
  • The additives, one by oneEach rated on Yuka's four levels, from risk-free to high risk, with its sources.
  • A better optionWhen a product scores badly, Yuka suggests a similar one that scores higher.
  • Your scan historyThe products you've scanned, kept in the app.

Premium

£10 a year

  • Search without scanningLook a product up by name, brand or category.
  • Offline modeScan and see the score with no signal.
  • Unlimited historyEvery scan you've made over the year.
  • Food preferencesAlerts for vegetarian or vegan, palm oil, gluten, lactose, pork, soy and sulphites, and the better options follow them too.

Offline mode is the one to think about. Yuka's help centre says the free version needs a connection to scan, "which is not necessarily the case in all supermarkets". If your local shop is a signal black spot, that's the practical reason to pay.

Cost

How much is Yuka Premium in the UK?

£10 a year. The UK App Store also shows £15 and £20, but they get you exactly the same Premium. Yuka calls it open pricing: the higher two are there for people who want to support the app.

It's a yearly subscription; the UK App Store lists no monthly option. You can pay through Apple, Google, or straight to Yuka on its website. Yuka says it's funded by Premium, carries no adverts, and that no brand can influence its ratings.

How it scores

Where Yuka's score out of 100 comes from.

Yuka publishes its method, which is the fair way to judge whether it suits you. Three things go in, in fixed shares.

Nutritional quality, 60%

Worked out with Nutri-Score: sugar, sodium, saturated fat, calories, protein, fibre, and fruit and veg.

Additives, 30%

Each rated risk-free, limited, moderate or high risk, drawing on EFSA, IARC and independent studies.

Organic, 10%

A bonus for an official organic label.

One rule overrides the rest. If a product has an additive Yuka rates high risk, Yuka's scoring page says it can't score above 49 out of 100, however good the nutrition. Yuka's additive classification page says it rates an additive high risk only when all three are met: serious health effects, a high level of evidence, and an estimated exposure of concern.

In the UK

Does Yuka work in the UK? Yes, and lots of people use it.

It's on the App Store and Google Play in Great Britain, in English. Yuka's help centre lists 15 countries, Great Britain and Ireland among them.

5mUK users, around that many by the BBC's count in July 2026, third behind the US and France
3.6mfood products in one database shared by every country

Where the products come from

Yuka built its own database in 2018. It grows two ways: shoppers add products the app doesn't know, with photos of the pack, and brands give Yuka their label data directly. The BBC put new additions at about 1,200 a day.

Yuka's own limitations page says its data is what contributors and manufacturers add from the pack, and that errors can happen, particularly when a product's recipe changes and the entry hasn't been updated.

The test that settles it

Before you pay for anything, scan five own-label things already in your cupboard. What comes back tells you how well Yuka knows your shop. Do the same with NutraSafe; if we haven't got a pack, you photograph it and the app reads it into your diary.

Its own small print

What Yuka says about its own limits.

Yuka publishes a page on this. In short:

  1. Its ratings are opinions.Yuka says it isn't a public health authority.
  2. It leans cautious.It takes a precautionary approach, so it can mark down additives regulators allow.
  3. Recipes change.A product's entry can lag behind a new recipe until someone updates it.
  4. Read the pack for allergies.Even with food preferences switched on, Yuka says to check the label.

In the app

The Call-out button

Scan a product with an additive Yuka rates high risk and you can send the brand a ready-written message asking it to take the additive out. It covers 103 additives and the 5,000 most-scanned brands, as of October 2025.

What it's changed

Recipes, in France

The French supermarket chain Intermarché told the BBC it has reworked more than 3,000 recipes and taken out 160 additives since 2017, and says it has changed a lot of its own-brand formulations because of their Yuka scores.

The wider point

Shopping habits

Christian Reynolds, who researches food policy at City St George's, University of London, told the BBC that few people have the time, capacity or inclination to engage with shopping and food choices beyond routine.

Side by side

Yuka and NutraSafe, on the facts that are public.

Yuka's figures from its help centre and UK App Store listing, ours from the app and our pricing page, all read on 1 November 2026.

 YukaNutraSafe
DownloadFreeFree
Paid£10 a year£6.99 a month or £40.99 a year
Product score0 to 100: 60% nutrition, 30% additives, 10% organic0 to 100 from the nutrition panel, the declared additives and how processed it is, with the reasons listed. You can switch it off
AdditivesEach one rated on a four-level scale, freeThe number of additives, free. What each one is and what published science links it to, on Pro
NutritionSugar, salt, saturated fat, calories, protein, fibre and fruit and veg, inside the scoreCalories and macros free, 25 logs a day. Vitamins and minerals on Pro
After the scanScan history, all of it on Premium, and a better optionA diary: the day's calories, how processed your week was, reactions, workouts and fasting
CosmeticsYes, 2.3 million productsFood only
Runs oniPhone and AndroidiPhone, iPad and Android

Around five million people in the UK use Yuka. If a long track record is what makes you trust an app, that counts in its favour.

What NutraSafe does

The same can, scanned on ours.

A 330ml can of Coca-Cola Original Taste. Every word comes from the pack or the published evidence, and then the can goes into your diary.

NutraSafe food detail for a 330ml can of Coca-Cola Original Taste: marked ultra-processed, score 15 with the caption very high sugar, 139kcal per 330ml, 2 additives added, sugar high, 35g of sugar.
One can, read off the pack35g of sugar in a 330ml can. The NHS says adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars a day, so the score reads 15: very high sugar.
NutraSafe Processing screen: sulphite ammonia caramel E150d, possible cancer concern; phosphoric acid E338, easy to go over the limit; natural flavourings.
What the additives doE150d, the colour, is a possible cancer concern. E338, phosphoric acid, is easy to go over the limit on if cola's a daily thing.
NutraSafe additive detail for sulphite ammonia caramel E150d: possible risk, possible cancer concern, and the evidence listed underneath.
And who found whatMaking E150d forms 4-methylimidazole, which IARC lists as possibly carcinogenic. California sets a warning level of 29µg a day.
NutraSafe Insights, Processing tab: November so far, 57% of logged calories ultra-processed, split into little or none, lightly processed, heavily processed and ultra-processed, with the UK average of 54% beside it.
Then the month adds upEvery food you log goes into the diary, and Insights shows what share of the month's calories were ultra-processed.

The number of additives is free. What they are, what they do and the evidence are on Pro, which is £6.99 a month, and new subscribers get a week free. If the number is all you want, the free version doesn't run out.

Scan what's in your own cupboard →

Which one

Is there a better app than Yuka? It depends on the job.

They're different tools, and the honest answer isn't always ours.

Pick Yuka if

You want one number at the shelf

You're choosing between two packets and want a score and a better option there and then. You scan shampoo and moisturiser as well as food. You do not want to keep a diary.

Pick NutraSafe if

You want a food diary as well as a scanner

You want to know what the additives on a UK pack do, and you want your calories, vitamins and minerals, food reactions and workouts in the same diary.

Fourteen UK food scanners, Yuka and ours included, are side by side in our best food scanner apps UK roundup. Two newer ones have their own pages: what Bear costs and is the Ivy food app free. For those two against Yuka, see Ivy vs Yuka.

Questions

What people ask about Yuka.

Taken from what people search before they land here.

Is the Yuka app free?

Yes. Scanning a barcode, the score out of 100, the additive breakdown and a better option cost nothing and come with no adverts. Premium, from £10 a year, adds search, offline mode, unlimited history and food preferences.

How much does Yuka cost in the UK?

£10 a year. The UK App Store also shows £15 and £20, but they get you the same Premium: Yuka says the higher prices are for people who want to support it. It's yearly, with no monthly option listed.

Do you have to pay for Yuka?

No. The free version scans and scores food and cosmetics. You only pay if you want to search without scanning, scan with no signal, keep every scan, or get alerts for something like gluten or a vegan diet.

Is Yuka free on Android?

Yes. It's free on Google Play, with Premium as an in-app purchase. So is NutraSafe.

Is there a UK version of the Yuka app?

Yuka is on the App Store and Google Play in Great Britain, in English, and Great Britain is one of 15 countries its help centre lists. Its help centre says its 3.6 million foods sit in one database shared by every country, so how well it knows UK own-label depends on what UK shoppers and brands have added.

Does Yuka need an internet connection?

The free version does. Yuka's help centre says you need a connection to scan, and a connection isn't always there in supermarkets. Premium includes an offline mode.

Is Yuka a trustworthy app?

Yuka publishes its scoring method and the sources behind each additive rating, carries no adverts, and says no brand can influence its ratings; it's paid for by Premium. Its own limitations page also says its ratings are opinions, not a health authority's, and that an entry can lag behind a recipe change. So it's a consistent method you can read for yourself.

What are the disadvantages of the Yuka app?

Going by Yuka's own help centre: the free version needs signal to scan, its ratings are opinions with a precautionary lean, an entry can be out of date after a recipe change, and anyone with an allergy should still read the pack. In the UK, own-label coverage depends on what shoppers have added.

What app is more accurate than Yuka?

We haven't found a published side-by-side accuracy test of food scanner apps, and we haven't run one, so be wary of any app calling itself the most accurate, ours included. What you can compare is what each one reads off the pack and how it explains it.

Is there a better app than Yuka?

For a quick verdict at the shelf, or for cosmetics, Yuka does the job well. If you want to know what the additives on UK packs do, and keep your calories, vitamins and minerals in one diary, that's what we built NutraSafe for. We compare fourteen UK scanners in our best food scanner apps UK roundup.

What is the NHS Food Scanner app?

It's the government's free scanner, from the Department of Health and Social Care. It shows whether a product is high, medium or low in sugar, salt and fat, draws them as sugar cubes, fat lumps and salt sachets, and badges better options as a Good Choice. There's more on it in our food scanner roundup.

Does NutraSafe give a score like Yuka?

Yes, a score from 0 to 100, built from the nutrition panel, the additives declared on the pack and how processed the food is. Tap it and it lists the reasons. A whole food with no ingredient list doesn't get one, and you can switch scores off in Settings.

Is NutraSafe free?

It's free to download, with no adverts. With the free version you can log up to 25 foods a day and get the calories, the macros and the number of additives, and it checks the ingredients we hold for the Big 14 allergens. With Pro you get the AI Coach, suspected triggers from your reactions, vitamins and minerals, and a full workout app built in, and it tells you what the additives are and what they do. Pro is £6.99 a month or £40.99 a year.

Sources

Where every figure comes from.

Read on 1 November 2026. Prices move, so take them as the day we looked.

A UK food scanner that tells you what the additives do.

With the free version you can log up to 25 foods a day and get the calories, the macros and the number of additives. Pro tells you what the additives are and what they do, and you also get the AI Coach, suspected triggers from your reactions, vitamins and minerals, and a full workout app built in. Pro is £6.99 a month or £40.99 a year.

Get NutraSafe on the App Store →

Free download · Cancel Pro any time