Plan to Eat is made by a thoughtful independent team, and its drag-and-drop planning calendar is polished. If you plan prep and freezer meals a month at a time and are happy paying $49 a year, it’s worth it.
But there’s no free version, and nothing is stored on your device. After the 14-day trial, stop paying and you can’t use your cookbook. Gratin keeps everything on your own device, for free.
Gratin vs Plan to Eat at a glance
Figures come from each app’s public pricing and help pages. Trademarks belong to their owners. Plan to Eat website ↗
Plan to Eat is $49/year, with no free version after the 14-day trial. Gratin is free. Hosted sync is optional at $12/year or $39 once for the life of Gratin 1.
See Gratin’s pricing and the 5-year Pay-once guarantee →What Plan to Eat does well, and what gets in the way
What Plan to Eat does well
- Well-designed drag-and-drop weekly meal planning calendar
- Shopping lists sorted by supermarket aisle automatically
- Reliable web recipe clipper and helpful customer support
What gets in the way
- Subscription only, at $49/year, with no lasting free version
- Needs an account and keeps your recipes in their cloud
- Built mainly around the weekly planner, with less focus on a recipe box
Why people switch from Plan to Eat to Gratin
Keep your recipes and meal plans without a $49/year bill
Gratin is free, with unlimited recipes, a weekly planner, menus and grocery lists. Hosted sync between devices is $12/year or $39 once for the life of Gratin 1.
Works offline, in the kitchen and at the shop
Your recipes and grocery list work with no signal.
Weekly plans, menus and grocery lists
Plan the week’s meals, save a dinner party as a reusable menu, and get a shopping list sorted by aisle with duplicates merged.
Plan meals with Claude or ChatGPT
With Hosted sync you can connect Claude or ChatGPT to pick weeknight dinners from your recipes and build the grocery list.
Bottom line
Keep Plan to Eat if its calendar is worth $49 a year to you. Switch to Gratin if you’d rather have a free recipe app with meal plans that works offline.
Questions about Plan to Eat and Gratin
How does meal planning work in Gratin?
There’s a weekly planner for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus Menus for multi-course meals you want to reuse. Send a whole week to your grocery list in one step.
What happens to my recipes if I never pay Gratin anything?
Nothing. The full app is free, and your recipes stay on your device.
Can I export my recipes?
Yes. Export your whole collection with photos in a standard recipe format, or single recipes as Cooklang files.