Using premium or free version

slimandsmilingtoday

Do you use the premium version? What do you like or dislike about it?

yirara

I never used it and I don't see a use in it. The free version has the same bugs and the same user-sourced database as the premium version. Look at what premium offers you and see if you really need it.

BarbaraHelen2013

I agree - premium offers nothing that’s worth the subscription cost for me. It seems to me there’s very little added functionality that would be useful to me so I’ve never even considered it.

I guess, for some, the fact that they’ve invested cold hard cash helps keep them accountable to their goals though. 🤷‍♀️

Avidkeo

I paid for premium. Dumb dumb mistake.

I don't use any features that I'll miss when I go back to free. Honestly I didn't notice any real difference going to paid.

lmf1012

I use the free version because it does everything I need it to, which is tracking my calories, macros, and the community message boards. I would love to have the export functionality that premium offers but that alone is not worth the price to upgrade for me.

janejellyroll

Having used both, I wouldn't recommend getting premium unless you look at the features and there is one that you feel confident will improve your experience. It's important to know that when bugs happen on the site, they tend to impact both user groups. Two frequently cited challenges to logging that you'll see mentioned here are finding accurate entries in the database and delays with Fitbit syncing (for those who use it). Going premium won't impact either of those.

DD265

There are two things with going premium that I think could be beneficial to me:
1) no ads would speed up the app/website loading and stop me clicking on the wrong thing when it jumps
2) the option to not adjust my calorie goal for exercise calories may help me break the habit of eating them

I've concluded that so far, premium isn't worth it, however, and never continued beyond the free trial.

Elena001

I use the free version and really like it. There are the occasional bugs but I think that would be the same even with the premium version. I've tried other macro/food log apps but keep coming back to this one.

yweight2020

Using free because it's free and because I've paid for various sites before and didn't have extra features that were really beneficial to what I use,log, chart.

age_is_just_a_number

I use premium. It is $60 (maybe 70) for the year. It reduces the ads. That’s the main feature I like about it.

kshama2001

age_is_just_a_number wrote: »

I use premium. It is $60 (maybe 70) for the year. It reduces the ads. That’s the main feature I like about it.

I agree that no ads are a good thing, and an oft-cited reason why people get premium. But it doesn't say much for premium when the main benefit is no ads.

There are also free/cheaper ways to get rid of ads, which we are not allowed to link to as that is considered promoting the competition.

cwolfman13

I don't see any premium features that are different from free that would be of any particular benefit to me. All of the issues that exist on the free version also exist on premium...it's all the same site...same database, etc. And yes, I agree that it's rather telling that the most often cited reason for premium is "no ads"

jjpptt2

I ponied up for the paid version for 2 or 3 months when it first came out. Some of the added features were nice, but they didn't impact my ability to log foods and track calories and macros, which is all I really cared about. For me, there were actually more bugs with the paid version as some of the enhancements didn't work correctly. But that was a long time ago... sounds like those things have been sorted and you now get the same issues everyone else does.

That said, I stopped the paid version because there just wasn't enough value added (for me) to justify the cost.

dolorsit

Lack of ads isn't really a feature for me. What are ads? I haven't seen ads on websites in years. Someone told me youtube has ads too, news to me. Maybe we should be asking what it would take to persuade us to sign up for a premium version of MFP. There are lots of sites that provide better food databases, show better graphs, don't crash so often.

I'd like to see more insight into nutrition and exercise, better integration with other devices, personalised advice rather than decrees like no less than 1500 calories for a man no matter whether you're 4 foot nothing or 7 foot tall, etc. What would others pay for?

DeterminedDivaMN

DD265 wrote: »

There are two things with going premium that I think could be beneficial to me:
1) no ads would speed up the app/website loading and stop me clicking on the wrong thing when it jumps
2) the option to not adjust my calorie goal for exercise calories may help me break the habit of eating them

I've concluded that so far, premium isn't worth it, however, and never continued beyond the free trial.

These are the two reasons I’m enjoying the trial version of Premium.

claireychn074

I go premium because my bandwidth wasn’t high and ads made everything load reeeeaaaaalllllyyyyy slowly. Ad blockers also used the bandwidth. I’m not a particularly patient person so I went premium 🤷‍♂️ It’s okay value for me personally but I can’t say premium has any amazing functionality over the free version.