A FREE BARCODE SCANNER THAT STAYS FREE
The most-used feature in food tracking went behind a paywall. Ours never will. Here's how the scanner works, what it covers, and why "free forever" is a design decision, not a promo.
In October 2022, MyFitnessPal moved barcode scanning to its Premium tier, and half the internet learned the word "enshittification" in a single week. Scanning a barcode is the fastest way to log food accurately — which is exactly why it makes a powerful paywall. Lock the door people use most, and some percentage will pay to reopen it.
We think that's backwards. If the scanner is the reason people log consistently, the scanner is the last thing you should ever take away. So in EatSleepRep, the barcode scanner is free forever. Not free-for-now. Not free-with-ads. Free, forever, and that phrase appears in our footer as a commitment, not a campaign.
Try the free scanner now — no signup →What the scanner actually does
- Point and scan. The camera reads EAN-13, EAN-8, UPC-A and UPC-E codes right in your browser or in the app. No photo uploads, no cloud round-trip of your camera feed.
- 4.7M+ products. Lookups hit Open Food Facts (the Wikipedia of food, 4.7M+ products) and USDA FoodData Central (the U.S. government's branded-food database), plus our own community cache.
- Full macros per gram. You get calories, protein, carbs, fat, and fiber per 100g, then set the exact grams you ate. No "1 container (about 14 chips?)" guessing games.
- Type-in fallback. No camera, bad lighting, crinkled label? Type the number under the barcode and you get the same lookup.
When a barcode isn't in the database
No database on earth has every product — regional brands, new releases, and store-brand items slip through everywhere (yes, even in the paid apps). When you scan something we've never seen, we tell you the truth: "first scan on earth." You type the label's numbers once — calories, protein, carbs, fat per 100g — and that product is saved for every single person who scans it after you.
That's the same crowdsourced model that built Open Food Facts into 4.7M+ products. Every gap you fill closes it for the whole crew. (Submissions are validated and rate-limited, so the database stays clean.)
Why free forever is a design decision
A tracker only works if you log every day, and you only log every day if there is zero friction and zero resentment. Ads add friction. Paywalls add resentment. Both kill the habit — and the habit is the product.
Our whole app is built around closing a daily loop of three jobs: eat, sleep, rep. The scanner is how the "eat" job takes eight seconds instead of three minutes. Charging for it would be charging you to keep your own streak alive. No.
What else comes free with it
The scanner is one door into the same free tracker: text search backed by USDA FoodData Central, photo-AI meal estimates, quick-add favorites, copy-yesterday, full macro + fiber targets from our macro calculator, a real workout logger, sleep and water tracking, streaks and leaderboards with your crew, and one-tap CSV export. If you're comparing us to the app you're leaving, here's the full honest comparison.
FAQ
Is the barcode scanner really free? Forever?
Yes. It's a founding commitment, printed in the site footer. If EatSleepRep ever adds paid extras, the scanner is explicitly not one of them.
Do I need to create an account to scan?
No. The app is local-first — open it and scan. An email-only account is optional, for syncing across devices.
What barcode formats does it read?
EAN-13, EAN-8, UPC-A and UPC-E — the formats on essentially all retail food packaging — with a type-the-number fallback.
What if a product isn't found?
You'll get a short form to add it from the label in about 30 seconds. Your entry is cached for everyone who scans that barcode after you.