App review

Best Keto Tracking App (2026): Net Carbs, Ketones and Meal Plans Compared

The best keto tracking app in 2026 is PlateLens: net carbs are calculated automatically on every entry, the macro calculator has a built-in 25/5/70 keto preset, ketone readings can be logged alongside blood glucose, and a recipe-and-meal planner with grocery lists is included — all starting on a free plan that never expires. Carb Manager remains a strong free option for keto recipes and community; Cronometer is the pick for electrolyte and micronutrient depth; MyFitnessPal locks net carbs behind a $79.99/year Premium plan; Senza is the most fully-featured free app if ketone and glucose logging is your priority.

Most keto trackers make you choose: an app that puts net carbs front and center, or an app with a real photo-logging camera and a big verified database, or an app built specifically around ketone and glucose logging. Few do more than one of those well.

The short answer: PlateLens does all three. Net carbs are calculated automatically on every entry, the macro calculator has a keto-specific 25/5/70 preset, ketone readings sit alongside blood glucose, and a recipe-and-meal-planner with grocery lists is built in — starting on a free plan that never expires. Where a specialist genuinely wins a specific lane, we say so below.

How we picked

This is a hands-on, feature-by-feature comparison, not a laboratory measurement of anyone’s food-recognition accuracy. For each app we checked, directly against the vendor’s own site or its current App Store listing (checked 2026-09-28): how net carbs are calculated and where that number sits in the interface; what the free plan actually includes versus what sits behind a paywall; the current subscription price, monthly and annual; and the keto-specific features — fasting timers, ketone or glucose logging, low-carb recipes and meal planning. Where we could not verify a claim against the vendor directly, we left it out rather than guess. If you’re restricting carbohydrate more aggressively than a standard keto protocol, our survey of low-carb versus very-low-carb protocols covers where the evidence stands; if you’re comparing carb counters more broadly than just for keto, see our best carb counting app rankings.

1. PlateLens — best overall for keto tracking

PlateLens leads this list because it doesn’t trade one keto requirement for another.

Net carbs come out automatically. Every meal shows total carbs, net carbs, fiber and sugar, and your daily net carbs are tracked against your target — no manual subtraction, and nothing to turn on first. If you want the arithmetic explained, see our guide to net carbs versus total carbs.

The macro calculator has an actual keto mode. Set a personalized macro target and choose the Keto split — 25% protein, 5% carbs, 70% fat — or dial in your own percentages. The macro-ratio view shows daily fat, protein and net carbs in both grams and percentages, so you can see at a glance whether today’s plate fits the split.

Ketones and glucose live in the same place. Blood-glucose logging is on the free plan and syncs in through Apple Health or Google Health Connect alongside your fitness-tracker data, and ketone readings can be recorded right next to it.

Keto still has to be cooked, and PlateLens plans for that. A recipe and meal planner surfaces low-carb meal ideas and builds grocery lists from them, and an intermittent-fasting timer covers 16:8, OMAD and other windows for anyone combining keto with a fasting protocol.

Logging itself is fast in every direction. One photo logs a whole plate; voice, search and barcode all log into the same diary, against a combined 1.2M+ verified entries pulled from USDA FoodData Central, NCCDB, Open Food Facts and Nutritionix. The full web app is included, not a companion. And the panel behind each entry runs to 82+ nutrients, including the sodium, potassium and magnesium that a long keto run tends to run short on.

An AI coach reads your own diary, not a generic script, so questions about today’s macros or this week’s trend get answered against what you actually logged.

Price: the free plan never expires — unlimited manual and barcode logging, blood-glucose logging, 3 AI photo scans and 5 AI-coach messages a day, no card. Premium is $34.99/year or $9.99/month.

2. Carb Manager — best keto-native interface and community

Carb Manager is the category’s incumbent for a reason: net carbs are the number the entire app is organized around, on both the free and Premium tiers, and that’s a real design achievement — most general trackers make you dig for it.

The free plan covers always-free net-carb tracking, unlimited barcode scanning over a 1M+ food database, food, exercise and weight logging and a keto-active community. Premium (about $39.99/year, or from $8.49/month) adds 5,000+ keto recipes, the Keto Academy course, a fasting tracker, ketone and glucose tracking, curated meal plans with shopping lists, advanced reports and fitness-device sync.

Pros: net carbs as the primary, always-visible number; a real free tier that isn’t crippled; a large keto-native community. Cons: photo and voice logging, meal-plan generation, ketone tracking and device sync all require Premium.

3. Cronometer — best for electrolyte and micronutrient depth

Cronometer’s lab-analyzed, curated database is the deepest micronutrient panel available to a consumer app, which matters specifically on keto: sodium, potassium and magnesium are exactly the numbers a long low-carb run can run short on.

Gold ($59.99/year, or $10.99 billed monthly) adds Crono Coach, an AI assistant that turns your own logged data into guidance, plus Photo Log for camera-based entry — both exclusive to Gold.

Pros: the deepest micronutrient and electrolyte detail in this comparison; fiber tracked at the entry level, so net carbs are always calculable; Crono Coach AI and photo logging on Gold. Cons: net carbs are calculated from the panel rather than being the app’s headline stat the way they are in Carb Manager or PlateLens; photo logging is Gold-only.

4. MyFitnessPal — best for restaurant and packaged-food breadth

MyFitnessPal’s food database is the widest of any app here for chain-restaurant and packaged products, which matters if a large share of your keto meals come from a menu rather than your own kitchen.

The catch for keto specifically: net carbs are a Premium-only feature. Net Carbs Mode — which subtracts fiber and sugar alcohols automatically — sits behind the $79.99/year (or $19.99/month) Premium plan, and so does the barcode scanner.

Pros: unmatched restaurant and packaged-product coverage; once on Premium, net carbs and barcode scanning both work well. Cons: the free plan has neither net carbs nor a barcode scanner; Premium ($79.99/year) is tied for the most expensive plan in this comparison.

5. KetoDiet — best for structured, recipe-driven keto meal plans

KetoDiet is built by a team that writes its own recipes rather than pulling from a crowd-sourced pool — 2,000+ recipes written by its own team — and is available on both iOS and Android.

Membership runs $79.99/year (or $12.99/month), and unlocks the full recipe catalogue, meal plans and macro tracking beyond the free trial content.

Pros: original, tested recipes with accurate nutrition data rather than aggregated ones; recipes filterable directly by net-carb count; genuinely useful for people who want keto meal ideas as much as tracking. Cons: recipes, meal plans and fasting tracking need the membership, which sits at the high end of this comparison.

6. Senza — best free app for ketone and glucose logging

Senza is worth naming because it’s the one app here built specifically around the keto biomarkers beyond the food log: ketones and glucose, synced from Biosense or Apple Health, sit on the same trends page as weight and fasting.

It’s free — we found no premium subscription tier — with barcode scanning, a 1.6-million-item food database, every food record verified for net carbs and sugar alcohols, a fasting timer, meal plans, and community features (sharing recipes, following friends’ logs).

Pros: fully free, including ketone and glucose tracking; large database with net carbs verified per entry; combines fasting, macros and biomarker tracking in one app. Cons: no photo logging.

7. MacroFactor — best for adaptive macro targets

MacroFactor’s adaptive algorithm recalculates your macro targets from your own logged trend rather than a static formula, which is a genuinely different approach to hitting a keto ratio if your weight or activity is changing.

There’s no free plan — $71.99/year (or $11.99/month) after a 7-day trial — and while its macro program includes a keto diet plan, we couldn’t verify a net-carbs display.

Pros: targets that adapt automatically to your actual trend rather than a fixed formula; useful if body-composition change, not just ketosis, is the goal. Cons: no free tier; no dedicated net-carbs mode or ketone/glucose logging that we could verify.

8. Lose It! — best general tracker for casual low-carb

Lose It! is a general calorie tracker rather than a keto specialist, and its own App Store listing reflects that: protein, carbs, fat, sugar and other macros are tracked, with support for “fewer carbs” as a stated goal, and Premium adds a custom net-carb goal and a dietitian-curated Keto nutrition strategy.

Premium lists at $79.99/year on Lose It!‘s own Help Center, with in-app discounts that vary.

Pros: a Premium Keto nutrition strategy and net-carb goal; flexible enough to support a lower-carb goal without being locked into a single protocol. Cons: the net-carb goal, Keto strategy, glucose tracking, barcode scanner and fasting tracker are all Premium; no ketone logging.

Comparison table

The one check before you commit

Open the app, log one food, and look for two numbers: net carbs on the entry itself, and whether that entry also shows fiber. If net carbs only appears after you enable a setting — or not at all on the free plan — that’s the paywall or the gap you’ll hit on day one, not a detail to discover later.

Then check what happens to a glucose reading if you use a CGM or meter: does the app take it in automatically through Apple Health or Health Connect, or is every reading a second manual entry on top of your meter’s own app. That’s the difference between a keto app that fits around your existing devices and one that adds a chore.