Aldenté vs Plan to Eat
Plan to Eat is a paid, no-frills meal planner that's been helping families plan dinner for years. Aldenté is free to save and built around cooking with your people. Here's an honest comparison.
Updated
By Malcolm Smith. Malcolm Smith is the co-founder of Aldenté. He compares each app’s App Store listing and website, tests Aldenté on his own iPhone, and cites third-party reviews where noted.
How we checked: We read Plan to Eat's App Store listing and website, and used Aldenté 1.23 on an iPhone. Where a Plan to Eat cell says "Not in its listing," the App Store listing doesn't mention that feature.
Prices checked October 15, 2026 on each app's App Store page.
Which is better, Aldenté or Plan to Eat?
Plan to Eat is a calm, focused meal planner that's worth paying for if your week runs on a calendar, and it works on Android and the web. Aldenté is free to save and built for cooking with help and with your people. If you're on iPhone and want to try before you pay anything, start with Aldenté.
Plan to Eat is a meal planner first. You save your recipes, drag them onto a calendar, and it builds your grocery list for you. It's paid, it's ad-free, it runs on iPhone, Android, and the web, and a lot of families swear by it. Aldenté saves recipes from the same places, but it's free to save and spends its energy on what happens at the stove: a chef to ask, a friends feed, and a printed cookbook.
Side by side
The features that matter, in one table.
| Feature | Aldenté | Plan to Eat |
|---|---|---|
| Save from recipe websites | Yes | Yes |
| Save from TikTok / Instagram | Yes (one tap) | Yes (share sheet) |
| Scan printed or handwritten recipes | Yes | Yes (photo import) |
| Friends feed (see what your people are cooking) | Yes, free | No (share recipes and menus) |
| Cooking guidance | Chef chat (Sage + 1 chef free, every chef with Premium) | Step-by-step cooking view with timers |
| Meal planner | Free; generation is Premium (1 free plan) | Yes (drag-and-drop calendar) |
| Grocery list | Yes, free | Yes (built from your plan, sorted by aisle) |
| Share with your household | Yes, free (grocery list + meal plan) | Yes (one account for the family) |
| Nutrition and macro tracking | Calories on chef recipes (Premium) | Yes |
| Print a real cookbook | Yes | No |
| Free plan | Yes, unlimited saving | No (14-day free trial) |
| Ads | None | None |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | No | Yes |
| Web app | No | Yes |
| Price | Free + Premium $7.99/mo or $47.99/yr | $5.95/mo or $49/yr on its website ($54.99/yr in the iOS app) |
Choose Aldenté if…
- ✓You want to save recipes free, with no trial clock running
- ✓You want a chef you can ask while you cook
- ✓You want to see what your friends are actually cooking
- ✓You want to print a real cookbook of the recipes you love
Choose Plan to Eat if…
- →You're on Android, or you like planning from a computer (Aldenté is iPhone and iPad only)
- →Your week runs on a calendar: leftovers, frozen meals, a plan you reuse
- →You track nutrition and macros
- →You'd rather pay a small flat fee for a simple, ad-free tool with no free tier
Two Ways to Get Dinner on the Table
Plan to Eat has a simple pitch. Put your recipes in one place, drag them onto a calendar, and let the app write the grocery list. That's the whole loop, and it does it well.
Aldenté covers the same basics, saving, planning, and a grocery list, then puts its effort into the cooking itself. A chef to ask mid-recipe. A feed of what your friends are making. A real book of the recipes you keep coming back to.
Saving Recipes
Both apps save from recipe websites and from social media through the share sheet. Plan to Eat's help docs walk through saving from TikTok and Instagram: tap share, pick Plan to Eat, and the import starts. It can also bring in recipes from a photo of a cookbook page or a handwritten card.
Aldenté works the same way. Tap share on a TikTok, an Instagram Reel, or a recipe website, tap Aldenté, and the recipe comes through from the caption or the link. You see the whole recipe before it's saved. (It doesn't read spoken audio, so a recipe that's only said out loud won't import.)
The real difference is cost. Saving in Aldenté is free and unlimited. Plan to Eat has no free plan, so saving is part of the subscription after the trial ends.
Meal Planning and Groceries
This is where Plan to Eat shines. The calendar is drag-and-drop, you can plan leftovers and track frozen meals, and you can save a plan to reuse later. The grocery list fills itself from your calendar, sorted by aisle, with a staples list and store-specific lists. It also tracks nutrition and macros.
Aldenté's meal plan and grocery list are free, and one invite shares both with your household. The grocery list can sync with Apple Reminders. Generating a meal plan for you is Premium, and free accounts get one plan to try. If your whole week lives on a planning calendar, Plan to Eat goes deeper here.
Cooking Help
Plan to Eat has a step-by-step cooking view with timers. Clean and useful.
Aldenté has Cook Mode with step timers too, and it adds chefs you can ask while you cook. Out of buttermilk? Not sure the onions are done? Ask, by typing or tapping the mic. Free accounts get Sage plus one chef they pick, and Premium unlocks all seven.
Friends and Sharing
Plan to Eat lets you share recipes and menus with friends and family, and one account covers your whole household on every device.
Aldenté has a friends feed, so you see what the people you know are saving and cooking without anyone having to send it to you. It's free.
The Printed Cookbook
Plan to Eat doesn't print cookbooks. Aldenté does: pick the keepers and order a real book, softcover or hardcover, shipped to you or as a gift. Learn more about printed cookbooks.
Pricing
Plan to Eat is $5.95/month or $49/year on its website, after a 14-day free trial with no card needed. Inside the iOS app, the yearly membership is $54.99 (both checked October 16, 2026). There's no free plan, and the pricing page says that's on purpose: it's paid for by its users, with no ads.
Aldenté is free to download and use. Saving, the grocery list, the pantry, the friends feed, and chat with Sage plus one chef cost nothing. Premium is $7.99/month or $47.99/year with a 7-day free trial.
The honest tradeoff: if you want a planner and will pay for it either way, Plan to Eat's yearly price is about the same as Aldenté Premium. If you want to pay $0, only Aldenté does that.
Platform
Plan to Eat runs on iPhone, Android, and the web, all synced. Aldenté is iPhone and iPad only, with no Android or web app. If you plan dinner from a laptop or you're on Android, that's the deciding factor.
So, Which One?
If your week runs on a calendar and you're happy to pay for a focused planner that works everywhere, Plan to Eat is a solid pick.
If you're on iPhone, save most of your recipes from TikTok and Instagram, and want help while you cook, Aldenté was built for that. It's free with no credit card, so save a few recipes and see how it fits.
Try Aldenté free.
No credit card. Save a few recipes, see how it fits your cooking life. Switch back any time.