Most meal planner apps give you a trial and then a bill. Lilara works the other way round: the free tier is the product, and it is meant to be enough for a typical household indefinitely.
Nothing below is a teaser. There is no countdown, no watermark, no ad break, and no feature that quietly stops working in week three.
Free, with no cap at all
These aren't limited or time-boxed. They work the same on Free as they do on Pro.
Real-time shared planning
Your household sees and edits the same plan as it changes. This is the feature most apps reserve for their paid tier.
Your recipe library
Save your own recipes with ingredients, steps and timings, and link them straight to a day in the planner.
Import from a link
Paste a link from a recipe site and Lilara reads the structured recipe data most major sites publish, so you don't retype it.
Nutrition
See the nutrition behind a recipe and how a whole day adds up, estimated from CoFID and USDA reference data.
Allergens and dislikes
Tell Lilara which ingredients to keep off the plan and they stay out of suggestions, searches and Smart Plan.
Curated recipe packs
Plan from the built-in packs when you want ideas rather than a blank week.
Meal reminders
Push reminders for breakfast, lunch and dinner so prep doesn't sneak up on you.
Widgets and Siri
Home and lock screen widgets show the day's meals at a glance, and Siri can answer what's for dinner.
11 languages
The whole app, including reminders, in the language your household actually speaks.
What Pro adds
Pro raises ceilings on things you only hit once you're planning heavily. Every row below still works on Free — just with a smaller limit.
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Shared meal planning | ✓ | ✓ |
| Family members | Up to 4 | Up to 20 |
| Smart Plan | 14 days/month | Unlimited |
| Pick any Smart Plan start date | ✗ | ✓ |
| Plan ahead | 14 days | 90 days |
| Edit older meals | 3 days back | 30 days back |
| Shopping lists | Manual lists | Built from your plan |
| Calendar month view | ✗ | ✓ |
| Group meals by member | ✗ | ✓ |
| Custom reminder times | ✗ | ✓ |
Read the table the other way and it says something simple: a four-person household planning a fortnight at a time, generating a couple of Smart Plans a week, never touches a limit.
Pro exists for the households that outgrow that — a fifth person joins, or you plan a whole term ahead — and for people who'd rather the shopping list built itself. It is a monthly, annual or lifetime purchase, so the lifetime option is a genuine way to stop paying subscriptions altogether.
How that compares
Free tiers are common; what they contain varies enormously. As of May 2026, across the apps families most often weigh up against Lilara:
- Cozi — Free, but ad-supported — Cozi Gold (around $39/year) removes the ads.
- Mealime — Free tier, built around one cook rather than a household; Mealime Pro is around $49.99/year.
- Paprika — No subscription at all — a one-time purchase of around $4.99 on mobile. A genuinely different, and fairer, model.
- Plan to Eat — Subscription-only at around $49/year. There's a free trial, but no permanent free tier.
- AnyList — Free tier, but recipe import and meal planning sit in AnyList Complete (around $9.99/year individual, $14.99 household).
So the honest claim isn't that Lilara is the only free option — it isn't. It's that the free tier includes the things families actually come for: everyone on the same plan, in real time, with recipes, imports and reminders, and no advertising.