Pepperplate Alternative: Free Options After the Paywall

Pepperplate has no free tier. It costs around $2.99 a month or $32.99 a year, and it has changed very little since it went paid in January 2020. If you want the same combination of a recipe library, a meal planner and a grocery list without a subscription, RecipeSage and Samsung Food both do it for nothing.

A disclosure first: we make Gratly, one of the tools below. So this is written to be useful rather than flattering, which means naming the places where Gratly is the wrong answer.

Prices and limits move. Everything here was checked on 30 October 2026 against secondary sources rather than vendor pages, so confirm the current figure before you decide.

Why people leave Pepperplate

Pepperplate was free for years, and a lot of people built a genuine cookbook inside it. Three things push users to look elsewhere.

It went paid, retroactively. The switch to a subscription in January 2020 landed on a user base that had never paid. That is a reasonable business decision and a bad experience, and it is the single most common reason people search for an alternative.

It has barely moved since. Reports consistently describe minimal feature work since the paywall arrived. Paying $32.99 a year for a product that is functionally what it was in 2019 is a hard case to make to yourself.

Reliability. Users report extended outages without warning. For a tool holding years of recipes, that is the complaint that actually drives migration, because it turns a cookbook into something you cannot reach.

At a glance

Where Pepperplate still genuinely wins

It is a real mobile app on both platforms. If you cook from a phone or a tablet, that matters, and Gratly has no mobile app yet. Android comes first, iOS after. Writing around that would be dodging the question.

The planner and list are mature. They were good in 2015 and they are still good. The problem is the price and the stagnation, not the design.

It handles a large library. If you have hundreds of recipes in there already, nothing below will feel better on day one. Migration is the cost you are weighing against the subscription.

The honest free alternatives

RecipeSage, if free is the point

Open source, unlimited recipe storage, and the planner and shopping list are both included at no cost, which is exactly the Pepperplate feature set without the bill. You can self-host it and remove every limit, which also solves the reliability complaint permanently.

The catch runs the other way: the hosted version caps imports at 2 import jobs and 7 URL autofills per day for non-contributors. Storage is unlimited, throughput is not. If you are bulk-migrating a large collection, plan for several days or self-host. See RecipeSage vs Gratly.

Samsung Food, if you want the full Pepperplate shape for free

The closest like-for-like replacement, and for most people leaving Pepperplate it is the right answer. Recipe saving, meal plans and shopping lists are all free, on real mobile apps, with web clipping. It was called Whisk before Samsung bought it.

The trade is the usual one for a free product from a large company: you are inside Samsung's ecosystem, and Food+ at $6.99 a month exists to sell you AI plans and an ad-free view. See Samsung Food vs Gratly.

Gratly, if your recipes come from websites

Ours. A Chrome, Edge and Brave extension that turns a recipe page into a clean view in one click and keeps a searchable copy.

Free holds 10 active recipes with unmetered saving from websites, plus cook mode with step timers, serving scaling, unit switching, printing, this week's meal plan, shopping lists, and export to JSON or CSV. Sync across devices is free rather than paywalled. There is a one-time $99 Lifetime plan if your objection to Pepperplate was the subscription model specifically.

Where it loses to Pepperplate: 10 recipes is an evaluation, not a cookbook, there is no mobile app yet, and planning weeks ahead is paid. If you are migrating 300 recipes, Gratly free will not hold them.

Plan to Eat, if planning is the part you actually use

If what you valued in Pepperplate was the weekly planner rather than the recipe box, Plan to Eat is the better-built version of that idea. It is not free: 14-day trial, then $5.95 a month or $49 a year. But it is planner-first in a way the others are not. See Plan to Eat alternatives.

Get your recipes out first

This is the part people skip and regret. Before you cancel anything, export. A subscription lapsing on a tool with reported outages is the worst possible time to discover that your only copy lives behind a login.

Check for an export option, run it, and keep the file somewhere that is not the app. Then migrate at your own pace.

How to choose

• You want the same features for nothing: Samsung Food, or RecipeSage if you prefer open source.
• You never want this to happen again: self-hosted RecipeSage. Nobody can paywall your own server.
• Most recipes come from recipe websites: Gratly, if a 10-recipe free tier fits, or Plus if not.
• You object to subscriptions, not to paying: Gratly Lifetime at $99 once, or Paprika and Recipe Keeper, both one-time purchases per platform.
• The planner was the whole point: Plan to Eat.
• You cook from a phone: Samsung Food or Pepperplate itself. Gratly has no app yet.

FAQ

Is Pepperplate still free? No. Pepperplate moved to a paid subscription in January 2020 and has no free tier. It costs roughly $2.99 a month or $32.99 a year. Check the current listing, since pricing moves.

Is Pepperplate still being updated? Reports consistently describe very little feature work since the 2020 paywall, along with occasional extended outages. Verify for yourself before committing a large collection to it.

What is the best free Pepperplate alternative? Samsung Food, for most people. It covers the same ground, recipe library plus meal planner plus shopping list, at no cost and with real mobile apps. RecipeSage is the better pick if open source and self-hosting appeal to you.

Can I move my Pepperplate recipes to another app? Only as far as its export allows. Export before you cancel, keep the file outside the app, and migrate from that copy. Do not rely on being able to log back in later.

Is there a one-time purchase alternative to Pepperplate? Yes. Paprika and Recipe Keeper are both one-time purchases, though each charges per platform, so a phone and a laptop cost twice. Gratly has a $99 one-time Lifetime plan that covers every device.

Does Gratly replace Pepperplate? Not for a large library on a phone. Gratly free holds 10 active recipes and there is no mobile app yet. It replaces Pepperplate well if your recipes come from websites, you cook from a laptop or tablet browser, and you mainly want this week planned.

Try the free side first

If most of your recipes come from websites, add Gratly to Chrome for free and save one in a single click to see whether the extraction suits you. Export from Pepperplate first either way.

Related: the best free recipe organizer apps, Samsung Food vs Gratly, Plan to Eat alternatives, and RecipeSage vs Gratly.