Cronometer Gold Is a Longer Food Log, Not a Person Who Plans Dinner

The packing slip is a drop-down that says Do Not Auto-Renew

The closest thing Cronometer has to a packing slip is a drop-down on the web account that says Do Not Auto-Renew. I opened the cart on 28 September 2026 looking for a return form and found that instead. There is no carton. There is no courier. There is a Gold tile in US dollars and a cancel path that does not put last month's fee back on your card. If you came here hoping a coach would tell you what to eat, stop now. The diary sits empty until you type, scan, or photograph the plate yourself.

On that visit the public Gold page listed about $10.99 a month, or about $59.99 if you pay for the year up front. Those were the numbers in US dollars on the site I actually loaded. Phone-store prices in other currencies were not printed on that same tile, and I will not invent a Canadian-dollar receipt I did not see. Unpublished: whether your store will match the web figure, and whether a welcome mail is sitting on a promo code. The tile does not print a trial length. If you want a trial, you write support. I did not send a test ticket that morning, so a wait time stays unpublished too.

Cronometer is a Canadian shop. Support sits at support@cronometer.com. That is enough address for a buyer. I am not dumping an imprint into the first screen because you do not need a law-firm hallway to log oats. What you do need is a clear idea of who this is for, because the homepage talks as if everyone wants a deeper nutrient chart, and a lot of people actually want someone else to plan the week.

What the Gold tile charged on 28 September 2026

Basic is free. Gold is the paid rung I will name, and then I will stop naming products. Month to month, you are looking at that eleven-dollar-ish figure. Yearly, the same page framed the sixty-dollar-ish total as a little under five dollars a month if you stay the whole year. The saving only exists if you actually stay. Pay the year, log for three weeks, flip Do Not Auto-Renew, and you still used the year you bought. That is not a trick in the copy. That is how prepaid software works, and it is the part people skip because a barcode scan is prettier than a ledger.

I am not sure the yearly button is the right first click for anyone who has never lasted a month with a food diary. The monthly button is the fussy, honest test: a smaller bite, a shorter leash, a cancel you can hit before the next charge. Yearly is for the person who already logs on Basic, already knows the database, and is tired of the seven-day chart window. If that is not you, do not let a save-half banner make the decision. Banners do not keep a diary.

What the tile will not tell you: the true cost of a kitchen scale, the time it takes to weigh leftover rice on a Sunday, or whether a practitioner will even open a PDF you print from the diary. Those sit off the page on purpose. Cronometer sells a log, not a clinic visit, and the terms I opened that day say the content is information, not a stand-in for talking to a licensed practitioner. That is the line I wanted on the cart, not a slogan about transforming anything.

Walk away before you log a month of toast

Skip this shop if you recognise yourself below. The refund desk will not unsay a month of logging you already did in an app store, and Gold will not turn into a person who texts you a shopping list. Walk away now if that is the job you actually have.

• You want a human coach to tell you what to eat, with a meal plan you did not write.
• You will tap Gold in the App Store or on Google Play, log for a month, then expect a card refund because you changed your mind.
• You came here for a medical label, a treatment plan, or a promise that a number on a chart will move.
• You refuse to weigh or measure anything, and you thought the camera would do the entire job without you checking the portion.
• You only wanted a calorie total for three days of holiday eating, and you do not want a subscription that renews itself.
• You bought through the phone stores and you plan to cancel on the web account. Those are different desks.

If two of those are you, stay on Basic or stay off the site. Basic is not a teaser with the barcode locked. The scanner is on the free side. If none of those are you, the rest of this is about how the money moves, which is duller than a nutrient dashboard and more useful once a store has the card.

Basic keeps a week of charts; Gold keeps the same diary longer

On Basic you can log food, movement, body measures, and notes. You can set your own targets. You can scan a barcode without paying. Reports and charts sit in a short window, about a week, which is enough to see whether Tuesday's leftovers were a one-off. Gold is the same diary with the ads off, the history uncapped, and a handful of shortcuts: photograph a plate, speak a meal, paste a recipe link, set different macro targets on different days, run a fasting timer next to the log. I will not stack those as a spreadsheet. The job is the same. The paid version is mostly patience and speed.

The in-app helper on Gold, as the page described it, uses your own log, goals, and settings. It is not a dietitian on a video call. It will not shop for you. If you needed a person to assign dinner, you are still in the skip list, even after you pay. That is the gap the homepage papers over with guidance language, and it is why I am keeping this dry. A diary that talks back is still a diary.

The food database is the part people actually stay for. Cronometer leans on lab-analysed and staff-checked entries rather than a free-for-all of user guesses. That does not mean every supermarket tin in your city is already there. On a Sunday measuring session you will still hit a store-brand sauce that needs a custom food. Custom foods exist on Basic. Recipe import from a URL is the Gold shortcut. If you cook from the same three blogs every week, that shortcut earns its keep. If you eat the same oats, it does not.

Sunday measuring, and the barcode that is already free

Here is the ordinary scene, not a lifestyle caption. Sunday, kitchen scale on the counter, leftover chilli in a container that does not have a label. You weigh the portion. You search. You either find a close match or you build one. The barcode on a tin of tomatoes is the easy win, and it is free. The hard win is the homemade pan, which no camera will portion for you if you refuse to glance at the scale. Gold's photo log can guess ingredients. Guessing is not weighing. If you skip the scale, the chart gets limp in a week, paid or not.

When the first scan fails, the diary does not collapse. You type. You pick a generic. You save your own. That loop is the product. People bounce when they expected the camera to replace the scale, then they blame the subscription. The subscription did not weigh the chilli. You did, or you did not.

Device sync exists. Watches and other apps can dump movement into the same day. I did not pair a watch on 28 September 2026, so I will not pretend I have a pairing receipt. If your watch already talks to the phone's health store, check the live integrations list before you buy Gold to make it all flow. Sync is a convenience. It is not a reason to prepay a year if you have never logged a weekday of food.

How buying, cancelling, and keeping the log actually work

There is no warehouse. You make an account, you log on Basic, and if you upgrade, the charge hits the card or the store you picked. Web Gold is managed under Account, then Subscriptions. The live control is that Do Not Auto-Renew option I opened like a return form. Canceling stops the next renewal. You keep Gold until the period you already paid for ends, then the account drops to Basic. The food log stays. That last sentence is the one people miss when they panic-delete the app.

• Start on the web or the app as Basic. Log a few ordinary days, including one Sunday measuring session, before you touch Gold.
• Screenshot the Gold price that is live for you that day, web or store. They are not always the same currency.
• If you still want Gold, decide monthly versus yearly as a habit test, not as a discount hunt.
• Web buyers: Account, Subscriptions, Do Not Auto-Renew, before the period ends if you do not want another charge.
• Phone-store buyers: cancel inside Apple's subscriptions or Google Play subscriptions. The web drop-down will not cancel a store purchase.
• After Gold ends, open the diary on Basic and confirm the log is still there before you assume anything vanished.

Refunds are the other page you should screenshot. The terms I opened on 28 September 2026 say paid fees are not refunded when you cancel, with a possible case-by-case look if you ask. There is also a seven-calendar-day window to cancel a new recurring arrangement in writing, with a full refund inside thirty days, but that window dies if you have already accessed, downloaded, installed, or used the paid service. Logging is use — photographing a plate is use. If you tapped Gold in an app store and then logged for a month, you are arguing with Apple or Google, not with a packing-slip desk in British Columbia, and you should not expect a card credit because you got bored of oats.

I did not run an export on 28 September 2026, so I will not name a file type. If you want a copy of the diary off the site, look for an export control in the account before you cancel. If you cannot find one, ask support@cronometer.com and keep the reply. Unpublished stays unpublished. Deleting the app is not a backup, and it is not a cancel.

Canceling Gold is a renewal switch, not a refund form. Screenshot Do Not Auto-Renew before you treat a month of logging as something the card should unwind.

— Priya Nair

What you still do not get after you pay

Gold will not diagnose you. It will not promise a result on a bathroom scale. It will not turn a homemade sauce into a lab sample unless you built the recipe with actual amounts. The terms are blunt: informational tool, your risk, talk to a licensed practitioner before you make health decisions from a chart. I am repeating that because health-adjacent software loves to imply otherwise in the hero strip, and this one puts the caution in the contract even if the marketing is warmer.

Limitations, said without a brochure smile. Basic charts stop at about a week. Gold's extras are mostly speed and history. Photo logging can misread a mixed plate. Voice logging can hear rice when you said something else. Recipe import depends on the page you pasted. Fasting timers do not make a fast wise. Ads on Basic are a real annoyance if you live in the diary all day; they are not a reason to prepay a year if you log twice a week. And if you needed a clinic, a meal-delivery service, or a person who answers at 9 p.m., this is the wrong tab.

They sit in British Columbia. Mail for billing and cancel questions goes to that same support address. I did not complete a live charge on 28 September 2026, so I do not have a receipt number to wave, and I will not invent one. The order you care about is the Gold period on the account, plus whichever store actually billed you. Keep a screenshot of both. A statement line that says Apple or Google is not a bug. It is the desk you have to use later.

Questions I would ask before I tap Gold

If I cancel, do I lose the food log?

No. Cancel stops auto-renew. You keep Gold until the paid period ends, then you drop to Basic with the diary still there. That is the published path, and it is the reason I keep pointing at Do Not Auto-Renew instead of at the uninstall button. Export a copy if you are the anxious type, but do not treat a missing export button as proof the log will vanish. I did not watch an account fall from Gold to Basic in real time on 28 September 2026, so a minute-by-minute handoff stays unpublished. The help page is still clearer than deleting the icon and hoping the store notices.

Can I get last month's Gold fee back after I have been logging?

Generally no. Once you have used the paid service, the terms treat the fee as spent. The seven-day written-cancel window is for people who have not accessed or used it. A month of diary entries is use. Write support@cronometer.com if you think you qualify for a case-by-case look, and keep the reply. Do not count on it, and do not tap Gold in a phone store under the belief that a change of mind later is a packing-slip problem. Phone stores have their own refund desks. Cronometer's web terms are not those desks.

I bought Gold on my iPhone. Why will the web account not cancel it?

Because you bought it from Apple. Cancel under your Apple ID subscriptions. Android is Google Play, same idea: profile, payments, subscriptions, Cronometer, cancel. The web Do Not Auto-Renew control is for web purchases. Mixing the desks is how people get a second year they thought they had killed. If both a web Gold and a store Gold somehow exist on one login, you have two renewal clocks. I did not create that mess on purpose, and I will not pretend the public site publishes a pretty flowchart for it. Pick one checkout and stay there.

Is Basic actually usable, or is it a demo with the barcode locked?

Usable. Logging, barcode, custom foods, targets, a short chart window. Gold is longer history, fewer ads, and faster capture. If Basic already covers your Sunday measuring, you do not owe them a year. The free side is how you find out whether you will still be typing leftovers in November. A lot of diaries die in week two. Paying does not fix that. It only makes the dead diary more expensive, and it makes the refund argument weaker because you already used the thing.

Will Gold tell me what to eat this week?

No. Gold can point at foods that are high in a nutrient you asked about, and the in-app helper can talk from your own settings. It still will not write your shopping list or sit with you at the table. If that is the job, hire a person. Do not tap a tile and wait for dinner to arrive as text. The skip list at the top of this page exists because the homepage can sound like a companion, and the product is still a ledger you have to fill.

What did you not find on the cart on 28 September 2026?

A published standard trial length on the Gold tile I opened. A web price in every local currency. A packing slip. A guaranteed refund after use. A pairing receipt for a watch I did not connect. I also did not complete a live charge, so there is no order number here you can quote to support. If your session shows a different monthly or yearly figure than about $10.99 and about $59.99, believe the card in front of you, screenshot it, and buy from that screenshot, not from this paragraph. Prices move. Dated carts go stale. That is the whole point of opening the live page before you pay.