How MyFitnessPal grows

MyFitnessPal is a food-logging app with a free tier, and the tactics describe how it keeps free users engaged and nudges them toward paying. Hosts who use it point to daily progress projections, launch paywalls and feature prompts, while a guest covers its ownership: an expensive 2015 sale, a cheaper 2020 resale and the Cal AI purchase.

• After each day's food log, MyFitnessPal shows where the user would be in 5 weeks if every day matched today; a guest who has stayed about 3 years credits it, without numbers.MyFitnessPal
• MyFitnessPal shows a paywall with an immediate close button each time the app opens; a free user said he has subscribed on and off, but no data on its effect was given.MyFitnessPal
• Lapsed MyFitnessPal subscribers on the free tier get full-screen or partial pop-ups that lead to a paywall or point to features they have never opened, such as accountability partners.MyFitnessPal
• Under Armour paid $475M for MyFitnessPal in 2015; after growth slowed, Francisco Partners bought it in 2020 for over $100M less, which a guest read as a case for selling before the peak.MyFitnessPal
• MyFitnessPal bought Cal AI, in a guest's secondhand reading, for its skill at pulling in new users who could later move to MyFitnessPal's fuller app; no result was reported.MyFitnessPal

Summary written 2026-10-07 from the tactics below. Figures are as founders stated them.