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Understanding free vs premium

Spiceful offers a Free tier to get you started and a Premium tier for serious home cooks who want unlimited recipes and extra features.

January 28, 2026
3 min read

Understanding free vs premium

Spiceful offers a Free tier to get you started and a Premium tier for serious home cooks who want unlimited recipes and extra features.

What you can do

Compare what's included in each tier so you can decide which plan works best for you.

When you'd use this

You're wondering what limits apply to your account, or you're considering upgrading to Premium.

Feature comparison

FeatureFreePremium
Recipes10Unlimited
AI imports per month10200
Image storage25 MB1 GB
Meal plan horizon7 days ahead90 days ahead
Grocery lists1Unlimited
Categories5Unlimited
Grocery consolidationBasic (exact match)Smart (synonyms + variants)
Recipe archivingNoYes
Bulk import (Paprika, Mela)NoYes

What each limit means

Recipes

Free accounts can save up to 10 recipes. Premium accounts have no limit.

AI imports

When you import a recipe from a URL, photo, or pasted text, Spiceful uses AI to extract the ingredients and steps. Free accounts get 10 AI imports per month; Premium gets 200. This counter resets on the 1st of each month.

Image storage

You can add photos to your recipes. Free accounts have 25 MB of storage; Premium accounts have 1 GB. A typical recipe photo is about 200 KB–1 MB.

Meal plan horizon

Free accounts can plan meals up to 7 days ahead. Premium accounts can plan up to 90 days ahead.

Grocery lists

Free accounts have one grocery list. Premium accounts can create multiple lists (e.g., one for weekly shopping, one for a party).

Categories

Organize recipes into categories like "Dinner" or "Desserts." Free accounts can create up to 5 categories; Premium has no limit.

Grocery consolidation

When you add ingredients from multiple recipes, Spiceful can combine duplicates:

  • Basic merge (Free + Premium): Combines exact matches (e.g., "1 cup flour" + "2 cups flour" = "3 cups flour").
  • Smart merge (Premium only): Also recognizes synonyms and variants (e.g., "scallions" and "green onions" merge together).

Recipe archiving (Premium)

Hide recipes you're not using without deleting them. Archived recipes don't count toward your recipe limit and can be restored anytime.

Bulk import (Premium)

Import your entire recipe collection from apps like Paprika or Mela in one step.

Premium pricing

  • Monthly: $4.99/month
  • Yearly: $49.99/year (save $10)

How to check your usage

On web

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. View the Current Usage section showing recipes, AI imports, storage, categories, and grocery lists.

On mobile

  1. Tap the Settings tab.
  2. View usage under your subscription status.

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