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Real Plans - Meal Planner

Holistic Squid, LLC · 2,162 ratings · ★ 4.6

4.6
★★★★★
2,162 ratings
5 ★
1,774 (82%)
4 ★
157 (7%)
3 ★
61 (3%)
2 ★
35 (2%)
1 ★
135 (6%)
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Top complaints - extracted from 55 negative reviews

Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.

1
"recipes"
18 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★ "Complicated and strange food. Waste of money! Wish I would’ve gone with another meal plan app. This app is complicated and the recipes are not to my liking. From the reviews it sounded like the recipes would simply generate and the food choices would be more basic. Thi…" - Fireman100
2
"meal"
17 negative reviews mention this · 31% of all complaints
★★★★ "Complicated and strange food. Waste of money! Wish I would’ve gone with another meal plan app. This app is complicated and the recipes are not to my liking. From the reviews it sounded like the recipes would simply generate and the food choices would be more basic. Thi…" - Fireman100
3
"money"
16 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★ "Don't waste your money. I got this last year, and didn't use it, so after 2 months I canceled it...or so I thought. So at 4 months I canceled it AGAIN. no joy. Now the app won't even show the account, it just cycles and bails. Horrible customer service via AI. DO …" - arcanekaikayak
4
"plan"
14 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★ "Complicated and strange food. Waste of money! Wish I would’ve gone with another meal plan app. This app is complicated and the recipes are not to my liking. From the reviews it sounded like the recipes would simply generate and the food choices would be more basic. Thi…" - Fireman100
5
"subscription"
12 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★ "Scam. They’ve been charging $20/ month and there is no way to cancel subscription, sign in to the account, or contact the company. I want my money back!!! Cancel my subscription!!!" - happy practice 44
6
"find"
11 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★ "Complicated and strange food. Waste of money! Wish I would’ve gone with another meal plan app. This app is complicated and the recipes are not to my liking. From the reviews it sounded like the recipes would simply generate and the food choices would be more basic. Thi…" - Fireman100
7
"doesn"
11 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★ "App not working. Tells me to update, and then it doesn’t. App not working. Tells me to update, and then it doesn’t" - Pachi1
8
"waste"
10 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★ "Don't waste your money. I got this last year, and didn't use it, so after 2 months I canceled it...or so I thought. So at 4 months I canceled it AGAIN. no joy. Now the app won't even show the account, it just cycles and bails. Horrible customer service via AI. DO …" - arcanekaikayak
9
"refund"
10 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Great idea, not so great execution. I would love to come back to this app in the future once more kinks have been worked out. It’s not very user friendly and there are a lot of little kinks that make use frustrating. Here are just a few examples for the staff to look into.…" - BJ0924
10
"service"
9 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★ "Don't waste your money. I got this last year, and didn't use it, so after 2 months I canceled it...or so I thought. So at 4 months I canceled it AGAIN. no joy. Now the app won't even show the account, it just cycles and bails. Horrible customer service via AI. DO …" - arcanekaikayak
11
"meals"
9 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Expensive recipes. I’ve had RealPlans for a while. I will not be resubscribing. If you let the app plan your meals, they are time consuming and to buy that much food is expensive. Not happy with it." - Crazyhikerlady
12
"trying"
9 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Great idea, not so great execution. I would love to come back to this app in the future once more kinks have been worked out. It’s not very user friendly and there are a lot of little kinks that make use frustrating. Here are just a few examples for the staff to look into.…" - BJ0924

📋 All 55 negative reviews

Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").

★★★★ arcanekaikayak 2/7/2026 v15.22
Don't waste your money
I got this last year, and didn't use it, so after 2 months I canceled it...or so I thought. So at 4 months I canceled it AGAIN. no joy. Now the app won't even show the account, it just cycles and bails. Horrible customer service via AI.
DO NOT GET APP.
★★★★ Fireman100 1/27/2026 v15.22
Complicated and strange food
Waste of money! Wish I would’ve gone with another meal plan app. This app is complicated and the recipes are not to my liking. From the reviews it sounded like the recipes would simply generate and the food choices would be more basic. This app requires too many steps and the food combos are weird.
I struggled to find more than a handful I liked.
★★★★ happy practice 44 12/13/2025 v15.21
Scam
They’ve been charging $20/ month and there is no way to cancel subscription, sign in to the account, or contact the company. I want my money back!!! Cancel my subscription!!!
★★★★ Pachi1 9/17/2025 v15.16
App not working. Tells me to update, and then it doesn’t
App not working. Tells me to update, and then it doesn’t
★★★★ hstdennis 12/3/2024 v12.6
Overpriced and deceptive
Glitchy and limited functionality. More to the point, signs you up to monthly billing even if just trying for one month and hides charges in the app.
★★★★ tnt125 10/7/2024 v12.5
Kept crashing, not accessible for me as a blind person but perfect idea
This looked to be the perfect solution to what I needed. However, as soon as I open the app, it keeps crashing. I’ve also found out through experimenting that it is not fully accessible with my screen reading software as a blind person. Many unlabeled buttons and I cannot drag and drop to add recipes. This is really sad because I would love to use this service.
★★★★ iiiiiiiiii love it:soooo much 6/22/2024 v12.3
Purchased app and its not working
I just purchased the app and its not working every time I log in it gives me an error! Total waste of money!
★★★★ MClem22 6/11/2024 v12.2
Impossible to cancel
I cancelled our subscription over 3 times and was continuing to still get charged! I emailed customer support after each time, several times and NO response no refund! If cancel it again and then sure enough, the next 1/4 I would get billed again. This has been such a frustrating process. Don’t sign up if you aren’t positive you’ll love it!
★★★★ vparker8992 4/12/2024 v11.15
Worst experience
Honestly the food looks so much better than it taste . I don’t recommend this diet at all!!!
★★★★ stutz5000 1/14/2024 v11.15
Disappointed
Very difficult to use
★★★★ Mary K Everett 10/31/2023 v11.15
Needs Help
I will say, I’ve come from multiples meal planning and macro tracking apps which were very user friendly. This app is NOT that at all. Not even close. It is EXTREMELY confusing. It is a little more manageable if you do it on the website, but I downloaded the app for a reason. The leftovers is confusing if you’re trying to do it from the app. I also purchased the macro tracker thinking that it would track/show the macros for the meals I had planned for the week-it did not. I really want to love this app, but it is absolutely horrible in its user friendliness. I have never used an app or program where I felt so completely lost and confused as I did with this app. It is great for recipe ideas, but again NOT even close to subpar as a meal planning app. I’m regretful I spent as much as I did on this app.
★★★★ M3g4licious 3/16/2023 v11.12
Over priced
Got this app to try and it’s not as expected. Price is expensive and doesn’t give as many recipes/ranges as I thought. I find myself using a recipe more as an idea than an actual meal for my family. I’m googling other foods to make with some items off this app. Wish there were more options on editing the meal plans. After purchasing the app and trying it out I noticed they have a cookbook that most likely has the same recipes and a fraction of the price. I also saw that if you’re wanting more/different recipes, you have to purchase add ons…. For the first price paid for the app, it needs to have every recipe ever thought of. I did reach out for a refund but apparently I reached out 1 day late. 1 day. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Just buy a cook book or search super basic recipes that you can find anywhere else for free.
Customer service doesn’t help just fyi.
Was told mine was cancelled but they just cancelled the renewal.
★★★★ TLK-24 2/23/2023 v11.12
Wanted this to be great but so disappointed!
I wanted to start the vegetarian whole 30 so this in theory seemed like the dream app but I was extremely disappointed and here’s why:
1. They automatically sign you up for auto renew and on the app it is hard to find how to change your subscription (not user friendly) and it does not come up on your Apple subscriptions if you have an iPhone.
2. It wouldn’t let me change the date of when I wanted to start it so my week had to start on a weds which isn’t what I wanted.
3. When I tried to change the amount of meals I wanted the meal to last as in leftovers for ththe next day but the recipe didn’t change. When you look on the support Center there are so many FAQs so seems like a lot of people have these issues or they are aware.
Just seems like this is not that user friendly :/ and it’s not like I’m not tech savvy!
★★★★ sarpeder 2/6/2023 v11.12
Don’t purchase this app, and then try to cancel, it won’t happen!
I cancelled the day after I purchased the app. I purchased for one month only at their monthly subscription rate of $24.99 monthly. The app clearly states your subscription renews until easy cancel The charge came through as $36.00. When I tried to call, I got a very strange message, then almost immediately received a text saying “How can I help you?” They messaged me that I had signed a two-year agreement so they couldn’t cancel or credit me. I never signed a two-year agreement. Their response was “ The good news is, you’ll really enjoy our service so the monthly fee will not be a concern.” I said I couldn’t wait to write a review on this and he sent me a nasty meme.. I have pursued this with my bank, but it is going to be an ongoing hassle!
★★★★ andreahello 10/15/2022 v11.10
NO MONEY BACK GUARANTEE
Cancelled subscription within hours, no refund despite several emails to support. Extremely frustrating.
★★★★ BelugaVan 9/24/2022 v11.9
Thought it was a good idea
The App version is difficult to use on my iPad, so I end up having to go out to the website if I want to try to use it. Very cumbersome and time consuming. Since I am the only person on a special meal plan, and many of the recipes are for multiple servings with no ability to adjust, it wastes time. If I add my own recipe, then I have to manually add the ingredients to the shopping list. Seems silly to include baked or fried bacon as a recipe. Waste of time and money. Will not renew and wish I could cancel and get pro-rated refund.
★★★★ iamastanduphumanbeing 5/29/2022 v11.2
Frustrating, unhelpful and a waste of time -do not believe the 10 day free trial promise
If you use Apple to login to apps and hide your email as I do, you CAN NOT receive the ten day guaranteed money back refund. Their answer is “ask Apple for a refund”.
You can not try their app without paying for it.
Unless you are on Whole 30 I would recommend against using this app. My friend who recommended it does whole 30 and I definitely do not and found frustrating, unhelpful and a waste of time.
Now I’m supposed to waste my time trying to get a hold of Apple what a joke.
★★★★ Norm_bone 4/25/2022 v10.3
No FODMAP choice
Really bummed. Had high hopes
★★★★ ishymaster 2/18/2022 v10.1
Won’t allow me to cancel subscription
I signed up for the monthly subscription, but i don’t find it worthwhile. App won’t allow me to cancel the subscription. I want it canceled NOW!!!
★★★★ hay_becca 2/18/2022 v10.1
No way to filter for dietary restrictions
You can set a filter for dietary restrictions, but the app will not change your meal plan.
★★★★ music2929 2/2/2022 v9.7
Buyer Beware
Upon purchase I quickly realized this app wasn’t for me. You’re not able to control total calories and the company wants an extra $5/month to add macro tracking. I reached out to cancel because the company advertises a “10-day money back guarantee” but I was denied a refund because I purchased through the App Store. Not at all satisfied with the product or their handling of the response. Glad I only bought one month of access rather than a full year. I’ll be disputing this charge.
★★★★ gravesphoto 1/25/2022 v9.7
Repetitive recipes with little food variety
So disappointed with this “whole30 “ app. Second week beef hotdogs were on the menu. There isn’t anything wrong with a hotdog once in a while, but NOBODY buys an app so they can make a hot dog. Sweet potatoes are the side dish for every three meals. Healthy eating should be a variety of foods and certainly should not include processed meat. Need more vegetables in meal plan.
★★★★ Sarapirnre 12/29/2021 v9.6
Wouldn’t recommend
Not even close to worth the amount of money they charge a year! When I first downloaded I was so excited I very quickly found out that it’s very repetitive. Most of the recipes are the same from week to week and is doesn’t even give you a full week of meals and recipes. After the first few weeks I never used it at all and some how missed it auto charging my bank for almost a year. When I realized this I emailed them to see if they would credit me back my last quarterly charge because I canceled it and haven’t used it.
They credited me back half of one charge because of you want to cancel they charge you a 14 dollar administrative fee! Are you kidding me?!?! Most places are more then willing to credit more then one charge, these guys didn’t even offer and then charge a 14 dollar fee!
★★★★ ashgebs 12/29/2021 v9.6
Endlessly Loads
Got the app to do the meal plans for a Whole30 month, it just endlessly loads the silly bowl of hearts when I try to load the required grocery lists or edit my profile, but the actual meal plan tab works somehow. Not a functional app.
★★★★ anina_ca 12/18/2021 v9.5
Bummer about the onboarding
We’ll it’s not a great start. Just paid for a plan and down loaded the app, which is asking me to schedule a meal to unlock the rest of the app, which would be great IF I COULD GET THE SCHEDULER TO WORK. I’m really hopi h this gets fixed asap so I can actually try the app! Looks promising but total UX fail so far!!
★★★★ KittyGOBoom 9/24/2021 v9.2
You have to purchase
Boooooo!
★★★★ SGB900 9/6/2021 v9.1
Just wasted $13.99
Confusing app, can’t eliminate sugar, if you decide “classic” recipes can’t change to “Mediterranean” or “fodmap” - no choice for “GERD”
★★★★ jhef 7/6/2021 v8.35
Need a version for the iPad
An app that is developed for an iPhone doesn’t always translate well to the iPad. I have vision issues and needed the bigger screen so downloaded to my iPad only to find that it’s the same size and the only option is vertical not horizontal.
★★★★ Griffijm 3/1/2021 v8.27
Needs a lot of work
This app needs a lot of work! It makes Realplans more difficult to use. Even writing this review is hard because what I’m typing is in a white font on a white background Am unlikely to renew my plan.
★★★★ LS684 2/7/2021 v8.26
Fodmap
If you are looking for a fodmap meal planner this is not for you. Prior to signing on, Fodmap is included in their advertising. Comes up in a fodmap search. Once I subscribed to the app there is not an option. I canceled immediately, within 5 minutes. Still looks like I’m in the hook for the month.
★★★★ jm1440_ 1/2/2021 v8.21
Waste of money
I’m disappointed that I paid for a year of this because the app is not working that well. Its full of bugs.. It’s extremely frustrating to import recipes because the app is not saving or confirming all of the ingredients. I had to do one ingredient at a time after trying for awhile. Importing one recipe took over an hour. For the existing recipes, the portion sizes I am changing are not saving and my shopping list is all over the place because of that. When you indicate that meal will be leftovers, it doubled my portion size of 4 to 8 but since I am cooking for 2, I didn’t need that much. I changed the recipe to portion sized for 2 and the leftover portion was automatically set for 4 and cannot be changed. Certainly getting the portion sizes correct are nothing short of a nightmare at this point. I’ll continue to try because I unfortunately paid for it but at this point, it’ll be easier to get out a piece of paper...
★★★★ jmaac23 12/31/2020 v8.21
Full of bugs
I downloaded the app to use it for Whole30 meal planning. Within a few minutes of using it, it clearly had a bunch of bugs that made it unusable. I immediately emailed to get a refund and was told that they can not give me one. Don’t trust an app that doesn’t give you a trial period.
★★★★ 10rmb1994 6/2/2020 v8.15
Recipes so basic a 4 year old could write them
I downloaded the app after it being recommended by a friend, I also downloaded a similar meal planning app and will definitely stick with the other one.
I downloaded to make my life easier, to meal plan for me, so we could find new, creative recipes to get us out of the same routine. You can imagine my excitement when I created my first meal plan. My recipes consisted of- toast, scrambled eggs, green beans, Greek salad, avacado toast, chili, tuna salad, etc. This was so anti-climactic.
Doesn’t live up to the hype, total waste of $. We will be using the other app.
★★★★ cgbrn 3/10/2020 v8.15
Can’t get into app
Not sure if I was charged but I can’t get into the app. It won’t scroll down to the part that says I don’t have an acct and need to create one.
★★★★ Klmleo 2/22/2020 v8.14
Would rate ZERO stars
I really wanted to like this app and company. However I didn’t use the app enough to keep and and canceled my subscription according to instructions given through the app. This was completed 2/10/20, 12 days before my subscription renewal date. Even after canceling my subscription well within adequate time, I am still being charged via PayPal for a subscription I have not had in almost two weeks prior to renewal. I have spent over FOUR HOURS contacting Apple, PayPal (and getting my cases for inappropriate charge denied), and real plans trying to resolve this issue. Both Apple and realplans have validated that I have no active subscription. Still waiting for my full refund and this issue to be resolved. Don’t waste your time or money. Unless you want to be charged for a service you opted out of unjustly.
★★★★ Sabi3 2/17/2020 v8.14
Can’t create an account
The screen on the app won’t scroll so I can create an account. It only has a login. I will periodically try again but until I can login gets 1 star.
★★★★ Dan Steinberg 2/6/2020 v8.14
Avoid This App
The worst recipes what a waste of money.
★★★★ Shayf710 1/19/2020 v8.13
App is poorly designed & recipes awful
Unfortunately there were at least 2 meals I had to completely throw out because the recipes were so inaccurate.
Also, when I went to cancel the subscription the cancel button was so far down the page, after a long list of unwanted ads. Then there was no confirmation it canceled. Stuck with another month paying for horrible recipes.
★★★★ Uzi-girl 12/7/2019 v8.11
Nope
Not user friendly. Not intuitive. Not for $13.99+ a month... Chat doesn’t work. Nutrition information not provided, apparently requires hunting down some macros tool which you won’t find...
★★★★ QMIH 11/25/2019 v8.10
THIS IS A SCAM
Don’t use this app. Total rip off.
★★★★ Jim.Kelly 11/3/2019 v8.9
Bad interface
The navigation on this app is not good. There is no way to easily go through and select what Diet to choose from, there are a few and what is good on one diet is not good on all.
The menu selections are quite limited, and it tries to auto-populate a week at a time, without letting you select what to keep or what to remove.
No iPadOS version (it is 2019 for cryin’ out loud!), way to expensive, and not intuitive at all.
★★★★ frustrated about email 9/10/2019 v8.8
Email not found
So I bought and paid for the whole 30 plan on this app. Received email confirming my payment. Tried to log in, and it’s telling me my email is not found, even though it populated when I went to sign in. I can’t find any information on how to talk to someone about this, since now I’ve wasted more than a day of my time. Super frustrating.
★★★★★ Crazyhikerlady 12/7/2025 v15.21
Expensive recipes
I’ve had RealPlans for a while. I will not be resubscribing. If you let the app plan your meals, they are time consuming and to buy that much food is expensive. Not happy with it.
★★★★★ Atonements 8/10/2025 v12.13
Slow
App would be great if I didn’t have to wait 5 minutes anytime I need to make an update, delete / add a meal / or anything else on the app. Responsiveness of app is terrible.
★★★★★ BJ0924 1/27/2025 v12.10
Great idea, not so great execution
I would love to come back to this app in the future once more kinks have been worked out.
It’s not very user friendly and there are a lot of little kinks that make use frustrating.
Here are just a few examples for the staff to look into. I have only used blank-calendar planning mode, fyi.
Mobile app:
> I can’t figure out how to delete a meal without clearing the whole calendar.
> Trying to import a recipe from a web page is a nightmare. It froze Safari several times and deleted everything causing me to start over. The information is not importing completely accurately which is fine, I can correct it, but there is no way to look at the actual recipe web page while doing so unless you open a separate browser program and then when you go back to the import tool it closes out and freezes up your browser app. I’m sure there are work arounds like importing the recipe needing work, then going back to the app and editing it, or importing directly from the app via a link (is there?) but I didn’t get that far because I was too frustrated.
> Navigating the app is is just clumsy:
>>When trying to search, my keyboard is in the way and the search results are in a small box hidden under the keyboard and there is no way to scroll them up.
>> If don’t type the whole word correctly you get no results. For example I accidentally typed “Coffe”and there were no results, but when searching “Coffee” there were.
>> When pulling up filters, etc. there is no way to exit if you change your mind unless you click “submit” or the like.
--------------
These are errors/annoying things about using the WEB and/or mobile version:
> There is no “snack” slot on the calendar which would be great.
> It was too confusing trying to plan meals for my husband and I because I needed to plan only breakfast, lunch, and snack for myself but dinner for the both of us. So selecting the “how many people to plan for” setting (I can’t remember the actual name of the setting) didn’t work for us.
Adding leftovers was also confusing because it would change the serving size. If I add a meal that makes 4 servings, I would expect I could add it to the calendar 4 times, but when dragging and adding as a left over it would just add more servings which makes no sense. I’m expecting this is user error but when I went to the support page I couldn’t find any help in this area.
> Some stuff just gets *stuck* and buttons won’t work. For example when changing serving size I could only increase the size and never go back down. I mean I could increase from 4 to 20 (as a test) and then the - (minus) button wouldn’t work, so
I would have to delete the whole recipe entry and start over.
There are more little things but this is what I can think of now. I requested a refund shortly into my trial because I could just tell it was going to be too frustrating for me to get it to work the way I needed so I will go back to excel. Great idea, poor execution and the $15/mo subscription is high for me to use something that only kind of works.
★★★★★ Lola lucky 61 12/7/2023 v11.15
App misleading
I got this app because I thought it was part of the whole30 program and today I found out it’s not part of the whole30 programs🤬🤬🤬🤬. So I have wasted my money on this. This popped up when I sign up for the starter kit. They should say that they’re not part of Melissa’s whole30 program but it’s a tool to use if you want too. I wish I could get a refund for the remaining amount of time that I won’t be using this app.
★★★★★ thebakingmaster 8/17/2022 v11.7
Glitchy
Had a really bad experience with this app. The set up and grocery list function is not intuitive, and makes it hard to track. Many of my “favorited” meals disappear and are no longer highlighted. I unsubscribed. Save your money and just google whole 30 recipes.
★★★★★ Hislady07 6/25/2022 v11.4
Great Idea, Terrible Mobile App
Being new to following an AIP diet, I was glad to find Real Plans to help me get started. The computer interface is pretty good, however, I am rarely at my computer and this mobile app is awful, practically unusable - or at least cumbersome enough to not make it worth my time. Surely for the amount of money I paid for a subscription they could have developed something much better than this. I will be canceling.
★★★★★ gabiSantosha 4/24/2021 v8.31
Stopped working
After I purchased a year this app it stopped working completely. It won’t stay open. I will open it and then it kicks me out completely. I have offloaded it and reloaded it many times. Updated my phone etc. but I can’t use it at all.
I gave it to stars because it worked great when I was using the monthly version.
It was working fine when I was paying monthly. Right after right after I paid for the whole year at stopped working?
★★★★★ CinnamonGirT 1/3/2021 v8.21
Decent app, was charged despite free trial offer
App offered a 14 day free trial for the paid version, but I was charged the full monthly fee immediately. Of course the charge goes through Apple, so their customer service was able to just pass the buck and never even answered me as to why I was charged with the trial.
The app is ok - I may have kept it were I not put off by the charge issue, though probably not. There are some good recipes, but it doesn’t allow much flexibility or account for those shopping on a budget at all. The shopping lists were enormous, with many specialty ingredients and very little overlap so you would have needed to get much more than you actually needed of many items. If more options for budget ranges or efficient use of ingredients were built in, the app could have potential.

+ 5 more in the clipboard copy

Sentiment summary

89%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
8%
Negative (1-2★)

✓ Strong positive sentiment - clone path is harder, users like the existing app.