The Paprika Dilemma
If you've used Paprika Recipe Manager, you probably love it. The one-time purchase feels refreshing in a world of endless subscriptions. The recipe importer works great. Your recipes are organized just the way you like them.
But then you got married. Or moved in with a partner. Or your kids started cooking.
And you discovered Paprika's most frustrating limitation: there's no real way to share with your household.
The official recommendation? Share your login credentials. But that's not collaboration—that's a workaround. Tags don't sync properly. You can't see who added what. There's no way to know who's cooking tonight.
For couples and families, there's a better way.
What Paprika Does Well
Let's be fair—Paprika is a solid app for solo cooks:
- One-time purchase: No subscription fatigue
- Reliable recipe importing: About 95% accuracy from most websites
- Works offline: All your recipes stored locally
- Clean organization: Categories and search work well
If you're cooking alone and happy with your setup, Paprika serves you fine.
But the moment you need to coordinate with someone else, the cracks show.
Where Paprika Falls Short for Families
The Sharing Problem
Paprika's official support page says: "If you would like to share all of your Paprika data with another person, you can share the same Paprika account between multiple devices."
Translation: Give your partner your password.
Here's what happens when you do:
- Tags you create don't sync properly to their device
- No personalization—you both see the same view
- No way to know who added a recipe
- No visibility into who's planning to cook what
- "I thought YOU were making dinner tonight" becomes a regular conversation
The Platform Tax
Paprika charges per platform:
- Your iPhone: $4.99
- Your partner's Android: $4.99
- Desktop for meal planning: $29.99
That's $40+ just for one household—and you're still sharing a single account. Want your own accounts? Double it. Kids want access? Triple it.
And when Paprika 4 eventually launches? You'll likely pay again.
The Disconnect
Here's the workflow Paprika forces on you:
- Plan your meals for the week
- Open each recipe
- Manually copy ingredients to your grocery list
- Hope you didn't miss anything
The meal planner doesn't talk to the shopping list. You plan your week, then do the same work twice to build your grocery run.
Trapped Recipes
Once your recipes are in Paprika, they're stuck there. Exporting is clunky. Sharing with friends who don't use Paprika? Nearly impossible.
Your recipe collection becomes hostage to one app.
How What's for Dinner? is Built Different
Real Household Collaboration
What's for Dinner? was built from day one for couples and families:
- Multiple users, one household: Everyone has their own account
- See who added what: Recipe attribution is clear
- Activity feed: Know what your partner is planning
- Assign cooks: "You're making tacos Tuesday, I've got Thursday"
- Everyone's preferences: Dietary restrictions and favorites per person
The best part? The free tier includes 3 household members. Paprika's biggest pain point, solved at $0.
One Subscription, Every Device
What's for Dinner? is web-based. That means:
- Works on your phone, tablet, laptop, desktop
- No platform tax—one subscription covers everyone
- Your partner gets full access automatically
- Access from work, your parents' house, anywhere
The Magic: Plan → Shop
This is where the real time savings happen:
- Add recipes to your weekly meal plan
- Shopping list generates automatically
- Items organized by grocery store section
- Check items off together in real-time
No manual copying. No missed ingredients. No duplicate work.
AI That Actually Helps
- Smart recipe import: Paste a URL, our AI (powered by Claude) extracts it perfectly
- "What should I make?": Get suggestions based on what you have
- Nutrition tracking: See your daily and weekly nutrition automatically
- Smart folders: Recipes organize themselves by cuisine, cook time, difficulty
Modern & Beautiful
We built What's for Dinner? with a clean, modern design:
- Mobile-first interface
- Dark mode for late-night planning
- Fast, responsive, no lag
- Customizable views
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Paprika | What's for Dinner? | |---------|---------|-------------------| | Household sharing | Share login credentials | Real multi-user (3 free!) | | Pricing | $5-30 per platform, per person | Free tier or $8-16/mo for household | | Meal plan → shopping list | Manual copy | Automatic generation | | AI recipe import | No | Yes (Claude AI) | | AI meal suggestions | No | Yes | | Nutrition tracking | Basic | Advanced dashboard | | Google Calendar sync | No | Yes | | Cook assignments | No | Yes | | Activity feed | No | Yes | | Web access | Native apps only | Any device with a browser |
Making the Switch
Can I Import from Paprika?
Yes! You can export your Paprika recipes and import them into What's for Dinner?. Or start fresh—our AI makes adding recipes so fast that many users prefer rebuilding their collection.
What About the Cost?
We have three tiers:
Home Cook (Free Forever)
- 25 recipes
- 3 household members
- Basic meal planning
- Shopping list generation
Sous Chef ($8/month)
- 500 recipes
- 20 AI suggestions per day
- Google Calendar sync
- Smart pantry scanning
Kitchen Boss ($16/month)
- Unlimited recipes
- Unlimited AI suggestions
- 10 household members
- Advanced nutrition tracking
Annual plans save 20%.
The math: A couple buying Paprika for phones + desktop = $40+ one-time. What's for Dinner? Sous Chef = $8/month with true collaboration, AI features, and no platform limits.
The Bottom Line
Paprika is a great app for solo cooks who want a one-time purchase and simple organization.
But if you're cooking as a couple or family, you deserve an app built for collaboration. One where your partner can see the plan, add their own recipes, check off grocery items together, and actually answer the question: "What's for dinner?"
Ready to make meal planning a team effort?
