The Plan to Eat Legacy
Plan to Eat has been around since 2011. That's over a decade of helping families organize recipes and plan meals. Many users have been loyal for years, building recipe collections they genuinely love.
The core features work: recipe importing, drag-and-drop meal planning, and automatic shopping lists. For its era, Plan to Eat was ahead of its time.
But 2025 isn't 2011. And some long-time users are starting to notice the cracks.
What Plan to Eat Does Well
Let's acknowledge the strengths:
- Recipe clipping: The browser extension grabs recipes reasonably well
- Drag-and-drop planner: Intuitive weekly calendar interface
- Long track record: 14 years of development
- Loyal community: Active user base with decades of recipes
- Shopping list generation: Automatic from meal plans
If you've been using Plan to Eat since the early days, you've probably built a substantial recipe library. That investment matters.
Where Plan to Eat Shows Its Age
The "Share Your Login" Problem
Here's Plan to Eat's official household sharing solution:
"You can share your account with other members of your household by sharing your login credentials."
Sound familiar? It's the same workaround Paprika uses. And it has the same problems:
- No individual preferences
- No way to know who added what
- No separate activity tracking
- No cook assignments
- One person's changes affect everyone
For a family app, this feels like a gap that should have been solved years ago.
Interface Clutter
Long-time users are noticing a trend. As one 10-year user wrote in late 2025:
"It started out great, but now it is cluttered with stuff that the paying user can't get rid of... They upped the price, but aren't giving the user enough options for customizing their recipe box."
Another update complaint: "More stuff on the page that you can't control. AI for recipes? And you can't hide? Going downhill."
When users feel like the app is adding features they can't opt out of, that's a design problem.
Price Increases
Plan to Eat has raised prices over the years. Current pricing sits around $39-49/year depending on the plan. For what you get—especially without real multi-user support—users are questioning the value.
Dated Design
Let's be honest: Plan to Eat looks like a 2011 app that's been patched over time. The mobile apps work, but they don't feel modern. The web interface is functional but dated.
In an era of beautiful, intuitive apps, Plan to Eat can feel clunky.
How What's for Dinner? Compares
Real Household Collaboration
This is the fundamental difference. What's for Dinner? was built from day one for households:
- Individual accounts: Everyone has their own login
- See who added what: Recipe attribution is clear
- Cook assignments: "You're making tacos Tuesday"
- Activity feed: See what your partner is planning
- Dietary preferences per person: Different needs, one household
Our free tier includes 3 household members. Because families shouldn't have to share passwords.
Modern, Clean Interface
We built What's for Dinner? in 2024-2025 with modern design principles:
- Clean, uncluttered layouts
- Mobile-first but web-ready
- Dark mode support
- Fast, responsive experience
- No feature bloat—everything has a purpose
AI That Actually Helps
Plan to Eat recently added AI features that users can't hide. We took a different approach: AI that's useful, not intrusive.
- Smart recipe import: Paste a URL, AI extracts it perfectly
- "What should I make?": Get suggestions based on what's in your pantry
- Nutrition tracking: Automatic from your meal plans
The difference? You control when to use AI. It's not forced into your interface.
Transparent Pricing
Plan to Eat: ~$39-49/year for a single shared account What's for Dinner?:
- Free: 25 recipes, 3 household members
- Sous Chef ($8/mo): 500 recipes, AI features, calendar sync
- Kitchen Boss ($16/mo): Unlimited everything, 10 household members
For a couple, Plan to Eat is one shared login. WFD gives you both individual accounts.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Plan to Eat | What's for Dinner? | |---------|-------------|-------------------| | Household sharing | Share login | Real multi-user (3 free!) | | Interface | Dated, cluttered | Modern, clean | | AI features | Forced, can't hide | Optional, useful | | Recipe import | Browser extension | AI-powered + URL | | Mobile apps | Functional | Modern, fast | | Nutrition tracking | Limited | Advanced dashboard | | Cook assignments | No | Yes | | Activity feed | No | Yes | | Free tier | 14-day trial only | Forever free (25 recipes) |
Making the Switch
What about my recipes?
Plan to Eat allows exports. You can bring your recipe collection to What's for Dinner?. Years of saved recipes don't have to be lost.
Alternatively, our AI import is so good that many users enjoy rebuilding their collection—rediscovering recipes they'd forgotten.
Is it worth switching after 10+ years?
That's a personal decision. But ask yourself:
- Are you still sharing login credentials with your partner?
- Does the interface feel cluttered with features you don't want?
- Would real household collaboration change your meal planning?
If you answered yes to any of these, it might be time.
The Bottom Line
Plan to Eat pioneered digital meal planning. For that, it deserves respect.
But the app hasn't fundamentally evolved for modern families. Sharing login credentials isn't household collaboration. Adding features users can't hide isn't improvement.
What's for Dinner? is built for how families plan meals in 2025: together, from any device, without workarounds.
