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Fasting Apps Without a Subscription (2026): One-Time Purchase and Genuinely Free Options

EasyFasting EditorialJuly 31, 202615 min read

Table of Contents

You wanted a timer. You got a monthly plan, a trial that renews at a price you did not fully read, and a notification two weeks later telling you the annual is 60 percent off for 48 hours. Fasting is one of the cheapest health habits there is. It costs nothing to skip breakfast, and paying a recurring fee to count the hours feels backwards.

This post maps the actual options in 2026: which fasting apps have a free tier you can live on, which sell a one-time unlock, and what the alternatives cost. It also explains, without conspiracy, why nearly every app here picked subscriptions. That part matters, because knowing which apps have a real reason to charge monthly is the fastest way to tell a fair price from a lazy one.

Why Almost Every Fasting App Is a Subscription

Start with the honest half of the argument. Some of these apps carry real ongoing costs. Photo-based meal logging runs image recognition on a server. AI coaching runs a model on a server. Recipe libraries, courses and challenge programs need someone to write, update and translate them. Community features need moderation. Each of those costs money every month whether you open the app or not, and one payment of $80 cannot fund fifteen years of server bills.

There is also a structural reason that has nothing to do with servers. Recurring revenue is easier to build a company on. It is predictable, it compounds, and it lets a team justify buying installs through paid ads, because they can model what a user is worth over two years. A one-time purchase has to be re-earned from a new customer every month. That math pushes almost every funded health app toward subscriptions before a feature is designed.

The part worth being skeptical about is what happens when neither reason applies. A fasting timer that stores everything on your phone, syncs through your own iCloud, and ships features once a quarter has close to zero marginal cost per user. When an app like that charges monthly, it is charging for the business model, not the running costs. That is not fraud. It is a pricing choice, and you are allowed to weigh it.

The practical test: ask what the app does while you are not looking at it. If a server is doing work on your behalf every day, a subscription is defensible. If the answer is “nothing, it counts hours,” a free tier or a one-time unlock should be on the table, and a growing number of smaller apps now offer exactly that.

The Three Ways to Avoid a Monthly Fee

Three real routes. Pick based on how seriously you fast, not how annoyed you are.

Use a genuinely capable free tier

Most fasting apps have a free tier. The question is whether it is a product or a demo. A demo locks history, hides your streak behind a paywall, or nags after every fast. A real free tier lets you run the habit indefinitely and reserves payment for analysis and depth.

Check three things. Can you run the protocol you actually want, not just 16:8? Can you see yesterday and last week? Do notifications work without an upgrade? If all three are yes, the paid tier is a real upgrade rather than a toll gate. Still deciding which schedule suits you? Our comparison of 16:8 and 18:6 fasting is a better starting point than any paywall.

Buy a lifetime or one-time unlock

A lifetime tier is the cleanest answer to subscription fatigue. You pay once, you own the features, and there is nothing to cancel. Fewer apps offer it than you would expect, partly because of the economics above and partly because the price is hard to set: too low and it undercuts the business, too high and nobody buys it.

Two cautions. First, “lifetime” means the lifetime of the app, not yours. If the developer stops shipping, your purchase stops improving. Second, App Store listings do not always make it obvious whether a high-priced in-app purchase is a lifetime unlock or a long subscription. Open the purchase sheet and read the line under the price before you tap.

Use the timer you already own

This deserves a straight answer rather than a sales pitch. The iPhone Clock app can time a fast. Set a 16-hour timer when you finish eating, and it tells you when the window closes. It costs nothing, needs no account, and for someone who fasts twice a week without ceremony it is an adequate tool.

What it cannot do is remember. No record of your last fast, no streak, no weekly average, no sense of whether you held the schedule you set. That memory is why tracking apps exist. If you are starting out, read the beginner’s guide to intermittent fasting and decide how committed you are. Occasional faster: use the Clock. Building a habit: use something that logs.

What to Check Before You Trust a “Free” Fasting App

Free is a marketing word. Six checks tell you what it means here:

Is the timer itself free? If starting or stopping a fast hits a paywall, the app is a trial, not a free app.
Is your history visible? Some apps log every fast but show only the current one. If you cannot see last week without paying, you cannot judge the app.
Is there an account requirement? A fasting timer does not technically need your email. If it demands one before the first fast, ask what for.
Can you cancel in the App Store? StoreKit purchases are canceled in iOS Settings in two taps, and Apple handles refunds. Some apps in this category bill through a web checkout instead, which means Apple cannot cancel or refund for you.
Does it work offline? A timer that fails on a plane is doing more network work than a timer needs to.
Does it spam sale notifications? Watch the first week. Phase and milestone alerts are useful. Countdown discount banners are not.

EasyFasting — Free Tier Plus a Lifetime Option

EasyFasting covers the first two routes at once. The free tier is the entire fasting tool, not a preview of one. You get all five protocols (14:10, 16:8, 18:6, 20:4 and OMAD), a one-tap circular timer, interactive Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, and the full Apple Watch app, which starts and stops fasts, switches protocol and shows your live phase even when your iPhone is in another room. The Watch app adds phase-colored circular and corner complications plus a Smart Stack card, none of it behind an upsell.

There is no account. No email, no password, no sign-in wall before your first fast. Everything works offline, and your data syncs privately through your own iCloud. Billing runs exclusively through Apple’s StoreKit, so canceling is two taps in iOS Settings and refunds are handled by Apple. There is no web checkout, no billing through PayPal or Stripe outside the App Store, and no cancel-by-email. There are also zero marketing notifications, a stated product promise rather than a current setting.

Free includes:

All five protocols: 14:10, 16:8, 18:6, 20:4 and OMAD
One-tap circular timer with a six-phase model and basic phase information
Interactive Home Screen and Lock Screen fasting widgets
Full Apple Watch app, complications and Smart Stack card
Edit the start time of a running fast, and the start and end of any finished fast
Skip a fast or an empty rest day to bridge a streak, reversibly, with skipped fasts still counted in totals and averages
Delete any log entry
All notification types, including phase-milestone alerts, fully customizable
Learn tab with structured fasting courses
Every award earnable and shareable, plus streak milestones at 3, 7, 14, 21, 30, 60 and 90 days
Last seven days of history and a This Week stats snapshot

Download EasyFasting free on the App Store

Here is exactly what Premium gates, so you can decide before installing: history beyond the last seven days, charts, trends, averages and insights, detailed phase education cards, a live awards progress view, extra accent colors, and 30-day weight trends. That is analysis and depth, not the timer. Premium costs $7.99 monthly or $39.99 yearly, both with a seven-day free trial, or $79.99 once for lifetime access. The full free-versus-paid breakdown is on the features page.

Subscription Costs Compared

App	Monthly	Annual	One-time / lifetime
EasyFasting	$7.99	$39.99	$79.99 lifetime
Zero (Zero Plus)	$9.99	$69.99	None offered
Fastic (Fastic Plus)	$14.99	$39.99	Not listed as lifetime
BodyFast (Coach)	$11.99–$16.99	$34.99–$69.99	Not listed as lifetime
Simple (Pro)	$14.99	$29.99	Not listed as lifetime
Simple (Premium)	$29.99	$59.99	Not listed as lifetime

All prices are US App Store listings verified in July 2026 and can vary by storefront. “Not listed as lifetime” means the app sells higher-priced in-app purchases, but the listing does not clearly distinguish a lifetime unlock from a long subscription, so we will not guess. Check the purchase sheet inside the app.

What About the Other Apps?

Zero

Zero: Fasting & Food Tracker, from Zero Longevity Science, is the best-known app here, at 4.8 stars across roughly 445,000 ratings. It is free with in-app purchases, and Zero Plus is listed at $9.99, $69.99 and $89.99. There is no lifetime tier, so paid features mean subscribing.

The free side is real: basic timer, streaks and insights. Zero Plus adds photo meal logging with macros, a protein score, advanced hydration, habit tracking, challenges and trend analytics. Those are server-backed, which is why the app requires an internet connection. Coherent product, but if you only want a timer you are paying for infrastructure you will not use.

Fastic

Fastic Weight Loss & Fasting, from HealthVida GmbH, holds 4.8 stars across roughly 246,000 ratings, and has the most complicated pricing here. Fastic Plus is listed at $14.99 for one month, $27.99 for three months and $39.99 for twelve, with further tiers at $12.99, $19.99, $29.99 and $79.99.

The free tier is unusually generous: timer, food and calorie tracker, body-status phases, step counter, water tracker, Apple Health sync and an AI chat. Plus adds 4,500+ recipes, the Fastic Academy, challenges, a buddy and coaching. Whether any higher tier is a permanent unlock is not clear from the listing, so treat the subscriptions as the default.

BodyFast

BodyFast: Intermittent Fasting, from BodyFast GmbH, has 4.7 stars across roughly 145,000 ratings. Coach is listed across a wide range: $11.99 to $16.99 for one month, $17.49 to $34.99 for three months, $54.99 for six, and $34.99 to $69.99 for twelve. Ranges that wide usually reflect regional and promotional pricing, so the price you see may not be the price someone else sees.

Free covers more than most: 10+ fasting plans, a timer with reminders, weight and measurement tracking, fasting stage information, water tracking and education. Coach adds personalized plans, daily coaching, 100+ recipes, nutrition facts, challenges, achievements and support. If you want coaching, that is what you pay for. If you want a timer, the free tier has one.

Simple

Simple: AI Weight Loss Coach, from AM APPS, has 4.7 stars across roughly 391,000 ratings. It has drifted furthest from being a fasting app: the product is an AI coach named Avo, with fasting as one component. There are two paid ladders, Simple Pro at $14.99 and $29.99 and Simple Premium at $29.99 and $59.99, plus a $29.99 Workbooks Bundle.

Free includes the AI coach, photo nutrition feedback, workouts, logging, a Success Score, a widget and Apple Health. Pro and Premium add personalized plans and on-demand coaching. There is no clearly listed lifetime route, and an AI coach costs the developer money every time you use it, so a subscription is the honest structure here.

Is a Lifetime Purchase Actually Worth It?

Do the arithmetic. EasyFasting’s annual is $39.99 and the lifetime is $79.99, so break-even lands almost exactly at two years. Use the app for 25 months and you came out ahead. Quit at month 14 and you overpaid by $40.

Against the monthly plan the case is stronger. At $7.99 a month, lifetime pays for itself in ten months. If you already fast year-round and have done so for a while, the one-time purchase is the cheaper path, and it removes a line item you would otherwise revisit every year.

Be honest about your own odds, though. If you are in your first month, or still testing whether OMAD suits your week or whether a gentler fasting schedule fits better, buying lifetime is a bet on a version of yourself you have not met. The rational move is the free tier, or the annual after the trial.

There is a third option people forget: stay free indefinitely. If the free tier covers the timer, protocols, widgets and your streak, run the habit for a year, then buy lifetime with $80 spent on evidence rather than optimism.

Getting Started

Install it, pick a protocol, start the timer. No account, no email, no card. If the free tier is all you need, that is a legitimate outcome and the app will not nag you. If you later want a year of history and trend charts, lifetime is a one-time decision.

Download EasyFasting free on the App Store

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a fasting app without a subscription?

Yes, in two forms. Some apps give you a free tier that covers the timer, protocols and basic history with no payment at all, and some sell a one-time lifetime unlock instead of a recurring plan. EasyFasting does both: the timer, all five protocols, widgets, the Apple Watch app and notifications are free forever, and if you want the paid features you can buy a lifetime unlock for $79.99 instead of subscribing. Most of the large fasting apps in the App Store offer only recurring plans.

Which fasting apps offer a lifetime purchase?

EasyFasting lists a $79.99 lifetime unlock alongside its $7.99 monthly and $39.99 yearly plans. Zero lists Zero Plus at $9.99, $69.99 and $89.99 with no lifetime tier. Fastic, BodyFast and Simple all list higher-priced in-app purchases, but their App Store listings do not clearly identify those as lifetime purchases rather than long-duration subscriptions, so we do not claim they are. If a lifetime option matters to you, check the purchase sheet inside the app before you buy.

Can I track fasting without creating an account?

Yes. An account is a product decision, not a technical requirement, because a fasting timer is just a start time, an end time and a protocol. EasyFasting requires no account, no email and no sign-in. Your data lives on your iPhone and syncs privately through iCloud if you use more than one device. Apps that require an account usually do so because their features run on a server, which is a fair trade if you use those features and a pointless one if you do not.

Is the free version of EasyFasting actually usable?

It is the whole timer. Free covers all five protocols, the one-tap circular timer, Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, the full Apple Watch app with complications, editing the start time of a running fast, editing start and end times of finished fasts, skipping a fast or a rest day to keep a streak, every notification type including phase milestones, the Learn tab courses, all awards, streak milestones, the last seven days of history and a This Week stats snapshot. Premium adds longer history and analysis, not the core function.

Do I really need a fasting app, or is the Clock app enough?

For a single fast, the iPhone Clock app is genuinely enough. Set a timer, watch it run, stop it. Where it falls short is everything after that: it does not record what you did, so there is no streak, no weekly pattern, no average fast length, and no way to see whether the schedule you picked is one you can actually keep. If you only fast occasionally, use the Clock. If you fast on a routine, tracking is the point.

How do I cancel a fasting app subscription?

If the app bills through Apple’s StoreKit, you cancel in iOS Settings by tapping your name, then Subscriptions, then the app, then Cancel Subscription. Apple also handles refund requests. Some apps in this category bill outside the App Store through a web checkout, and in that case Apple cannot cancel or refund for you, so you have to use whatever process that company provides. Check where the charge comes from before you subscribe. EasyFasting bills exclusively through StoreKit.