Ask people what annoys them about fasting apps and you will not hear about features. You will hear about one specific moment, over and over.
They finish eating. They forget to press start. They remember at eleven the next morning, and the app either will not let them fix it or hides that behind a subscription.
One person described it exactly: I forgot nearly every day for a week, then I set an alarm and that annoyed me more, so I stopped tracking my fasts with an app entirely.
That is the whole category in one paragraph. Below is what each app costs in 2026, what the free version actually gives you, and a few things worth knowing about safety that most comparison pages skip. Prices checked on 11 August 2026.
The short version
- Most generous free version: Zero, by a wide margin.
- Most expensive: DoFasting, at around $66.99 a year, with monthly running $32.99 or more.
- Hardest to find a price for: Simple, which routes you through a survey before showing you anything.
- Free with no app to install: ours, built into Pixel Pal.
- One to stop searching for: LIFE Fasting Tracker appears to be discontinued.
What each one costs
| App | Free version | Paid | Price visible before signup? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zero | Timer, fasting history, weight, sleep, heart rate, activity, and health app syncing | $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year | Yes, published |
| Fastic | Basic timer and tracking | Around $14.99 a month, up to $79.99 a year | Partly |
| Simple | Coach answers, nutrition scores, habit trackers | Tiers from $14.99 to $59.99, period unclear | No, survey first |
| DoFasting | Download is free, no trial stated | $32.99 or more a month, $66.99 a year | No, quiz first |
| BodyFast | Plans, timer, weight, water tracking | $11.99 to $16.99 a month, $69.99 a year | Partly |
| Pixel Pal (ours) | All of it | Nothing | There is no price |
One pattern worth naming, without judgement, because it affects how you shop. Several of these put a long quiz or survey before you can see the product or the price. Fastic, Simple and DoFasting all work this way. It is a legitimate way to sell software and it also means you cannot compare prices the way you would compare anything else.
Zero
What it does well. Zero is the best known fasting app and the free tier is genuinely useful, which is not true of everything here. You get the timer, your fasting history, weight, sleep, heart rate, activity, and syncing with Apple Health, Google Fit, Fitbit and Oura. A lot of people never need to pay.
What it costs. Zero Plus is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year, with a seven day trial on the annual plan only, once per account.
Get it if you want the most established option and you like data.
Fastic, Simple and BodyFast
Fastic has a large following and a friendly design, with a free basic tier. Paid runs to around $79.99 a year.
Simple is now built around an AI coach called Avo that answers questions about food. The free tier includes those answers and its nutrition scoring. Its own site declines to publish prices, saying they vary by subscription length, so you find out after the survey.
BodyFast states plainly that downloading and using the app is free, including plans, the timer, weight and water. Paid is $11.99 to $16.99 a month or $69.99 a year.
DoFasting
What it does well. It is thorough, with meal plans and workouts attached rather than a bare timer.
What it costs. This is the expensive one. Monthly is $32.99 or $36.99 depending on which offer you land on, and the annual plan is around $66.99.
What to watch. Two things come up in reviews often enough to mention. The first is that you cannot always edit the start time of a fast, which is the single most important function in a fasting app. The second is tone. Several reviewers describe the app telling them off for not fasting on days they said they would. Whether that reads as accountability or as nagging is personal, but it is worth knowing before you subscribe.
LIFE Fasting Tracker
If you are searching for this one, note that the original app from LifeOmic no longer appears on either store. A different app now uses a similar name from a different publisher. They are not the same product, so check the developer name before installing.
The thing they nearly all get wrong
Forgetting to press start is not an edge case. It is the normal way people use these apps, because the moment you finish eating is a moment when you are clearing plates, not opening apps.
An app that handles this well lets you set the actual start time afterwards, as many times as you like, without friction and without charging for it. An app that handles it badly either locks the edit, buries it, or makes you feel bad for needing it.
The second thing worth naming is rigid scheduling. People ask constantly for something like fasting from 7pm to 2pm, every day, and are made to set each day separately.
A word about safety, because most comparisons skip it
Fasting suits a lot of people. It is also a bad idea for some, and fasting apps have a documented history of being used as restriction aids.
Reviews of the major apps include people describing being congratulated by a fasting app after not eating for far longer than is safe. One reviewer wrote that they had entered a fat burning stage after weeks of not managing the app properly and the app simply encouraged them.
So, plainly. Please do not use a fasting timer, ours included, if you are under 18, pregnant or breastfeeding, underweight, or if you have any history of an eating disorder or of using food rules to feel in control. If you take insulin or a sulfonylurea, fasting can drop your blood sugar dangerously and that needs your doctor before it needs an app. The same applies to anything over 24 hours.
If tracking is making you anxious or rigid rather than steadier, that is worth taking seriously. In the US, the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline is 1-866-662-1235.
What we built
Our fasting timer is part of Pixel Pal, our free habit tracker. It runs in a browser, there is nothing to install, no account, no email and nothing to buy.
You can fix your start time whenever you want. There is a button that says I started earlier than this, and you can use it as often as you like. We put it on the main screen rather than in settings, because it is the thing people need most.
You can log a fast you already finished. If you forgot the app entirely, add it afterwards.
Ending early still counts as something. Stop at fourteen hours on an eighteen hour plan and it is saved in your history as a fast you did, because it was one. It just does not tick the day off.
Set it once. Pick a daily window from 12:12 up to one meal a day, or an extended fast, or a weekly pattern like 5:2 or alternate days.
The safety note appears once, before your first fast, and it is specific rather than legal boilerplate.
Because it sits inside a habit tracker, a fast counts towards your day alongside anything else you are working on, and the same rule applies: miss a day and nothing resets to zero.
When to use something else
- You want it to buzz your phone when your window opens. A website cannot do that reliably. Zero or BodyFast will.
- You want meal plans and recipes. Fastic, Simple or DoFasting.
- You want it linked to Apple Health, Fitbit or Oura. Zero is the strongest here.
- You want a coach to answer food questions. Simple is built around exactly that.
Common questions
Is there a free intermittent fasting app?
Zero has the most generous free tier of the major apps, including the timer, history, weight and health app syncing. BodyFast is free to download and use for its core features. The Live Life Happy fasting timer is free in a browser with no account and no paid tier.
How much does Zero cost?
Zero Plus is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year as of August 2026, with a seven day trial on the annual plan. The free version covers the timer and most tracking.
How much does DoFasting cost?
DoFasting runs around $32.99 to $36.99 a month or approximately $66.99 a year as of August 2026. The price is shown after an onboarding quiz rather than up front.
Which fasting app lets you edit the start time?
This varies and it is worth checking before you subscribe, since it is the most common frustration in the category. The Live Life Happy fasting timer lets you correct your start time as many times as you like, and lets you log a fast after it has finished.
Is LIFE Fasting Tracker still available?
The original app from LifeOmic no longer appears on the App Store or Google Play. A different app with a similar name from a different publisher now exists, so check the developer before installing.
Do I need an app to do intermittent fasting?
No. A note on your phone works. An app helps mainly by remembering your window and showing you a history, which some people find motivating and others find stressful. If tracking makes you anxious, not tracking is a completely reasonable choice.
The honest summary
Zero is the safest starting point and its free tier is better than most people expect. BodyFast is upfront about being free to use. Simple has the most interesting new idea with its coach.
What we did was smaller. We made the timer forgiving, put the fix your start time button where you can find it, and gave it away. If that is the only thing standing between you and tracking a fast properly, it is yours.
How we put this together. Every price on this page was checked on 2026-08-11 against the App Store, Google Play or the company's own pricing page. Prices change and vary by country, so check before you buy. We have no affiliate links and no relationship with any app named here. We do make one of the tools mentioned, and we have said so wherever it comes up.