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Measured on six things

Save recipes from TikTok, Instagram and any website

Security

HTTPS enforced with X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy and SPF in place, but no HSTS, CSP, frame protection or DMARC — 5/12 on the header checklist. No SOC 2, ISO, pen-test or bug bounty published. Standard for an indie consumer app, not a standout.

Screenshots

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Recipe Notes

About this app

Recipe Notes is a free recipe saver and digital cookbook for iPhone, iPad, Android and the web. Save recipes from TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest or any website in one tap, scan cookbook pages, and sort everything into cookbooks. Plan your week, get a merged grocery list, and cook step by step in Cooking Mode. Unlimited recipes, cloud sync, and no ads. An optional Pro subscription and a Family plan unlock more imports and planning.

Key features

1One-tap import from Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube and any website, plus cookbook page scanning
2Free tier with unlimited recipes, cloud sync, 20 social imports/week and no ads
3Meal planner with calorie and macro tracking, merged grocery lists grouped by aisle
4Cooking Mode with one-step-at-a-time display, auto-sizing text and built-in timer
5Family plan sharing Pro across iOS and Android for up to 6 members at $49.99/year

Target customer profile

Drawn from the product itself, not from a survey.

Scout Review

Written by AI from measured evidence, scored out of 100.

Recipe Notes is a competent, well-executed recipe saver that does the boring things right: a genuinely usable free tier, a clean app UI, real social import, and a changelog that shows the team shipping. The measured evidence backs the impression — desktop Lighthouse 95, accessibility 95, 4.7/5 from 407 ratings. Where it falls short is the unglamorous infrastructure: mobile LCP at 4.7s, a security header checklist at 5/12 with no HSTS, CSP or DMARC, and no published compliance or accessibility statements to point at. None of that is a crisis for a consumer app at this stage, but it's the difference between 'good indie app' and 'the one you'd trust with your whole recipe collection and a family plan.' The idea itself has a real wedge — free where Paprika and ReciMe charge — and the execution so far suggests it can hold it.

Measure by measure

Usability

Free tier is real: unlimited recipes, sync, 20 social imports a week, no credit card. Changelog shows genuine iteration — ingredient parsing fixes, recipes.json export, widgets. 4.7/5 across 407 ratings backs it up. Onboarding to first saved recipe is a share-sheet tap.

Design

Judging the app UI from store screenshots: clean recipe cards with source tags, ratings and a clear bottom tab bar. Homepage is well-crafted with real mockups and a coherent beige/orange palette, though a duplicated promo graphic and faint table borders cost polish.

Speed

Desktop Lighthouse 95/100 and mobile 83/100 with CLS 0 and TBT 88ms — genuinely snappy. The catch is mobile LCP at 4.7s, well past the 2.5s 'good' line, so the first paint on a phone drags before everything else flies.

Security

Accessibility

Lighthouse a11y 95/100 with 11-12 language localizations including Arabic RTL — strong coverage. Three real fails remain: insufficient color contrast, no main landmark, and visible labels without matching accessible names. No WCAG statement published, so the automated score is the ceiling of what's verified.

Growth

Real problem (recipes scattered across TikTok, screenshots and cookbooks), specific segments named, and a defensible wedge: free unlimited recipes plus 20 social imports a week where Paprika charges per platform and ReciMe gates the free tier. 4.7/5 from 407 ratings is context, not the score.

Improvement areas

Mobile LCP of 4.7s — well past the 2.5s 'good' threshold and the biggest speed gap
Security headers at 5/12: no HSTS, CSP, frame protection, Permissions-Policy or DMARC
No published SOC 2, ISO, pen-test, bug bounty or dedicated security/privacy page
Three Lighthouse a11y fails (contrast, main landmark, accessible names) and no WCAG statement

Design & Usability

Recipe Notes is judged here on its app UI, not just the landing page, and the app looks the part: recipe cards with source tags, cook time, servings and star ratings, plus a bottom tab bar that makes the four core flows obvious. The website backs it up with real iPhone mockups instead of stock illustrations and a soft beige/orange palette that reads food-appropriate rather than generic SaaS. Usability is the stronger half. The free tier is not a demo — unlimited recipes, cloud sync, 20 social imports a week, no credit card — and the changelog shows the team actually shipping fixes (ingredient parsing, recipes.json export, widgets, in-app subscription management) rather than sitting on a launch. 4.7/5 across 407 ratings is consistent with low friction. The weak spots are cosmetic: a duplicated promo graphic, cramped feature text next to phone mockups on desktop, and a comparison table whose borders are too faint to scan.

Speed & Security

Speed is a tale of two devices. Desktop Lighthouse lands at 95/100 and the site feels light — CLS 0, TBT 88ms, FCP 1.2s — but mobile performance is 83/100 with an LCP of 4.7 seconds, which is nearly double the 'good' threshold. On a phone the first meaningful paint drags before everything else catches up, and for an app whose whole pitch is 'save it in one tap from your feed,' a slow first load is the wrong place to lose people. Security is the weakest dimension. HTTPS is enforced and X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy and SPF are present, but there is no HSTS, no CSP, no frame protection, no Permissions-Policy and no DMARC — 5 of 12 checklist points. No SOC 2, ISO, pen-test or bug bounty is published anywhere on the site. For a consumer app storing personal recipes and a Family plan sharing across six accounts, that's thin. None of it is a breach; all of it is table stakes left on the table.

Accessibility & Growth

Accessibility scores well on the automated side: Lighthouse 95/100, and the app ships in 11-12 languages including Arabic with RTL support, which is more than most indie recipe apps bother with. Three real fails remain — insufficient color contrast (the orange-on-beige accent), no main landmark, and visible text labels without matching accessible names — and there is no published WCAG statement, so 95 is the ceiling of what's verified rather than a claim the team stands behind. Growth is a judgement on the idea, not the traction. The problem is real and specific: recipes live in TikTok saves, Instagram screenshots, Pinterest boards and a drawer of index cards, and nobody wants to retype them. The wedge is concrete — free unlimited recipes plus 20 social imports a week, where Paprika 3 charges $4.99 per platform and doesn't do social import at all, and ReciMe gates its free tier. Named segments (students, fitness, families, food creators) show the team knows who it's for. The limit is that the category is crowded and the differentiator is copyable: a share-sheet extension and a generous free tier are not a moat, they're a head start. 4.7/5 from 407 ratings and 50,000+ claimed home cooks suggest the wedge is landing; whether it holds depends on whether the free tier converts before a competitor matches it.

Conclusion

If you've got recipes scattered across TikTok saves, Instagram screenshots and a cookbook you never open, Recipe Notes is the easiest recommendation in this category right now: free, no ads, no credit card, and the import actually works. The Pro tier at $34.99/year is reasonable for unlimited everything, and the Family plan at $49.99/year for six cooks is priced to be a no-brainer for households. The caveats are real but not disqualifying — a slow mobile first paint, thin security headers, and no published compliance docs. Fix those three and this moves from 'good free app' to 'the default.' Until then, it's the one to try first, not necessarily the one to bet your whole archive on without an export.

Suggestions for improvement

Cut mobile LCP from 4.7s toward 2.5s — preload the hero image, defer non-critical JS, and serve responsive image sizes on the landing page.
Add HSTS, a Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options and DMARC. These are hours of work and move the security checklist from 5/12 to double digits.
Publish a short security/privacy page stating what data is stored, where, and how export/deletion works — especially for the Family plan sharing across accounts.
Fix the three Lighthouse a11y fails: bump the orange-on-beige contrast, add a <main> landmark, and align visible labels with accessible names.

How we score

Alternatives comparison

Named competitors, point by point. Nobody paid to appear here or to be left out.

	Recipe Notes	Paprika 3	ReciMe
Free tier	Yes — unlimited recipes, sync, 20 social imports/week, no ads	No — paid app, $4.99 per platform	Limited free tier, subscription for full features
Social media import (Instagram/TikTok)	Yes — 20 free social imports/week, unlimited on Pro	Not supported	Yes — limited on free tier
Price	Free; Pro $34.99/yr or $4.99/mo; Family $49.99/yr for 6	$4.99 per platform (one-time)	Subscription required for full features
Cloud sync	Free, included on all tiers	Paid	Paid
Meal planning & grocery list	Yes — 2 days free, unlimited on Pro; merged grocery list	Yes — meal planning and grocery lists included	Yes — meal planning and grocery lists
Family / multi-user sharing	Family plan — Pro for 6 members across iOS & Android, $49.99/yr	Not a headline feature	Not a headline feature
Ads	Never, on any tier	None (paid app)	Ads on free tier

Paprika 3

A popular recipe manager that lets you save recipes from websites, plan meals, and create grocery lists. It's a paid app ($4.99 per platform) with no social media import and no free tier.

ReciMe

A recipe organizer with social media import, meal planning, and grocery lists. It has a limited free tier and requires a subscription for full features.

Comparing options? See Recipe Notes alternatives, scored side by side

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