Calz - Calorie Counter AI

What it does

Calz is an AI-powered health and fitness app designed to simplify nutrition tracking. Its primary feature is a food scanner that allows users to log meals by taking a photo, automatically analyzing ingredients, calories, and macronutrients. Beyond calorie counting, the app offers tools for tracking intermittent fasting, weight progress, water intake, and physical activities to provide a holistic view of the user's health journey.

Where it shines

The app's strength lies in its highly personalized and empathetic user journey. The onboarding quiz (00:10 - 02:04) is remarkably detailed, asking about everything from past dieting experiences to specific bad habits, which makes the resulting plan feel truly custom. The core meal logging feature is fast and provides rich feedback, including a 'Health Score' (03:39) that goes beyond simple numbers. The app's most delightful feature is its gamified mascot, whose belly fills with color to visualize daily progress (04:58), turning a routine task into a charming interaction.

UX highlights

Direct Value Framing: Early in the onboarding, the app uses simple side-by-side comparisons to show how its AI scanner is superior to 'Traditional' manual logging (00:14).
Playful Interactions: Goal-setting is made more engaging with a turtle-to-hare slider for choosing weight loss speed (01:11).
Empathy in Design: The app proactively asks if users want to allow for more calories on weekends (02:23), acknowledging a common real-world challenge for dieters.
Visual Payoff: After a long quiz, the app presents a celebratory 'Congratulations' screen with a clear, colorful chart summarizing the user's new plan (02:15), making the effort feel worthwhile.
Editable AI Results: After scanning a meal, users can tap 'Update Details' (04:29) and provide text feedback to refine the AI's analysis, which likely helps improve the model over time.
Mascot Customization: Users can choose from a variety of illustrated characters to represent their progress (02:53), adding a fun layer of personalization to the main dashboard.

Monetization & growth

The app uses a soft paywall strategy, presenting its subscription offer after the user has completed the entire personalization quiz and seen their customized plan. The paywall at 02:27 features a prominent 'SALE 60%' tag on the annual plan and breaks the price down to a monthly cost to reduce sticker shock. A toggle allows users to easily opt into a 3-day free trial, which is a great way to lower the barrier to entry before committing to the full price.

Who it’s for

This app is ideal for individuals who are new to calorie counting or have found traditional manual logging apps to be too tedious. Its user-friendly, photo-based logging makes it accessible for busy people who want a quick and easy way to track their meals. The gamified elements and empathetic tone also make it a good fit for users who need extra motivation and a less rigid approach to dieting.

Notes & opportunities

The onboarding flow is very long, which could lead to some user drop-off despite its personalization benefits. While the AI food scanning is the core feature, there could be more guidance on taking a 'good' photo earlier in the process. The app asks for a review shortly after the first meal is logged (03:58), which might be too early to form a strong opinion. Delaying this prompt could result in more thoughtful feedback.