Unpacking Tasty: How BuzzFeed Cooks Up Engagement (and $20k/Month) with AI and Community

Onboarding: Personalization from the First Whisk

Tasty knows that personalization is key in the crowded food app space. Its onboarding flow, consisting of roughly five core steps, wastes no time in tailoring the experience.

Right after the splash screen proclaiming "Yeah, I can cook that!", users are met with Apple's ATT prompt. Tasty frames tracking consent as a way to "support our content and app" and show "more relevant ads," a standard but direct approach.

The personalization kicks in immediately:

1. Recipe Preferences: Users are asked to select at least three recipes they like from a visual grid. This immediately feeds the recommendation engine. ✅
2. Cooking Style: The app probes deeper, asking "What's most important to you when cooking?" with options like "I want easy recipes," "I want comfort food," or "I want to meal prep." Limiting the choice to two keeps it quick.

Account creation follows, leveraging familiar options like Google Sign-In, which streamlines the process by sharing basic profile info. A playful donut loading animation adds a touch of brand personality before the user dives in. This multi-step personalization isn't just fluff; it's designed to deliver relevant content from the moment the main app loads, boosting initial engagement.

The Soft Sell: Monetization & Tasty+ 💰

Interestingly, Tasty presents its subscription offer, "Tasty+", fairly early, often right after the initial onboarding personalization. The screen highlights key benefits for subscribers:

• Access to exclusive meal plans
• Unlimited options to create/edit plans
• Time-saving grocery lists
• Editor's tips for reducing food waste

They employ a common pricing tactic, showcasing a yearly plan ($23.99/year) with a significant discount compared to the monthly option ($3.99/month), framing it as a "Sale! 31% Off" and breaking it down to a lower perceived monthly cost.

Crucially, this appears to be a soft paywall. There's no mandatory free trial signup forcing a payment method upfront. Users can likely skip this initial offer and explore the core app, encountering Tasty+ prompts later when accessing premium features like locked meal plans. This approach, combined with running ads in the free tier (as indicated by metadata), allows BuzzFeed to monetize both free and paying users, contributing to that $20k monthly revenue figure.

Core Features: More Than Just Recipes 🍲

Tasty’s success isn't just its massive recipe library; it's how users interact with it.

• AI in the Kitchen: Meet Botatouille: Tasty integrates an AI-powered chatbot named "Botatouille." This AI co-pilot aims to help users discover recipes, improve techniques, and solve cooking problems via a conversational interface. Asking "What's a well-loved dish from Thai cuisine?" prompts Botatouille to suggest Pad Thai and provide specific recipe links directly within the chat. It’s a modern, helpful addition moving beyond static recipe browsing. 🤖
• Deep Recipe Discovery & Filtering: Finding the right recipe is easy. Beyond standard search, the "What's in your kitchen?" feature lets users input up to three ingredients they already have. The filtering options are impressively granular, covering Difficulty (Under 30 Minutes, 5 Ingredients or Less), Meal type, Occasion (Date Night, Game Day), Diet (Vegan, Gluten-Free), Cuisine (Asian, Italian), and even Cooking Style (Big Batch, Budget). This caters to specific user needs and intentions.
• Community & Social Proof: Tasty heavily leverages its user base. Recipe pages feature photos from "How Others Made This Recipe," user tips (like "Do not go to sleep while they are cooking" 😂), ratings ("Would you make this again?"), and comments. Community recipes are clearly marked. This social proof builds trust, provides real-world context, and fosters a sense of belonging, turning passive browsing into active participation.
• Meal Planning & Grocery Lists (Premium Play): The app offers structured Meal Plans, often curated around themes (e.g., "Springtime Delights"). Accessing the full plans and their corresponding categorized Grocery Lists (listing ingredients by aisle like Dairy, Produce, Pantry) typically requires a Tasty+ subscription, clearly signposted with "Unlock this meal plan" buttons. This serves as a compelling driver for conversion.

UI/UX: Dark Mode & Delicious Visuals 📱

Tasty primarily uses a dark mode interface, which makes the vibrant food photography and videos pop. The layout is image-heavy, relying on visual appeal to draw users in. Navigation seems intuitive with clear tabs or sections for discovery, search, meal planning (likely), and user profiles. Interactions like saving recipes (heart icons) or adjusting servings are straightforward. Animations are used sparingly but effectively, like the loading donut, adding polish without being distracting.

Growth Engine Breakdown 🚀

Tasty's growth, hitting 55,000 monthly downloads, likely stems from several factors:

• Brand Power: Being a BuzzFeed entity provides massive reach and cross-promotional opportunities.
• Content Flywheel: The core offering of recipes, especially with video, is highly shareable and discoverable across web and social media, driving organic installs.
• Community Engagement: User-generated content keeps the app fresh and encourages retention. Users sharing tips and photos become invested contributors.
• Feature Innovation: Adding features like the AI assistant "Botatouille" and robust filtering keeps the app competitive and relevant.
• Smart Monetization: The blend of ads for free users and a feature-gated soft paywall for Tasty+ allows monetization across different user segments without alienating new users immediately.

Key Takeaways for App Builders 🧠

Dissecting Tasty reveals several patterns applicable to other app ventures:

• Personalize Early: Tailoring the experience from the first interaction significantly boosts engagement. Ask users what they want.
• Leverage AI Thoughtfully: AI isn't just hype. Used correctly, like Botatouille, it can genuinely enhance discovery and user support.
• Build Community: Don't underestimate the power of user-generated content and social proof. It builds trust and retention.
• Flexible Monetization: A hard paywall isn't the only option. Soft paywalls and ad-supported tiers allow broader reach and diverse revenue streams. Consider where value justifies payment.
• Visuals Matter: Especially in categories like food, high-quality imagery and video are non-negotiable for grabbing user attention.

Conclusion: A Recipe for Success

Tasty demonstrates a sophisticated approach to the recipe app market. By combining a vast content library with deep personalization, community features, AI assistance, and a flexible monetization strategy, BuzzFeed has created an engaging platform that effectively converts users. It understands that getting users to cook requires more than just listing ingredients – it requires inspiration, guidance, and a sense of community, all wrapped in a visually appealing package. Analyzing apps like Tasty reveals the complex interplay of features, UX, and strategy needed to thrive in today's competitive app landscape.