# Cruelty Cutter — user reviews > 186 indexed App Store user reviews of Cruelty Cutter by MobileMatters.org, rated 3.50/5 from 46 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cruelty-cutter/id794639918/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cruelty-cutter/id794639918.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 26 · 4★ 1 · 3★ 4 · 2★ 1 · 1★ 14 ## What do users think of Cruelty Cutter? Overall sentiment: neutral **Pros** - 👍 Easy to use - 🚀 Quick scanning - 💡 Helpful for finding cruelty-free products - 🙌 Great concept - 🎉 Excellent app **Cons** - 🐛 Crashes frequently - 🔍 Inconsistent information - 🤔 Requires account creation - 📵 Network issues when scanning - 🤖 Outdated and buggy **Commonly reported bugs** - Unable to create account - Scan feature not working - App crashing on launch - Incorrect cruelty-free status - Login and password issues **Most requested features** - Add more products to the database - Provide alternative product suggestions - Improve search and browsing features - Allow offline scanning and lookup - Add more detailed product information ## Newest reviews (10 of 186) ### 3/5 — Suggest substituting *2025-04-18* None of these apps gives suggestions on alternatives to the product you’re scanning or have a list of let’s say toothpaste that are cruelty free. I suggest using a search based on what type of product we are looking for. **Developer response:** We'd love to do this, but haven't been able to figure out how to do this on a per-product basis. It would be cool if I scanned a tube of "Hello Oral Care Charcoal Toothpaste" and in addition to finding it to be a brand from Procter and Gamble, that we could figure out other Charcoal toothpaste brands in the store where I am and list those instead. The problem is the size of the market and the scope of our database. Unlike most of the other organizations that provide information about product testing practices and that report on a couple of thousand companies in a few countries, our data covers products from 106 countries. Specifically, we track over 400,000,000 individual products from roughly 12,000 companies. Local availability is also an issue - that toothpaste which is available in Australia or India may not be on the market in Chile or Canada. Meanwhile, we do offer the information through the ability to search product categories (such as "dental care") and find companies that sell a particular type of product. You can search particular brand names (for instance, "Crest") to find if the brand as a whole is cruelty-free. We do kinda keep dreaming about the idea because it would be SOOOO cool for the shoppers, but realistically, scaling down the trivial many (20,000 or so entries associated with just the word "toothpaste") to the significant few (the exact tubes available at my local Loblaws grocery) is a task that hasn't (at least yet) worked well with even AI tools. But we do have hope... At any rate, thank you for writing. We do agree it is a highly desireable feature. ### 3/5 — Payment *2024-12-30* How much is this app? **Developer response:** it is free. No advertising, either. It is a service paid for by the Beagle Freedom Project, a 501(c)(3) tax exempt non-profit and offered as a public service in the interest of ending unnecessary animal testing. ### 5/5 — So… *2024-07-23* I love this but can a developer pls write a review because it said that toms of maine toothpaste is not cruelty free even though it is leaping bunny certified? Please explain Thanks for replying I love this app it works now. Maybe make the app work a bit better. My dad is a software engineer so maybe he can fix it. But I use this a lot so ya FIVE STARS **Developer response:** Thank you so much for the nice review!!! We are open to ideas on how to make it even better, so please don’t be shy about dropping a note and sharing your ideas. You can do so in email to info@cruelty-cutter.org or by using the feature on the app to send feedback. We’ve gotten some great suggestions from people and we would love to hear yours — or your dad’s! ### 3/5 — So… *2024-06-30* I love this but can a developer pls write a review because it said that toms of maine toothpaste is not cruelty free even though it is leaping bunny certified? Please explain **Developer response:** Hi! Thanks for advising us that there may be an issue. Tom's of Maine, is indeed cruelty-free and all their products should appear that way. The problem is that Tom's is owned by Colgate Palmolive, a company that is not cruelty free. Colgate assigns the product numbers to Tom's from their general pool of numbers using the ranges assigned to them by GS1. As a general rule, our system will find that the barcode number has been assigned to Tom's and give the correct answer based on that assignment. However, there is an occasional case where the product code is not in our system and, since the root product number belongs to Colgate, you will see a display that shows the product name and photo ("toms of maine natural spearmint toothpaste") but has Colgate-palmolive listed as the owner of the brand, rather than Tom's. And, as a result, Colgate's status (Cruel company) is displayed. We do try hard to make sure this does not happen, but products do occasionally slip through. I just checked and we have about 7,400 individual products assigned to Tom's, but it sounds like there is another that should be on the list. We were able to match up the list of numbers for Tom's products and found a half dozen Colgate numbers that should have been assigned to Tom's and updated the list for the brand. Hopefully one of these is the one that you scanned and got the "Colgate" answer. Thank you for your patience and thank you very much for using cruelty-cutter to join us in making the lives of animals better! ### 5/5 — It’s completely useless now *2024-06-16* Can’t reset password, can’t provide feedback in the app - whenever I try to do either one after filling out all required fields it’s “Email, account Id, or password is empty.” When I go to scan anything the screen turns black. Trying to browse or search the directory is met with “Couldn’t retrieve the data.” At least the old version worked sometimes but this is TERRIBLE. EDIT: the app dev team worked with me to figure out why I was having issues. It’s very likely account-related caching for the app on my device and creating a new account got me up and running. It’s a breath of fresh air being able to use this app again! **Developer response:** Thank you for your update - this may have been the most challenging issue we've seen with the app to date. The resolution required the identification of an unusual and very subtle behavior on the device and your persistence (and patience) working with the dev team was key in figuring out what the issue was. The findings from this investigation benefit the app, the users and ultimately (of course) the effort to end the use of animals for unnecessary lab testing. Thank you again for your help! ### 3/5 — Can’t remove rating *2024-06-15* Works okay **Developer response:** Thank you very much for taking your time to leave a review! Your comment about being unable to remove a rating is a little confusing. The app provides information about whether a company has used lab testing when producing a brand or product. If you disagree with the rating ("cruelty free" , "tested on animals" or "unknown - waiting response from producer"), please do use the "feedback" option in the app to contact our customer service organization and let them know that you don't agree with the categorization. If we misunderstood your comment, could you please supply a little more information about which rating you'd like to remove? ### 1/5 — It’s completely useless now *2024-06-06* Can’t reset password, can’t provide feedback in the app - whenever I try to do either one after filling out all required fields it’s “Email, account Id, or password is empty.” When I go to scan anything the screen turns black. Trying to browse or search the directory is met with “Couldn’t retrieve the data.” At least the old version worked sometimes but this is TERRIBLE. ### 1/5 — Liked the original much better *2024-05-27* Updated this website and it’s extremely slow, does not work well when I scan products, does not give me instant feedback and constantly asks for me to enter the product information. The old app worked so much better was a lot quicker and very informative. I constantly get a blank white screen when using this new app. **Developer response:** Hi Deb! Thank you very much for letting us know you are experiencing issues. The issue with the blank white screen is troubling - even if the app can't connect to the host and get an answer, it should produce an error message rather than a blank screen. It is also concerning that the response times seem higher on the new version of the app and that the products you are scanning have. The stats in the app analytics aren't providing any insight on your problem, so would you mind dropping us a line at info@cruelty-cutter.org and letting us know what kind of iOS device you are using and approximately what time of day you had these failures? You can also use the option in the app titled "Feedback" to send us the information. We would like to duplicate your failure environment as exactly as possible to understand the root causes of your issues, whether this is an interface problem with a particular iOS version, a particular device or some sort of error involving availability of the host system. We do, most sincerely, apologize for the problem and earnestly hope for your help in identifying the root cause so we can fix it. ### 5/5 — Helpful! *2024-05-27* Great app, super helpful to be able to see which products are cruelty free. I love how the app lets me contact cruel companies directly. **Developer response:** Thank you so much for the kind words and for joining in the fight against animal testing! Every time someone chooses to buy and use cruelty-free products rather than those tested on animals is a financial affirmation of the importance of this issue. And contacting the companies that persist in unnecessary animal testing to express your displeasure is a great thing to do. We deeply appreciate your support and your kind review! ### 1/5 — requires accounts now *2024-05-22* the app was great for showing which how cruel products are to animals. all you had to do was open the app and scan the product. they added ads that appear immediately when you open the app. that was whatever. now they require you to create an account. that feels off-putting. **Developer response:** Thank you for sharing your concerns! Cruelty-Cutter does require an account. The reason that, with a single click, the app enables you to submit requests for custom research about products or companies to our support team. The response may be immediate, but it is not uncommon for companies to take as long as six weeks to respond to one of our research requests. Our support folks then use the email address in your account to send the information you requested. The credentials for the account you create are saved on your mobile device. Once saved, you don't have to re-supply them, which is what may have been happening when you used the app before. When they are saved, the app simply re-opens when you launch it. As described in more length in our privacy policy, we don't collect any other information. And we don't trouble you unnecessarily - the only time you'll hear from us is in response to your inquiries. You can also, if you wish, have your account and any associated information removed from our system by emailing support@cruelty-cutter.org or by simply using the "Delete Account" option in the "Account" menu option in the app. The new version of the app does show more news from our parent organization (Beagle Freedom Project). Perhaps more significantly, there is now a feature where you can simply type a brand or company name and find out if it is cruelty free. This is in addition to the features for scanning the barcodes on a product. The best news is that our database continues to grow. We've now been working on it for 12 years and have information about nearly 10,000 companies and over 250,000,000 products worldwide! We do appreciate the time you spent to post a comment and hope you understand why we made the design decisions we did. Cordially, info@cruelty-cutter.org ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Forces sign in to create an account *2026-07-05* I should it be forced to create an account to find out about products ### 1/5 — Useless right now *2026-06-13, version 3.1.1* I downloaded this on 6/12/26. Tried to use it on 6/13/26. Every time I scan a barcode the app crashes. No worth the space it’s taking up on my phone. ### 1/5 — Unable to scan *2026-06-07, version 3.1.1* Keeps throwing me off of if I attempt to scan ### 1/5 — Won’t scan *2026-05-05* When I try and get a barcode, the app crashes. ### 1/5 — crashing *2026-01-31* good concept but keeps crashing after scanning barcode **Developer response:** Hi! This is very unexpected (and unpleasant!) behaviour. Could you please drop us a line at support@cruelty-cutter.org so we can work with you on the problem. It would be particularly helpful to know what type of device you are using - iPhone, iPad, etc. and the model. Thank you very much! ### 1/5 — Pretty useless *2025-03-29* This app is almost useless. The scanner has not worked in months and still does not work. The search bar turns up nothing by category. I love the Beagle Freedom Project and my beagle, but not this app. Do better. **Developer response:** It sounds like the app does not have a good internet connection or something like that. If you want to drop a line to support@cruelty-cutter.org, they can schedule someone to work with you to diagnose what is wrong. ### 1/5 — Still not allowing users in *2024-09-15, version 3.0.2* Same issues expressed by a user a few months back that seemed to have been addressed by the developers but had not. Still sending me in circles with not allowing me to choose a new password or letting me log in by username and password I have stored. Help please. ### 1/5 — HORRIBLE *2024-08-30, version 3.0.2* SUPERRRRR HARD TO USE AND I HATED IT IT DOSENT EVEN WORK AND ITS SUPER LAGGY AND BAD! 😡😡😡 WASTE OF STORGAE😡🤬🤬🤬👎👎DO NOT GETTTTT 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♂️🙅TRIPPLE BAD ### 1/5 — App won’t work *2024-07-29* Thank you for destroying this app. I can never use it again to support my beagles please fire your entire app development team and hire other SDEs that know what they’re doing. I can’t login. I can’t sign up. I can’t get into scan anything to this app. I miss the old app. Please bring it back, yes I’ve tried deleting the app and reinstalling it so please do not tell me to do that because it does not work. **Developer response:** We are very sorry you are having a problem with the app! We have recently discovered that if you are using the iOS version and you don't touch the placeholder text when you are entering your credentials, iOS may not recognize that it should present the popup keyboard so the app can perform the verification. This is something that we are trying to understand and deal with. Deleting the app won't help, but where you position your finger does, at least on the login page. If you don't touch the prompt, the keyboard does not launch. We entirely agree with you that deleting the app and reinstalling it won't change anything. The issue is the area of sensitivity on that input area. It is also possible that something else is wrong, but this sounds like it is the issue we've seen once before, can replicate and are seeking a solution for. Alternatively, if it is another problem, can you describe it more thoroughly If you can drop us a line at support@cruelty-cutter.org, we can set up to have someone work with you realtime to determine what the issue is and get you logged in successfully. Please do contact us - we believe you'll love the new features as soon as you can get logged in. ### 1/5 — Not user friendly *2024-06-23* This app used to be good. Not user friendly at all. Plus, having trouble resetting password. Very hard to navigate. **Developer response:** Hi Angela, so sorry to hear you are having problems! Can you please drop us a line at support@cruelty-cutter.org or send a message through the app so someone can work with you and get the password issue figured out? We are also interested in understanding why you are not finding the new user interface less friendly than the old one. If you can give more information about what you felt used to work better, that would be very helpful, indeed! Thank you very much! ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Works excellently. *2026-07-21* It actually works and I never knew I had products in my home where the companies actually tested on innocent animals. I am an Animal Rights activist and even if you’re not, I still highly recommend this as a way to support action being taken Against animal cruelty especially when cases such as Envigo, Ridglan Farms and Marshall BioResources FINALLY arise. Thank you for this app. It’s such a dream and an honor to have it here with me today. ### 5/5 — Love it! *2026-05-05* Love this app, really has turned around EVERYTHING i use in my home. Although, maybe a suggestion. Maybe add a section that could allow the users to suggest brands and items to be put on the app for future updates! ### 5/5 — Great app *2026-05-02* After learning about Ridge land farms knew I had to make a change. I never knew how many products I had in my home that tested on innocent animals. Now I fully understand what animal testing actually is and what I can do to boycott brands that still experiment on animals. There are so many other ways to test a product. There is no need to torture animals just for a product that fails clinical trials %90 of the time. Make the change and go cruelty free!!! Thank you for this app and helping people understand what animal testing really is ### 5/5 — Best App Ever *2026-04-14* COMPLETELY FREE!!! This app tells you whether or not a product you are looking at or for is cruelty free. You can scan the barcode on the product itself or just search the brand and it will tell you. ### 5/5 — Easy to use and a great cause *2026-01-12, version 3.0.7* Great to see what products I will be keeping and getting rid of, by if it’s cruelty safe. I was shocked with some items that I scanned, this app definitely deserves more attention. If your item has never been scanned by a user it turns into doggy dollers it’s great, I recommend very great app to use if you are about our animals, bugs and updates all fixed easy to work! ### 5/5 — Brilliant App *2025-05-07* Couldn’t recommend more! ### 5/5 — Best App *2025-04-25, version 3.0.2* The app is so simple to use, scan a bar code! ### 5/5 — Super App *2025-03-29* Die app ist mega hilfreich wenn man nicht bei jedem produkt googlen möchte. Ich hatte bis jetzt noch keine schwierigkeiten, dass es keine infos zum Unternehmen gab oder sonstiges. Kann ich nur wirklich nur empfehlen! ### 5/5 — Excellent! *2024-12-21* This app works well to easily verify if a company has a cruelty free policy (scans quickly too)! Would you consider adding food products to your database? ### 5/5 — goated *2024-10-12* goated --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-27.*