# Simple Meal Planner — user reviews > 91 indexed App Store user reviews of Simple Meal Planner by Alastair Beadle, rated 3.46/5 from 41 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/simple-meal-planner/id1470760031/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/simple-meal-planner/id1470760031.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 15 · 4★ 10 · 3★ 4 · 2★ 3 · 1★ 9 ## What do users think of Simple Meal Planner? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 👍 Simple and intuitive interface - 🎨 Customizable color schemes - 📝 Easy to add own meals and ingredients - 🛒 Automatic shopping list generation - 💰 Free with no paywalls or ads - 🧠 Great for neurodivergent users - ⚡ Quick meal planning workflow - 🎯 Flexible customization options - 📱 Lightweight and responsive - 🍽️ Perfect for batch cooking organization **Cons** - 🗑️ Pre-loaded meals require manual deletion - 📅 Limited to one-week planning only - 🔤 Difficult font contrast and readability - 🍴 Only three meal slots (no snacks) - 📊 Shopping list alphabetizes automatically - 🌍 UK-focused ingredients not US-friendly - 💾 No cross-device synchronization - 🔧 Tedious multi-step process for adding items - 🎨 Garish opening colors - ⌨️ Keyboard overlap issues on mobile **Commonly reported bugs** - Keyboard covers input fields on mobile - Red font color cannot be changed - Shopping list doesn't reflect ingredient quantities - Difficulty deleting pre-loaded content - Inconsistent ingredient counting for repeated meals - No instructions or onboarding guidance - Screen doesn't scroll properly during input - Font size not adjustable **Most requested features** - Add snack meal slots (1-3 options) - Allow multiple meals per meal slot - Multi-week planning capability (2+ weeks) - Customizable week start day - Save and repeat weekly meal plans - Cross-device synchronization - Categorized shopping list by store section - Ingredient quantity tracking - Recipe upload/link functionality - Checkbox system for shopping list items - Ability to edit meal categories - Print recipe list feature - Share meal plans with family members - Editable shopping list order - Current meal highlight feature ## Newest reviews (16 of 91) ### 4/5 — Good, simple, planner! *2023-11-30, version 1.1.0* I don’t see the need for huge font range since you don’t see it much, but (unless I just haven’t figured out how to do it) it’d be nice to be able to scrap all the ‘available ingredients’ and just add your own. Otherwise, this is just what I needed and I love it turns it into a shopping list for you (how many of each ingredient you listed would be handy too 😅) ### 4/5 — Nice, basic app *2023-10-24, version 1.1.0* Would love if it had the option to add morning/afternoon tea for meal planning for kids ### 4/5 — Great app *2023-10-21, version 1.1.0* Very easy to use, would be great if could reorganize the days as I go shopping on a Wednesday. So would like my week to start on a Thursday ### 4/5 — Great app *2023-09-20, version 1.1.0* My only wish is that I could plan more than one week at a time. ### 3/5 — Good ideas but is missing some key ingredients *2023-05-02, version 1.1.0* My main gripe so far is that if I have a few meals in the week that have the same ingredient, for example onion, the shopping list will only show one onion when I actually need three. ### 3/5 — Nice and simple app but please add snacks and drinks option *2023-03-06, version 1.1.0* Very nice app but we need snack and drinks option on it otherwise it’s not complete ### 4/5 — Like the app *2023-02-22, version 1.1.0* I like the app but I wish I could change my week start day… ### 4/5 — Simple and great but one suggestion *2023-02-20, version 1.1.0* I love how simple it is and that it just dies what I need it to do. I just wish I could start my week on another day since my grocery day doesn’t fall on Sunday. Being able to rearrange the days would be awesome. ### 3/5 — Needs snacks *2023-02-18, version 1.1.0* Great simple app, but needs ability to add snacks. ### 4/5 — Great meal planner app *2022-12-31, version 1.1.0* Very easy to use would be great if you could save your weeks tho instead of having to clear it each week ### 4/5 — Forward planning! *2022-11-09, version 1.1.0* Very useful app. Just what I need. Would be great if the planner covered a two week period. ### 3/5 — Good *2022-10-14, version 1.1.0* I think the app is great but you can’t plan further than one week in advance which isn’t helpful. ### 4/5 — Perfect for what I needed! *2022-08-09, version 1.1.0* Was looking for exactly this! Weekly meal plans I can make myself. Can add multiple weeks as we like to rotate our meals. And it isn’t set to a calendar. Just a Sunday to Saturday schedule. My only suggestion is a way to sort which day your week starts. For example, my weeks usually start on Tuesday as that is my grocery day. Hope that can be a function added in the future. Besides that, it’s perfect for my needs :) ### 4/5 — I like this app, but *2022-07-12, version 1.1.0* I wish there was a way to add side dish ideas, especially for the dinner menu. ### 3/5 — Simple Menu Planner *2022-07-05, version 1.1.0* The simple menu planner is just what it says, simple and easy to use. It lets you add your own meal titles and the ingredients that go into your meals and is pretty flexible with what you need to plan meals for your week. For now I will continue to use this but I would love to see some important changes: you can print your meal plan and it listed by day and you can print your shopping list but you cannot print your recipe list which can be helpful in making sure that you know when you’re ready to put together your meal what you will need it that goes into it. Also the red lettering font doesn’t seem to be able to be changed. Other than that, it is pretty useful for my needs which are pretty simple. I just needed to be able to create my own menus and have a list of my ingredients for the week. ### 5/5 — Simplicity *2022-04-16, version 1.1.0* This app was exactly what I needed and was looking for when I searched menu planner. Very simple. Allows me to fix menu for the week and edit and simply collated what needs to be in my shopping bag. Brilliant. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Very limited *2024-01-09, version 1.1.0* You can’t edit the meal category (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner)to add or delete as needed and there is no date to help you plan ahead only 1 week at a time. ### 1/5 — Great if you live in the UK *2022-05-31, version 1.1.0* Preloaded meals and ingredients are not readily available in the US and it is not easy to update available ingredients to match your pantry. ### 1/5 — Impossible *2022-04-23, version 1.1.0* Impossible ### 1/5 — Not sure how this could “help” you *2022-03-21, version 1.1.0* I’m sure the creator of this app had good intentions, but wow is it frustrating to use? 1. Why are there preloaded meals that no one really eats? Then it takes effort to delete them to enter your own meals. and 2. No matter how you enter the grocery list l, it will alphabetize your items. C’mon…this shows the creator clearly doesn’t grocery shop.🙄 Who shops by alphabetizing their food?! I shop for my foods by how the store is set up and the grocery list won’t let you alter the list after it alphabetizes it. Not only that, it makes you go through 3 steps to enter 1 item. I can write a list 20X faster. I need an app to help me save time and access a grocery list easily. This one needs an overhaul in design. Even as a free app, it’s pretty useless. 👎🏼 Deleted it. ### 1/5 — Uploaded & Deleted *2022-01-09, version 1.1.0* I was looking for a simple, easy to use meal planner, this is not it! No instructions for use, adding to or deleting recipes almost impossible as the screen doesn’t move when your keyboard comes up, garish colours on opening, I basically uploaded this app, tried to use it and promptly deleted it. Don’t bother. ### 1/5 — Already filled in *2020-06-19, version 1.1.0* All meals were already filled in when I downloaded it. Looking for a simple app that does nothing more than let me plan out my future meals, does not try to make meal decisions for me, and that certainly does not make extra work for me by being pre-filled so that I have to manually delete what is there before I can start filling in what I actually want to enter. Would give 0 stars if I could due to the app taking up time due to the above instead of saving time. ### 1/5 — Confusing *2020-06-14, version 1.1.0* Not enough information to navigate and add items to shopping list. Deleted it same day I downloaded it! ### 2/5 — Too complex and overcrowded *2022-05-24, version 1.1.0* There are too many preset options in the app and it is taking me forever to delete them. It is over complicated for no reason. Guess I’ll get a paid app ### 2/5 — No section for snacks *2021-05-03, version 1.1.0* Exactly what I was looking for, but too hard to use without snacks column ### 2/5 — Tedious *2020-12-19, version 1.1.0* Few preloaded choices. Extremely tedious to add ingredients or new meals. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Perfect and easy and no purchase needed *2024-11-10, version 1.1.0* Perfect great colors and easy to use. I don’t write reviews often. This was exactly what I wanted!!! ### 5/5 — R bc bench *2024-04-18, version 1.1.0* Udhdhdj ### 5/5 — Amazing *2024-04-06, version 1.1.0* Really easy way to plan and save meals for easy planning in the future ### 5/5 — Menu planner *2024-02-21, version 1.1.0* great little app just need a food type category list list all the veg together etc ### 5/5 — Great basic meal planner *2024-01-16, version 1.1.0* Great basic meal planner, allows to enter own meals and create shopping lisis. It allows to enter three meals per day. Be aware that is is very basic and you have to create lots of ingredients and meals to start with, as it only contains a few. For future releases it would be great if it was possible to add more than one meal per meal time as it would allow for example for a main and salad or a sandwich and fruit without having to enter it as one meal. It would also be nice to have the option to add two snacka for the day. All in all it works as it is, thanks a lot for creating this. ### 5/5 — Exactly what I needed *2023-06-01, version 1.1.0* Simple to use, easy to edit, and you can customise to your liking - exactly what I was looking for, for planning my baby weaning meals ### 5/5 — Great App *2023-05-21, version 1.1.0* This is a great App for organising meals. The only shortcomings I can find are in the Shopping List. Ideally you should be able to select or deselect items for the weekly shop. For example I created Mild Curry Powder for some of my Recipes but I don't need to buy it every week. Also it would be great if I could have a field to say which shop I use for each ingredient. ### 5/5 — Simple for the neurodivergent *2023-01-21, version 1.1.0* I love this app. I’ve been looking for something simple like this for a while. What I usually get is over complicated with limited features and there own complicated or nasty recipes and like2 hours later after fiddling with the app and getting distracted I realize it’s too much. This app is simple to the point. They has some of their own simple ideas in there but seems like to make it look not empty and give u an idea of how the app works. Also the recipes are really simple and I’ve actually adopted some of them☺️ I’m a single neurodivergent mom with 2 jobs and 2 children who both require a lot of extra appointments and attention (and 2 kittens 🤦🏻‍♀️) this app is perfect. THANK YOU ### 5/5 — One of my favourite apps *2023-01-18, version 1.1.0* I never really write reviews but came back here to say this app is helpful. I have ADHD and have struggled with grocery lists, budgeting for groceries, binge eating, and meal planning and this app has made things a lot easier for me. I now look forward grocery planning. ### 5/5 — I love it *2022-10-02, version 1.1.0* This app is exactly what it said. Simple and easy to use. Love love love. --- *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 2026-06-11.*