Comparison

Pepperplate Cooking Planner vs MasterCook

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Pepperplate Cooking Planner

Organize your recipes, plan meals, and create smart shopping lists. This app helps you manage your entire cooking process, from importing recipes to syncing lists across devices for easy grocery shopping.

Highlights
  • Recipe management
  • Menu creation
  • Smart shopping lists
  • Recipe import
  • Meal scheduling
  • Cross-device syncing
  • Offline access
Features
Read full description

Pepperplate is the only app for serious cooks. It has all the tools you need to cook weeknight dinners or host a dinner party for 12. Manage your recipes, create menus, shop with ease and cook like a pro on your iPad and iPhone. Features: * Pepperplate seamlessly manages recipes, menus and shopping lists on the web, iPad and iPhone. * Take your iPad into the kitchen and cook your whole menu with multiple timers for each recipe. * Share your favorite recipes with friends and family via Email, Facebook and Twitter. * Import recipes from your favorite sites and add your own from cookbooks, magazines or old family recipes. * Combine recipes into menus for dinner parties or holiday meal planning. * Organize your meals for the week or month by adding menus and recipes to the schedule. * Add to the shopping list on the web and it automatically syncs to your iPhone or iPad to take to the store. * Shopping list is automatically organized to match the order you shop in the grocery store. * Create your own categories to organize your recipe collection. * Your collection synchronizes automatically from the website to the iPad and iPhone and is backed up automatically without connecting to a computer. * Take your entire collection with you to the grocery store or while traveling, no internet connection required. Privacy Policy: https://pepperplate.com/privacy.aspx Terms of Service: https://pepperplate.com/terms.aspx

About

MasterCook

Organize your recipes and create shopping lists with this app. It allows you to import recipes online, scale ingredients automatically, and search your collection. Collaborate with others by creating private group cookbooks.

Highlights
  • Import recipes online with one click
  • Organize recipes into custom cookbooks
  • Automatically scale recipe ingredients
  • Add recipes to shopping lists
  • Search recipes by cookbook, category, and title
  • Create private group cookbooks for collaboration
Features
Read full description

Chefs, culinary schools, restaurants, home cooks, and foodservice companies have trusted the MasterCook products for over 27 years. Let MasterCook organize your recipes and shopping lists in your private online account. A FREE 30-day trial allows you to store up to 25 recipes in your online account with full functionality of features. A paid subscription allows you to store up to 100,000 recipes in your online account until your subscription expires. Here’s what you can do with the MasterCook App: • Download recipes online with just 1 click! View a recipe in a web browser and use the Share button to send it to your MasterCook app. • Organize recipes into custom cookbooks. • Scale a recipe to change its servings, and MasterCook will adjust the ingredient amounts automatically. • Add a recipe to a shopping list. • Search your recipes based on cookbook, category, and recipe title. • Create private group cookbooks to collaborate with friends and family. Use the MasterCook mobile app on its own or use it in conjunction with the MasterCook Windows product to access even more tools like adding recipes to menus and meal plans and performing nutritional and cost analysis of your recipes and menus and meal plans. Learn more at https://www.mastercook.com/learn-more If you have any questions, contact MasterCook Support and receive a timely reply.

Screenshots

Pepperplate Cooking Planner4 screens
MasterCook4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is chart position: Pepperplate Cooking Planner at #59 against MasterCook's unranked. Pepperplate Cooking Planner also leads on iOS requirement (11.0 vs 16.0). On price, review sentiment, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Pepperplate Cooking Planner sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $2.99 per month and MasterCook sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pepperplate Cooking Planner ships an update every 2 months, MasterCook every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 9 level
Pepperplate Cooking Planner versus MasterCook: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPepperplate Cooking PlannerMasterCook
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.9 (50 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews38.7% of reviews — better31.8% of reviews
Number of ratings50 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 5 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#59 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS11.0 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size75 MB265 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPepperplate Inc.Valusoft Finance, LLC

Customer experience

Pepperplate Cooking Planner

All ratings50 ratings
Positive42.0%
Neutral14.0%
Negative44.0%
Written reviews507 reviews
Positive38.7%
Neutral11.0%
Negative50.3%

MasterCook

All ratings41 ratings
Positive46.3%
Neutral7.3%
Negative46.3%
Written reviews66 reviews
Positive31.8%
Neutral12.1%
Negative56.1%

User reviews

Pepperplate Cooking Planner

From 50 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 🚀 Seamless syncing across devices
  • 💡 Helpful meal planning and shopping list features
  • 🔒 Secure storage of personal recipes
  • 👍 Visually appealing and organized layout

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes and syncing issues
  • 🔒 Paywall to access personal recipes
  • 💰 Expensive monthly subscription
  • 🔍 Limited recipe import options from websites
  • 🔧 Lack of updates and feature improvements

MasterCook

From App Store reviews

What we love

  • 👍 Great for organizing recipes
  • 🌟 Excellent customer support
  • 📲 Syncs across devices
  • 💡 Easy recipe import
  • ✅ Long-time user satisfaction

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent app crashes
  • 🐛 Registration/login issues
  • 🐛 Display/font problems
  • 🐛 Editing and saving errors
  • 📉 Poor app functionality

Bugs and requests

Pepperplate Cooking Planner

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Recipes disappearing from planner
  • Shopping list not syncing properly across devices
  • Inconsistent behavior when adding/editing recipes

Requested features

5 requests
  • Ability to customize shopping list categories
  • Option to scale recipes directly in meal planner
  • Integration with nutrition tracking apps
  • Improved recipe search and filtering
  • Easier way to export/backup personal recipes

MasterCook

Reported bugs

21 issues
  • App crashes when opening
  • Cannot register/login
  • Text invisible or unreadable
  • Editing fails with error message
  • Recipes not saving
Show 16 more
  • App closes randomly
  • Recipes not importing correctly
  • Syncing issues
  • Cannot export app recipes to PC
  • Search function not working
  • App crashes on search for non-existent item
  • System error on login
  • Cannot delete app
  • Display issues after upgrade
  • Cannot see cookbook names
  • Ingredients not recognized for nutritional info
  • Cannot move between recipe edit screens
  • Keyboard covers input field
  • App not opening after upgrade
  • App not recognizing online status
  • Login credentials shown for another user

Requested features

11 requests
  • Search by ingredient
  • Print recipes and shopping lists
  • Copy/paste functionality
  • Improve UI/reduce whitespace
  • Direct web import on tablet
Show 6 more
  • Meal planning feature
  • Search function for recipes
  • Sort by category
  • Pantry functionality
  • Landscape mode for iPad
  • Ascending sort for downloaded recipes

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Pepperplate Cooking Planner

Subscriptions1
  • Auto Renew Monthly Membership$2.991 Month
1 purchases

MasterCook

One-time1
  • MasterCook One Year Subscription$99.99

Questions

Is Pepperplate Cooking Planner free?
Pepperplate Cooking Planner is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is MasterCook free?
MasterCook is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Pepperplate Cooking Planner or MasterCook have ads?
Neither Pepperplate Cooking Planner nor MasterCook shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pepperplate Cooking Planner or MasterCook?
Pepperplate Cooking Planner ships an update every 2 months, and MasterCook every 5 weeks. Most recently, Pepperplate Cooking Planner was updated on October 18, 2026 and MasterCook on October 14, 2026.

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