LoafNote vs Sourdough Bread Timer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
LoafNote
This app helps sourdough bakers manage their starter, adjust bulk fermentation based on kitchen temperature, and plan bakes. It offers timed reminders, recipe import, and a built-in learning course for beginners.
- Starter care and health tracking
- Temperature-adjusted bulk fermentation timing
- Bake planning and backward scheduling
- Recipe import from links, text, or photos
- Timed step reminders
- Bake logging and learning
- Beginner sourdough course and glossary
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Sourdough runs on your kitchen's temperature, not the recipe writer's clock. Tell LoafNote when you want warm bread and it plans the whole bake backward from that moment, tuned to your kitchen and scheduled around your sleep. PLAN THE BAKE BACKWARD Pick a finish time. LoafNote works back through every step: when to feed, when to mix, when to shape, including cold proofs. If a schedule would have you folding dough at 3am, it bends the plan so the work lands while you're awake. When that isn't possible, it says so. BULK THAT WATCHES THE TEMPERATURE Tell LoafNote your kitchen temperature and it adjusts the bulk window with guidance for every rise along the way. YOUR STARTER, LOOKED AFTER Keep one starter or several. LoafNote tracks each feed and shows you at a glance whether a starter is hungry, rising, or at peak, so it's ready when you are. NO STARTER YET? MAKE ONE Mix flour and water and LoafNote takes it from there: what to feed each day, what the jar should look like, and why the quiet day 4 is normal. In about a week, a readiness check walks you through the signs that it can raise bread. A NUDGE WHEN IT'S TIME Start a bake and put the phone down. Step timers and reminders tell you when the dough needs you, and the current step sits on your lock screen with its countdown running. RUN MORE THAN ONE BAKE A boule for Saturday and a focaccia for tonight can run side by side. Each bake keeps its own timers and its own lock screen countdown, and Home lists every active bake in one place. When the day gets away from you, pause a step and resume when you're back at the counter. RECIPES WITHOUT THE SCROLLING Paste a link, paste text, or import from a photo. You get the ingredients and timed steps, with hydration and baker's percentages worked out with everything measured in grams. Your recipes stay on your phone forever and you can share them with friends with one tap! EVERY LOAF TEACHES THE NEXT Rate the crumb and note what you'd change. That note greets you the next time you start the same recipe. LEARN BEFORE BAKING New to sourdough? A built-in course walks you through the basics, and a glossary covers the terms bakers actually use. No question is too small. FREE FOR A MONTH Try everything free for a month. Long enough to wake a starter up and put a few real bakes behind you. After that, LoafNote is $3.99 a month or $29.99 a year, and the subscription includes the whole app. What you're paying for is the planning: a schedule built backward from when you want bread, bent around your sleep, with bulk timing tuned to your kitchen. A timer alone doesn't do that. No ads, no account needed, and your baking data stays on your device. Terms: https://loafnote.com/terms.html Privacy: https://loafnote.com/privacy.html
Sourdough Bread Timer
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Sourdough doesn't wait for you. Levain runs your whole bake from one timeline — every stage, every fold, every proof — and its alarms ring through silent mode so you never sleep through a shape again. Most timers count down once. A real loaf needs eight stages across eighteen hours, half of them overnight. Levain was built for that. ONE TIMER, EVERY STAGE Chain autolyse, mix, bulk ferment, folds, shape, cold retard and bake into a single schedule. Every step shows the clock time it will actually happen, before you start — so you know tonight whether you are pulling bread out at 7am or at noon. Long bakes get Next Day markers where the timeline crosses midnight. ALARMS THAT ACTUALLY WAKE YOU Stage alerts ring through silent mode and Focus, the way a Clock alarm does. Loud alarms are per stage: quiet for the overnight retard, loud for the oven. LIVE ON YOUR LOCK SCREEN The countdown lives in the Dynamic Island and on your Lock Screen. Glance at the stage name, the step number and the time left without opening the app. DOUGH THAT RUNS LATE When a stage ends the clock keeps counting up instead of resetting. Dough is ready when it is ready — Levain waits, and tells you how far over you are. BUILD YOUR OWN BREAD Drag stages into a timeline, scrub durations on a rotary dial, and drop ingredients, temperatures and humidity targets onto any step. Baker's percentage is calculated as you go, with levain counted as half flour and half water. A JOURNAL OF EVERY LOAF Log a bake and it becomes a photo on your calendar. The background is lifted off your loaf on device, so the bread sits as a sticker on the day you baked it. Notes, a gallery, the ingredients and the timeline it really ran on are kept as a snapshot — editing the recipe later never rewrites history. Starts with Classic Sourdough and Sourdough Focaccia. No account, and nothing leaves your phone. FREE AND PRO Free includes 3 recipes with the full multi-stage timer, loud alarms and Live Activity. Levain Pro unlocks unlimited recipes and the full photo bake journal, with a 7-day free trial. Available monthly, yearly, or as a one-time purchase. Monthly and yearly plans renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel in Settings. Terms of Use: https://liuys614.github.io/levain/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://liuys614.github.io/levain/privacy.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: LoafNote at 15.1 against Sourdough Bread Timer's 26.0. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. LoafNote sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and Sourdough Bread Timer sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
LoafNote ships an update every 6 days, Sourdough Bread Timer every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | LoafNote | Sourdough Bread Timer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days — better | Every 8 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Subscription | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 61 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bruin Labs LLC | YI SHIH LIU |
In-app purchases
LoafNote
- LoafNote Monthly1 Month trial$3.991 Month
- LoafNote Annual1 Month trial$29.991 Year
Sourdough Bread Timer
- Pro Monthly: Unlimited Journal$3.991 Month
- Pro Yearly: Unlimited Recipes7 Days trial$15.991 Year
- Pro Lifetime: Unlimited Bakes$29.99









