Cal AI and Zach Yadegari: how the app works, the figures and the MyFitnessPal acquisition

Cal AI is a mobile app that estimates the calories and macronutrients of a meal from a photo. Co-founded by Zach Yadegari and launched in May 2024, it belongs to MyFitnessPal, which announced the acquisition on March 2, 2026. According to MyFitnessPal, it had passed 15 million downloads and $30 million in annual revenue in under two years. These figures are stated by the companies and have not been audited. As of October 23, 2026, Zach Yadegari has left MyFitnessPal (June 2026, according to what he told TechCrunch) and is launching a new startup, Persona.

At a glance

• App: estimates calories and macronutrients from a photo, on iPhone and Android.
• Launch: May 2024, according to the founder and CNBC Make It.
• Owner: MyFitnessPal, acquisition announced on March 2, 2026, price not disclosed.
• MyFitnessPal figures (March 2, 2026): more than 15 million downloads and more than $30 million in annual revenue.
• Price: free to download, meal analysis requires a subscription (App Store listing, October 23, 2026).
• Accuracy: about 80% according to Cal AI; a preliminary NIH study (July 2026) measures underestimates across four photo apps.

Cal AI in 9 dates

What is Cal AI and how does the app work?

Cal AI is a calorie-tracking app available on iPhone and Android. You photograph your meal, artificial intelligence estimates the calories, protein, carbohydrates and fat, then the app records the result. Cal AI’s website says the phone’s depth sensor helps estimate the volume of the food. Our article How does artificial intelligence work? explains the principles behind this kind of recognition.

The app also offers barcode scanning, describing a meal by text, manual entry of foods and recipes, and syncing with Apple Health and Google Fit for steps and exercise (Cal AI website, October 23, 2026). The App Store listing presents it as free to download, with in-app purchases, and says meal analysis results require a subscription. The website advertises a 3-day free trial. The listing also states that Cal AI does not provide medical advice.

Since the acquisition, Cal AI uses MyFitnessPal’s nutrition database: 20 million foods, 68,500 brands and the menus of more than 380 restaurant chains (TechCrunch, March 2, 2026). According to MyFitnessPal, Cal AI remains a separate app.

Timeline: from launch to Persona

Date	Event	Source
Around March 2024	First lines of code for the app, according to Zach Yadegari.	Latka
May 2024	Cal AI launches.	Latka ; CNBC Make It via The Nightly
May 15, 2025	Interview with Zach Yadegari: about 250 creators paid on monthly retainers, 17 full-time employees.	Latka
September 2025	CNBC Make It publishes figures drawn from documents: 30 employees, about $1.4 million in gross profit per month.	The Nightly
December 2025	MyFitnessPal completes the acquisition after almost a year of talks, according to TechCrunch.	TechCrunch ; eWeek
March 2, 2026	MyFitnessPal announces the acquisition. Price not disclosed; Cal AI remains a separate app.	MyFitnessPal ; TechCrunch
April 2026	Apple briefly pulls Cal AI from the App Store, then the app returns after fixes.	TechCrunch ; MacRumors
June 2026	Zach Yadegari leaves MyFitnessPal, according to his own statements.	TechCrunch
July 25, 2026	A preliminary study by NIH researchers, presented at the NUTRITION 2026 conference, tests four photo apps including Cal AI.	ScienceDaily ; Medical Daily
October 8, 2026	Persona, Zach Yadegari’s new startup, announces $10 million raised.	TechCrunch ; AI News Weekly
October 15, 2026	Zach Yadegari discusses Cal AI’s growth at TechCrunch Disrupt.	TechCrunch

Cal AI figures: who states them and when

None of these figures has been audited. They do not measure the same thing (revenue, sales, gross profit, recurring revenue) and cannot be added together.

Date	Figure	Who states it	Nature
Interview of May 15, 2025	First million dollars in sales about five months after launch; 20,000 to 30,000 downloads per day; 17 full-time employees.	Zach Yadegari, via Latka	Self-reported, period for the million not specified
September 2025	About $1.4 million in gross profit per month after app store commissions; nearly $274,000 in monthly operating income; 30 employees.	Documents reviewed by CNBC Make It, republished by The Nightly	Figures drawn from documents, unaudited
March 2, 2026	More than 15 million downloads and more than $30 million in annual revenue, in under two years; a team of seven plus contractors.	MyFitnessPal, via TechCrunch	Stated by the acquirer
March 2, 2026	More than $40 million in sales over the last 12 months.	Zach Yadegari, in the MyFitnessPal press release	Stated, unaudited
April 21, 2026	$50 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).	TechCrunch, without citing a source	Unattributed
October 23, 2026	“5 million users” and 100,000 five-star ratings claimed; 4.8 out of 5 from 372,000 ratings on the US App Store.	Cal AI website ; App Store listing	Marketing claim and listing data

The figure of $1.12 million per month, which appeared in this article’s old title, was not found in any dated source: it has been removed. Headcounts vary by source and date: 17 full-time employees in May 2025, 30 employees in September 2025, seven people plus contractors in March 2026. We have no way to reconcile them.

The MyFitnessPal acquisition

MyFitnessPal announced the acquisition of Cal AI on March 2, 2026. The price was not disclosed. According to TechCrunch, talks lasted almost a year and the deal was completed in December 2025. The team of seven, including Zach Yadegari, was kept along with a few contractors.

MyFitnessPal CEO Mike Fisher says he tracks about 70 competitors and spotted Cal AI in early 2025 through app store rankings. He describes Cal AI as focused on speed and MyFitnessPal as focused on accuracy, and says no merger of the two apps is planned (TechCrunch). MyFitnessPal’s press release also mentions its 2025 purchase of the meal-planning app Intent.

After the acquisition, according to TechCrunch (October 8, 2026), Zach Yadegari left MyFitnessPal in June 2026, based on his own statements. He launched Persona, a personal AI assistant with a $179 wristband expected in December 2026. The startup announces $10 million raised, led by Vine Ventures, with the founder of Z Fellows and Collective Global. We found no official announcement about who currently runs Cal AI.

Acquisition and subscriptions: what the interviews say

These are statements by Zach Yadegari, reported by the press or in interviews. None is independently verified.

Topic	What is stated	Source
First test	One influencer’s post brought about 1,000 new users in two days. Net Influencer adds a fee of about $2,000 and around a hundred paying subscribers.	TechCrunch ; Net Influencer
Paying creators	About 250 creators paid a fixed monthly fee rather than a commission. Rates were negotiated and tied to a promised reach.	Latka ; TechCrunch
Choosing creators	Tight-knit communities, about 50,000 followers at minimum, with views weighted more heavily than follower count. Zach Yadegari contrasts this approach with user-generated content produced in bulk.	Net Influencer
Paid advertising	Influencer content reused as-is in ads reportedly capped profitable Facebook spend at about $5,000 a day. More sales-oriented videos then allowed higher spend.	Net Influencer
Conversion	20% to 25% of users start a subscription or the 3-day free trial in their first session.	Latka
Annual renewal	Estimate of 25% to 50%, with no data available at the time.	Latka
Retention	No campaign beyond email. The team says it improved recognition accuracy, measured on an internal evaluation set, and that retention followed.	Net Influencer
Product positioning	Cal AI favors speed, MyFitnessPal favors accuracy, according to MyFitnessPal’s CEO.	TechCrunch

For a numbers-driven look at paid acquisition, see our CPA case study.

Cal AI’s competitors

App	Publisher	Photo logging	Source
MyFitnessPal	MyFitnessPal, owner of Cal AI	Premium plan with meal scan, barcode scan and voice logging. Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 2.4 million ratings (US App Store).	App Store
Lose It!	FitNow, Inc. (Boston)	Snap It feature, launched in beta in 2016. Named among the four apps in the 2026 NIH study.	TechCrunch (2016) ; ScienceDaily
SnapCalorie	Perception Labs, Inc.	Photo or voice note, volume estimated with the iPhone’s depth sensors. Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 6,900 ratings, English only.	App Store

According to TechCrunch, Cal AI and MyFitnessPal were neck and neck in their App Store ranking category at the time of the acquisition. After its return in April 2026, Cal AI ranked 4th in Health & Fitness (TechCrunch).

Accuracy and billing: points of caution

Accuracy. Cal AI’s website states an accuracy of about 80% in its FAQ, without detailing the method. A preliminary study by NIH researchers, presented at NUTRITION 2026 on July 25, 2026, tested four photo apps (MyFitnessPal, Lose It!, Cal AI and Appediet) on 102 meals prepared with weighed ingredients. Pooled result: calories were underestimated by about 250 to 345 per meal and fat by about 30 grams, roughly a third. The articles consulted give no result per app. This is a conference abstract that has not completed peer review (ScienceDaily ; Medical Daily).

Billing. According to Apple, quoted by TechCrunch on April 21, 2026, Cal AI was briefly pulled from the App Store for breaking its rules. Apple cites an embedded Stripe payment that removed the in-app purchase option, a calculated weekly price shown more prominently than the amount billed, a free-trial toggle that hid automatic renewal and a second subscription flow offered to users who declined the first. The app returned after fixes. MyFitnessPal and Cal AI did not respond to TechCrunch’s requests for comment (TechCrunch ; MacRumors ; 9to5Mac).

What changed from the previous version

The old title gave an age and a monthly amount. The first has been removed and the second is tied to no dated source we could find. The old text’s subscription prices, marketing ratios and details about an earlier project are not carried over, for lack of sources. The claim that Cal AI only calculates calories is corrected: the website now describes several input methods and step tracking.

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Sources

• MyFitnessPal, communiqué sur le rachat de Cal AI (2 mars 2026)
• TechCrunch, MyFitnessPal rachète Cal AI (2 mars 2026)
• Yahoo Finance, reprise de l’article de TechCrunch (2 mars 2026)
• eWeek, MyFitnessPal rachète Cal AI (3 mars 2026)
• Fitt Insider, rachat de Cal AI (2 mars 2026)
• The Nightly, reprise de CNBC Make It sur Cal AI (15 septembre 2025)
• Latka, interview de Zach Yadegari (15 mai 2025)
• TechCrunch, les influenceurs de Cal AI (15 octobre 2026)
• TechCrunch, Persona lève 10 millions de dollars (8 octobre 2026)
• AI News Weekly, reprise de l’annonce de Persona (9 octobre 2026)
• TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, session sur la croissance virale
• Net Influencer, la méthode d’influence de Cal AI (22 octobre 2026)
• TechCrunch, Apple et Cal AI (21 avril 2026)
• MacRumors, retrait de Cal AI de l’App Store (21 avril 2026)
• 9to5Mac, retrait de Cal AI de l’App Store (21 avril 2026)
• ScienceDaily (American Society for Nutrition), étude du NIH sur les applications de photo (26 juillet 2026)
• Medical Daily, étude du NIH sur les applications de photo (28 juillet 2026)
• App Store (États-Unis), fiche de Cal AI, consultée le 23 octobre 2026
• Site de Cal AI, consulté le 23 octobre 2026
• App Store (États-Unis), fiche de MyFitnessPal, consultée le 23 octobre 2026
• App Store (États-Unis), fiche de SnapCalorie, consultée le 23 octobre 2026
• TechCrunch, Lose It! lance Snap It (29 septembre 2016)

Updated October 23, 2026. Pages, listings and rankings checked on this date. Revenue figures are stated by the companies and unaudited. The completion date of the acquisition (December 2025) and the departure from MyFitnessPal rest on TechCrunch alone.