Pensum
Press kit
Facts, copy and images, so you can write about Pensum without emailing me first.
Pensum is a calorie and macro tracker for people who weigh their food. It runs on Android, costs nothing, and works without an account. The diary stays on the phone. I build it on my own, in Switzerland.
Everything here is free to use in coverage. If you need something that isn't on this page, ask and I'll send it.
The facts
| Name | Pensum. On Google Play it appears as "Pensum Calorie & Macro Tracker". |
|---|---|
| What it is | A calorie, macro and micronutrient tracker |
| Platform | Android 8.0 and up. There is no iOS version. |
| Price | Free. No ads and no subscription in the shipping app. |
| Developer | Alessandro Parini, sole developer, Switzerland |
| Available | Google Play since July 2026, and as a direct APK from this site |
| Package ID | com.pensumapp.app |
| Languages | English and German |
| Food data | USDA (United States), Bundeslebensmittelschlüssel (Germany), Swiss Food Composition Database, and Open Food Facts for barcodes |
| Tracks | Calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat, fibre, and 18 vitamins and minerals |
| Privacy | Local-first, no account. The diary never leaves the device unless you export it. |
| Links | Google Play, pensumapp.com, privacy policy |
Boilerplate
Three lengths, ready to paste. Edit them freely.
Pensum is a free calorie and macro tracker for Android that works without ads, an account, or a subscription.
Pensum is a calorie and macro tracker for people who actually weigh their food. It's free, runs without an account, and keeps the diary on the phone. Rather than estimating your energy expenditure from a standard formula, it calculates the figure from your own diary and weigh-ins, and every food search result names the database it came from.
Pensum is an Android calorie and macro tracker built for people who weigh their food: athletes, body recomposition, and anyone tired of diet apps that get in the way. It's free, has no ads, needs no account, and stores the diary on the device. Food search draws on USDA data for American foods and on the German and Swiss national databases for European ones, and it puts clean generic foods ahead of branded noise. Every result states which database it came from and how many of the 18 tracked vitamins and minerals it actually reports. Pensum also works out a user's real daily energy expenditure from their own logged food and weigh-ins, and revises it as new data arrives. Photo and voice logging exist, and estimates are labelled as estimates so they can't be mistaken for weighed values. It's built by one developer in Switzerland.
What might actually be worth writing about
We published where our own AI feature fails
Photo logging is the headline feature of most new trackers, and almost none of them publish what it gets wrong. We weighed real meals on a kitchen scale, ran the photos through the same prompt the shipping app uses, and published the error rates, including the foods where the estimates are worst. Heaped and soft foods defeated every model we tried, because a flat photo can't see height and height is where most of the weight sits. Telling the model the plate's total weight roughly halved the error, and that's how the feature works now. Two other pages show the same arithmetic for energy expenditure and for AI-estimated micronutrients.
The expenditure figure is measured
Most apps put your height, weight and age into a decades-old equation and call the output your metabolism. Pensum waits for a few weeks of food logs and weigh-ins, then works out what you're actually burning from the gap between the two, and revises it every time you step on the scale. The method is written out in full, equations included.
European food data most apps skip
Search for Quark or Brötchen in a typical tracker and you get forty packaged products from a crowdsourced database. Pensum bundles the German Bundeslebensmittelschlüssel and the Swiss Food Composition Database alongside USDA, and ranks clean generic entries first. The built-in catalogue holds 16,358 curated foods, and barcode scans fall through to Open Food Facts, which has millions of products.
Free, and specific about what that means
Everyday tracking is free and stays free: logging, the food databases, targets, weight trends, recipes and export. The adaptive expenditure engine and the AI features may move behind a subscription later. If that happens, everyone already using Pensum keeps them at no cost.
Images
All PNG. The screenshots come from the shipping app at full phone resolution.
- Everything as a zip 817 KB
- App icon 512 x 512
- Banner 1024 x 500
- Screenshot, food search 1080 x 2400
- Screenshot, diary 1080 x 2400
- Screenshot, trends 1080 x 2400
- Screenshot, photo logging 1080 x 2400
- Screenshot, recipes 1080 x 2400
Things I would rather you didn't write
These claims are untrue, and one or two of them would put me on the wrong side of European advertising law:
- Pensum is not a medical device and makes no medical claims. It doesn't treat, prevent or manage any condition, and it doesn't "preserve muscle". I'm not permitted to say those things, and that applies to coverage written on my behalf too.
- It doesn't beat MacroFactor. MacroFactor is a good app with a bigger team behind it, and I've never claimed to be better. Pensum measures expenditure without charging a subscription, which is a narrower claim.
- The 16,358 figure describes the curated built-in catalogue. Quoting it as Pensum's total food coverage is misleading, because barcode scans go to Open Food Facts and its millions of products. Use both numbers or neither.
- Photo and AI estimates will sometimes be wrong if you test them. The app labels them as estimates for that reason, and the research page measures how far off they get.
About the developer
Pensum is built by Alessandro Parini, working alone in Switzerland. I started it because I weigh my food and couldn't find a tracker that respected either the data or my time. I'm available for interviews and happy to go as deep into the technical detail as you want.
Contact
[email protected]. I read everything and usually reply the same day.
Read the research on AI portion estimation, energy expenditure or AI micronutrient estimates, or go back to the homepage.