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Pepper - Recipe Organizer

Monetization rage Self-contained

Pepper App Inc. · Food & Drink · Free · v2.41.0

View on the App Store (iPhone) ↗
Review-rating drop
2.11

2021-Q4 5.00 → last 90 days 2.89, text reviews

Peak quarter
5.00

2021-Q4, text reviews

Last 90 days
2.89

text reviews

Store rating
4.78

all 10733 ratings, incl. star-only

Store gap
1.89

store minus reviews

Est. MRR
$354k

#22 top-grossing, Food & Drink

store 4.78 · reviews 5.00 → 2.89 · gap 1.89 store 4.78 reviews 2.89

Store ratings include star-only taps from in-app prompts, which skew high. The peak and recent figures come only from people who wrote a review, which skews low. Compare each against itself: the drop is the signal, and a big gap between the two usually means heavy rating prompting is masking unhappy users.

Average rating by quarter from 397 text reviews

2★3★4★5★ 1★ 2021-Q3: 4.96★ from 138 reviews 4.96 2021-Q3 2021-Q4: 5.00★ from 81 reviews 5.00 2021-Q4 2022-Q1: 4.69★ from 16 reviews 2022-Q2: 3.17★ from 6 reviews (small sample) 2022-Q3: 5.00★ from 5 reviews (small sample) 2022-Q4: 5.00★ from 3 reviews (small sample) 2023-Q1: 3.56★ from 9 reviews 2023-Q2: 3.00★ from 9 reviews 2023-Q3: 3.29★ from 7 reviews (small sample) 2023-Q4: 2.80★ from 5 reviews (small sample) 2024-Q1: 5.00★ from 3 reviews (small sample) 2024-Q2: 3.00★ from 5 reviews (small sample) 2024-Q3: 3.60★ from 5 reviews (small sample) 2024-Q4: 3.43★ from 7 reviews (small sample) 2025-Q1: 4.00★ from 7 reviews (small sample) 2025-Q2: 2.17★ from 6 reviews (small sample) 2025-Q3: 2.27★ from 11 reviews 2025-Q4: 2.42★ from 12 reviews 2026-Q1: 2.87★ from 15 reviews 2026-Q2: 2.81★ from 16 reviews 2026-Q3: 2.79★ from 24 reviews 2026-Q4: 3.29★ from 7 reviews (small sample) 3.29 2026-Q4
Faint bars have fewer than 8 reviews. Text reviews skew negative versus star-only ratings; read the direction, not the level.
Show as table
QuarterAvg stars Reviews
2021-Q34.96 138
2021-Q45.00 81
2022-Q14.69 16
2022-Q23.17 6
2022-Q35.00 5
2022-Q45.00 3
2023-Q13.56 9
2023-Q23.00 9
2023-Q33.29 7
2023-Q42.80 5
2024-Q15.00 3
2024-Q23.00 5
2024-Q33.60 5
2024-Q43.43 7
2025-Q14.00 7
2025-Q22.17 6
2025-Q32.27 11
2025-Q42.42 12
2026-Q12.87 15
2026-Q22.81 16
2026-Q32.79 24
2026-Q43.29 7

Recent 1–2 star reviews

It’s not free

★ · v2.41.0 · Oct 9, 2026

It’s not free

Glitch

★ · v2.41.0 · Oct 8, 2026

About half of the times I use the app from FB, there is a glitch. When it works it is great!

It Costs You

★ · v2.41.0 · Oct 7, 2026

It costs $40 a year!! If you don’t pay, all your recipes gone!!!

Awful

★ · v2.41.0 · Sep 27, 2026

I was told by someone at Pepper that I could still use the app to upload my recipes even if I didn’t pay for the program so after the trial I canceled because I could’ve afford it and so today I want to get a recipe in each of my folders have padlocks on it so I have lost all of my recipes!! Don’t do it you will lose your stuff

Bring back the old app

★ · v2.41.0 · Sep 27, 2026

Title says it all. They’ve ruined this simple recipe sharing/collection app. What the heck is going on?

Won’t open

★ · v2.41.0 · Sep 21, 2026

I downloaded the app and registered, but nothing happens. I get a home page and that is it. Can anyone help me?

It is a lie

★ · v2.41.0 · Sep 20, 2026

It is not free by any means as soon as you login and create an account with it, they give you a 14 day trial then they want to start charging you without even verifying that you want it

Not accurate

★ · v2.39.0 · Sep 8, 2026

My facebook and instagram recipes I’ve shared to the app do not come up with accurate ingredients or instructions. Completely skipped the breading ingredients and process for chicken on one recipe. On another it said used sweetened condensed milk when it should have been cool whip. In the same recipe it referred to the supposed to be cool whip as cream cheese

Update broke the app

★★ · v2.38.4 · Aug 16, 2026

Ever since the last update I can’t even get the app to open

Want to cancel trial

★ · v2.38.1 · Aug 10, 2026

Want to cancel trial. It’s a never ending circle trying to get support to ensure that the subscription is cancelled.

Too Expensive

★ · v2.38.1 · Aug 9, 2026

I already have ReciMe which is very similar and it costs $20 less per year. I didn’t know this was so expensive when I downloaded it. I didn’t see any thing that would make this worth an extra $20 out of my pocket. You need to lower the price it up the extras. Because this just looks like a quick cash grab.

App issues and can’t log back in

★ · v2.38.1 · Aug 5, 2026

I have been using this app for over a year without any issues. A few days ago, the app suddenly stopped working. Every time I tried to open it, it would immediately close. I waited 24 hours to see if the issue would resolve itself, but it never did. I then deleted the app and reinstalled it. Since reinstalling, I have been unable to log back into my account. I have tried every available login method, but none of them work. Every attempt results in a “Something went wrong” error. I have already submitted two support tickets but have not received any assistance.

Doesn’t work

★ · v2.38.1 · Aug 3, 2026

I downloaded the app and can’t get past the Welcome screen

Server issue after download

★ · v2.36.0 · Jul 5, 2026

Just downloaded app and experienced server down.

Bad Customer Service

★ · v2.34.0 · Jun 3, 2026

Downloaded this app with a free two week trial. Apparently I had done once before in the past. Instead of alerting me that I had already taken advantage of the trial period in the past, they just immediately charged me for a full year at the highest subscription rate of $49. Even though the subscription and my App Store invoice clearly states 2-weeks free. They didn’t even try to offer any kind of apology for the confusion. Pretty much saying it is what it is and we don’t date if you were mislead. No type of apology at all. Also, apparently when you try to share any recipe you have, there is an error. Can’t share at all. Buyer beware.

Not able to upload recipes

★ · v2.33.0 · May 17, 2026

I used to be able to copy and paste recipes into the app so others could see them and save them for themselves, but it has been months since that was possible; every time I try to post a recipe, it disappears to who knows where and doesn’t show up in my cookbook at all. I refuse to pay a ridiculous of money to upgrade the app; I’ve been using the free version ever since I started and I’ve never had an issue until now; I’m about ready to just delete it entirely and use another app that doesn’t give me issues

Used to be good

★ · v2.32.2 · May 3, 2026

This app used to be super good, I have a lot of recipes saved and that I’ve made but the last few months it’s almost impossible to use. It always says it’s “having server issues” and kicks me off of it. It’s basically unable to be used anymore

This app WAS great

★ · v2.32.1 · Apr 26, 2026

This app was great when I first got it. I even paid for the support. Now, it’s won’t even open, it’s just stuck on the home screen.

I can’t find anything

★★ · v2.31.0 · Apr 12, 2026

This is my first one so I think I’ll try a different one, but if you were someone else besides me, you would probably like it, but I don’t like it

Not user friendly

★ · v2.31.0 · Apr 7, 2026

0

Too expensive

★ · v2.31.0 · Apr 3, 2026

Way too expensive to share recipes.

Watch out for this app

★ · v2.30.0 · Mar 22, 2026

They’ll bill even if you cancel and you won’t get a refund

Just another data collection app

★ · v2.27.1 · Feb 16, 2026

Gotta love an app that’s asking for your contacts before it prompts you with the subscription. And then 50$ a year for an online cookbook 🤣🤣🤣 delete. Can’t wait till I get the email that they leaked my info.

Hard to get to work with apps

★ · v2.27.1 · Feb 4, 2026

👎🏼👎🏼 don’t like this app hard to save the recipes from other apps.

Could be 5 if fixed

★★ · v2.27.1 · Jan 29, 2026

I would give this a 5-star rating if they had just two features that seem to have been missed. Yes, this app is better than the large competitor (you’ve probably seen a bunch of adds for, too). I saw a cooking influencer suggest this app, so I tried both and this one seems to be much more intuitive and user friendly… save for the inability to make edits to the recipe after it has been posted. It also does not actually save a changed cover photo when entering the recipe if it populates an image first. You ca. try, but it always reverts. I have tried talking with a customer service rep and they said that it should be included in the next update (couldn’t give me a date, though)- well, it just updated and it still isn’t fixed. If those two things are included on a future update I can go back and change my review because all the other features are great!

The opportunity

What would it take to build a viable competitor, what would it cost to run every month, and a prompt to get started. Generated from the reviews on file; one LLM call per brief. Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY for a real brief; the stub only fills in a template.