Yuka vs EWG App: How Each One Rates Your Food

Yuka vs EWG comes down to scope and scale. Yuka scores food from 0 to 100 and covers food and cosmetics, while EWG's app gives one 1-10 score (1 = best) across food, cosmetics and household cleaners. On the App Store, Yuka shows 4.8 from 102K ratings and EWG's app shows 4.1 from 3.6K, though those figures reflect user opinion rather than scoring accuracy.

Key takeaways

• Yuka scores food 0-100 from nutrition (60%), additives (30%) and organic status (10%). Its help article says a product with a high-risk additive is capped at 49/100. The nutrition part is based on Nutri-Score.
• EWG's Healthy Living app gives one 1-10 score (1 = best) across cosmetics, food and household cleaners, according to its App Store listing.
• Database claims differ. Yuka's website lists 4 million food and 2 million cosmetic products, while EWG's App Store listing says more than 200,000 rated products across cosmetics, food and household cleaners.
• Both apps are free to download with in-app purchases. Yuka's App Store listing shows Premium Member at $10.00, $15.00 and $20.00, and EWG shows Premium at $19.99.
• Both apps are on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Yuka's App Store listing covers iPhone and iPad (iOS/iPadOS 15.5 or later), and EWG's app is designed for iPhone (iOS 16.0 or later).

What does Yuka scan, and what does EWG's Healthy Living app scan?

Yuka covers food and cosmetic products, while EWG's Healthy Living app covers food, skincare and household cleaners. Both rely on barcode scanning, and EWG's listing also allows searching by name. The Yuka listings cited here do not mention household cleaners.

Yuka's App Store listing describes it as a food and cosmetic scanner. Its website says the database holds 4 million food products and 2 million cosmetic products. Premium adds search 'for any product without having to scan it.'

EWG's App Store listing carries the subtitle 'Scan food, skincare & cleaners.' It says the app combines Skin Deep for cosmetics, its Guides to Sunscreens and Healthy Cleaning, and its Food Scores database.

• Food: both apps cover food. How many of EWG's products are foods was not disclosed.
• Cosmetics: both apps cover personal-care products. Yuka's website describes its cosmetic database, and its cosmetic evaluation help article explains how cosmetics are rated.
• Household cleaners: EWG's listing covers them through its Healthy Cleaning guide.

How does Yuka score food compared with EWG's 1-10 safety score?

Yuka scores a food from 0 to 100 using three weighted parts: nutritional quality at 60%, additives at 30% and the organic dimension at 10%. The serving basis for this food score was not disclosed, so compare it with the per-serving figures on your own label. EWG's app returns a single 1-10 safety score for food, where 1 is best, but how it weighs nutrition, ingredient concerns and processing is not disclosed.

Yuka's help article on food ratings says the nutrition part is based on Nutri-Score. Each additive receives one of four risk levels: risk-free, limited, moderate or high-risk. The Google Play listing adds that Yuka uses a color code of excellent, good, mediocre or poor, and that for a product with a negative grade it recommends a similar product as an alternative.

Because the two apps use different scales and inputs, their numbers cannot be converted into one another. EWG's scale also runs in reverse, with 1 as the best result. For a comparison with another grading style, see Yuka vs Fooducate: 0-100 Score vs A-D Grade.

What does the 49/100 cap mean for a product?

Yuka's help article states that 'if a high-risk additive is present the maximum score for the product is set at 49/100.' The cap applies only when a high-risk additive is present. A product without one is not held to that ceiling by this rule, so its score depends on the nutrition, additive and organic parts.

Is Yuka accurate for food?

No accuracy comparison between Yuka's food scores and EWG's food scores is available in this article, so it does not rank which app is more accurate. Yuka's help page says each additive receives one of four risk levels. You can still check each component against the label: the Nutrition Facts panel, the ingredient list and whether a flagged additive actually appears.

How does each app score cosmetics and household cleaners?

Yuka bases a cosmetic score on the highest-risk ingredient present in a product, and its help article cites a database of about 12,500 cosmetic ingredients. How EWG combines ingredients into one number was not disclosed. EWG's App Store listing gives one 1-10 score across categories and says products can be barcode-scanned or searched by name.

Because Yuka's cosmetic result is driven by one ingredient, reading the full ingredient list gives more context than the headline score alone.

How big are the product databases in Yuka and EWG's Healthy Living app?

Yuka's website lists 4 million food products and 2 million cosmetic products. EWG's App Store listing says it covers more than 200,000 rated products across cosmetics, food and household cleaners. The two counts cover different product categories, so they do not measure the same thing.

Yuka's app page says its database grows by 1,200 new products every day. The store listings also give different user counts: the App Store listing says 85 million users, and the Google Play listing says 90 million. Both are store claims, and neither listing explains its method.

The overlap between the two databases was not disclosed. A database count shows how many entries an app holds, not whether the product on your shelf has one, so a missing result is a reason to read the label yourself.

What does each app cost: free tier, Premium pricing, and in-app purchases?

Both apps are free to download and offer in-app purchases. Yuka's App Store listing shows Premium Member at $10.00, $15.00 and $20.00, and EWG's App Store listing shows Premium at $19.99. Which Yuka tier a US user sees by default was not disclosed.

Yuka's Premium page lists '$ 15 /year' with 'open pricing & commitment-free' terms, which differs from the $10.00 to $20.00 range on the App Store. Whether EWG's $19.99 Premium charge is monthly, yearly or one-time was not disclosed.

• Offline mode: Yuka Premium includes it. EWG's Premium features were not described as including offline use.
• Search: Yuka Premium search works 'without having to scan' a product. EWG's listing describes search by name.
• Preferences: Yuka Premium alerts cover palm oil, gluten, vegetarian diet and similar items. EWG's Premium lets you set ingredient preferences.
• Side-by-side comparison: EWG's Premium includes it. Yuka's Premium page does not list it.
• History: Yuka Premium includes unlimited history.

For other apps priced against Yuka, see Best Yuka Alternatives in 2026: 8 Food Scanner Apps Compared.

Which platforms and languages do Yuka and EWG's Healthy Living app support?

Yuka's App Store listing covers iPhone and iPad, requires iOS or iPadOS 15.5 or later, and lists six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. EWG's App Store listing says it is designed for iPhone, requires iOS 16.0 or later, and lists English.

Both apps also appear on Google Play. EWG's app is on Google Play, where in-app purchases are listed, and so is Yuka's Android app. Android version requirements, download counts and Android ratings were not disclosed for either app. On the App Store, Yuka shows 4.8 from 102K ratings with an Editors' Choice badge, and EWG shows 4.1 from 3.6K ratings. These ratings reflect user opinions of the app and do not measure scoring accuracy.

What do the at-a-glance differences look like in one table?

The table places the listed facts for each app in matching rows. 'Not disclosed' marks details that the listings and help pages in this article do not provide.

Feature	Yuka	EWG's Healthy Living app
Categories	Food and cosmetics (store listings)	Food, cosmetics, household cleaners
Score scale	0-100 for food	Single 1-10 safety score (1 = best)
Color-code scale (Google Play)	Excellent, good, mediocre, poor	Not disclosed
Food weighting	Nutrition 60%, additives 30%, organic 10%	Not disclosed
Cosmetic basis	Highest-risk ingredient present	Skin Deep database
Database size	4 million food, 2 million cosmetic (website claim)	More than 200,000 rated products (App Store)
User claim	85 million (App Store); 90 million (Google Play)	Not disclosed
App Store rating	4.8 from 102K ratings; Editors' Choice	4.1 from 3.6K ratings
Price (App Store)	Premium Member $10.00, $15.00, $20.00	Premium $19.99
Price on Premium page	$15/year, open pricing, commitment-free	Not disclosed
Platforms	iPhone and iPad, iOS/iPadOS 15.5+	Designed for iPhone, iOS 16.0+
Languages	English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish	English
Advertising	No in-app advertising (App Store)	Not disclosed
Funding	Premium subscriptions; public financial report; no brand funding	Independent and nonprofit (EWG's own description)

Each row states what the listing or help page for that app says, and prices and features can change, so check each store listing before you download.

Where do Yuka and EWG's app differ on funding and advertising?

Yuka says it receives no funding from brands or manufacturers and that its funding comes from Premium, with a public financial report. EWG describes itself as independent and nonprofit, and whether its app shows advertising was not disclosed.

Yuka's App Store listing says there is no in-app advertising, and its Google Play listing says the application does not advertise. The listings do not say whether funding affects how products are scored. Readers who want to know more can review Yuka's business model page.

The Google Play listing also says Yuka recommends a similar product when a scanned product receives a negative grade. No equivalent feature for EWG's app is described in this article.

How can you check a result from either app against the label yourself?

You can check a result against the Nutrition Facts panel by comparing %DV values with FDA's thresholds: 5% DV or less of a nutrient per serving is considered low, and 20% DV or more is considered high. Start with the serving size, because %DV applies to one serving.

• For saturated fat, sodium and added sugars, FDA advises choosing foods lower in %DV.
• For dietary fiber, vitamin D, calcium, iron and potassium, FDA advises choosing foods higher in %DV.
• Read the ingredient list for any additive an app mentions, then look up what regulators say about it.
• Check allergen and dietary details on the package, because whether either app flags major allergens was not disclosed.

These listings and help pages describe what each app says it does. They cannot show how accurately either app reflects a specific product, how either score relates to health outcomes, or how the apps perform for people with allergies, medical conditions or special diets, because no comparative study of the two apps is available in this article. Individual responses to ingredients also vary, so a single score is only a summary.

Which app covers the products you scan most?

The two apps differ most in scope. If you scan mainly food and cosmetics, Yuka's listing and help pages describe how its 0-100 food score is built from nutrition, additives and organic status. If you also want household cleaners covered, EWG's app gives a single 1-10 safety score (1 = best) across food, cosmetics and cleaners, though its listing does not say how that score is built.

For how Yuka compares with an app that explains each ingredient separately, see Aurascan vs Yuka: Which Food Label Scanner App Is Better?.

Related reading: For what the free Yuka app includes, what each Premium Member price on the App Store adds, and how Yuka says Premium funds the app, see Is Yuka App Free? Free to Scan; Premium $10 to $20 a Year.