Cozi isn't a shopping list app, and that's the whole reason people search for an alternative to it. It's a family organiser: a colour-coded shared calendar, to-do lists, a recipe box, and a grocery list riding along beside them. For coordinating four people's schedules it's excellent — its App Store rating in the UK sits at 4.7 across more than 21,000 reviews. For the specific job of walking round a supermarket, it's the weakest tool in this comparison, and the feature that would fix that is behind a $39-a-year paywall.
Below: exactly which parts of Cozi are free, what Cozi Gold actually buys you, and four alternatives for the list side — with an honest note about why most families should keep Cozi anyway.
- The list is free; the shopping experience isn't. Cozi puts Shopping Mode in Gold, priced on its own site at $39/year
- Cozi doesn't sort by aisle. Every alternative here does, automatically
- Keep Cozi for the calendar. No list app replaces the shared family schedule
- If food goes off at home: Fango gives you a full-screen shopping mode and tracks expiry after the shop
What Cozi actually includes, free and paid
Cozi is unusually clear about this, so there's no need to guess. Its plan comparison page lists three tiers.
| Plan | Price | What Cozi says it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Shared calendar, automatic notifications, shared grocery and to-do lists, and recipes |
| Gold | $39/year | Everything in Free, plus an ad-free experience, mobile month view, calendar search, up to three reminders per event, change notifications, birthday tracker, Shopping Mode and priority support |
| Max | $79/year | Everything in Gold, plus AI event import from emails, an AI recipe creator and an AI meal planner |
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Two things worth pulling out. First, one upgrade covers the whole family — there's no per-person pricing, which for a household of four or five is genuinely good value. Second, the free tier's description of Gold as "an ad-free experience" is how Cozi tells you the free tier carries advertising.
The bit that matters in a supermarket: Shopping Mode
Cozi describes Shopping Mode on its Gold features page as "the no-fuss way to shop, optimized for the best in-store experience ever" — a no-dim full screen view where ticked items drop to the bottom and items added by other family members are highlighted.
That's a well-designed feature, and it's the right answer to a real problem: a phone screen that keeps dimming while you're holding a trolley and a toddler. But it's the answer to a problem the free tier creates, and it costs $39 a year. Meanwhile Cozi's list has no aisle grouping at all — items appear in the order the family added them, so a big weekly shop means walking the store twice regardless of how bright the screen is. Our guide to a grocery list organised by aisle explains why order beats brightness.
The four alternatives for the list side
AnyList — the best-built list, with a paid tier
Where Cozi's list is a module, AnyList's is the product. It sorts into categories automatically, handles recipes properly, and has the cleanest editing in the category. AnyList's own feature comparison puts lists, sharing, meal planning, a web app and up to five recipe imports in the free tier, with AnyList Complete at $9.99 a year for an individual or $14.99 for a household — a quarter of Cozi Gold. Note what Complete gates: its help pages say AnyList Complete is required to add prices to items.
Bring! — the shared list the family will actually open
Design-led and built around a household sharing one list. Its help centre documents a Group by Categories setting under List View, so items arrange themselves into shop sections, plus a choice between list and tile views. Free with advertising; a Premium tier removes the ads and adds extras such as a dark theme.
OurGroceries — the most features for nothing
Plain, fast and stuffed with capability: automatic category suggestions, barcode scanning, item photos, recipes that fill the list in one tap, Apple Watch and a web version. Its own FAQ confirms the app is free with banner ads and sells an upgrade to remove them, that sharing needs an account with the same email on every device, and that its barcode product database is "rather U.S.-centric".
Fango — shopping mode plus the fridge
The only app here that answers the question Cozi's list can't: what happens to the food after you've bought it. The list sorts into 13 aisles in walking order, autocompletes from names you've used before with a remembered price estimate, takes anything at all by hand including nappies and dog food, and has a full-screen shopping mode with an "N of M bought" progress bar — no separate subscription tier for the in-store view. Then scan the receipt and the AI reads the products, estimates how long each keeps and puts them in a fridge, freezer or cupboard list with reminders before they expire.
Cozi vs the alternatives, side by side
| What you want | Cozi | AnyList | Bring! | OurGroceries | Fango |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shared family calendar | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Shared grocery list | ✓ free tier | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ none |
| Automatic aisle grouping | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ 13 aisles |
| Full-screen shopping mode | Gold only ($39/yr) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ included |
| Free tier without ads | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Running total / budget | ✗ | Paid tier only | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tracks expiry after you buy | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| What it costs | Free with ads; Gold $39/yr | Free; Complete $9.99–$14.99/yr | Free with ads; paid Premium | Free with ads; paid upgrade | Free for a month, then £1.99/mo |
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The honest recommendation: don't replace Cozi
If Cozi is running your family's calendar, nothing in this article replaces it. AnyList, Bring!, OurGroceries and Fango are all list apps; none of them will tell you that football training moved to Thursday. The realistic move is to leave the calendar where it is and put the shopping somewhere better — one extra icon, and the person doing the shop is the only one who has to care.
The one case for a straight switch is a household where one person does the shopping alone. Then Cozi's shared-list advantage evaporates, and you're paying $39 a year for a screen that doesn't dim.
What Fango adds — and what it gives up
What it adds. The second half of the job. Scanning a receipt puts the shop into a tracked list with a shelf-life estimate per item and a push reminder up to 30 days before the date, and that history feeds the list back: items you buy on a regular cadence return as one-tap suggestions, and anything about to go off is flagged so you don't buy a duplicate — the loop behind shopping your fridge first. The full-screen shopping mode and the budget target are part of the app rather than a higher tier, and everything is computed on the phone, so nothing about your family's shopping leaves the device.
What it gives up. Everything Cozi is famous for: no calendar, no to-do lists for the household, no recipe box, no meal planning, and no shared or synced list of any kind. Also no barcode scanning, no web version and no widget. Ticking an item off doesn't move it into fridge tracking either; things get there by scanning a receipt or adding them by hand. It's free for a month, then £1.99 a month or £19.99 a year.
A full-screen in-store view, 13 supermarket aisles, a budget that counts down as you shop — and a reminder before the food you bought goes off.
Try Fango free for a month Get it on Google Play
Which one is right for you?
A quick test before you pay for Gold: on your last shop, did the screen dimming cost you more than walking back to the chiller a second time? If the answer is no, the $39 is buying the wrong fix, and an aisle-sorted list somewhere else is free. If food is also going in the bin at home, a shopping list and expiry tracker in one explains why those two problems are the same problem. For the wider field, see our roundup of the best shopping list apps by use case.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cozi Shopping Mode free?
No. Cozi lists Shopping Mode among the Cozi Gold features, and its own plan comparison prices Gold at $39 a year. Cozi describes Shopping Mode as a no-dim full screen view where checked items move to the bottom and items added by other family members stand out. The shared grocery list itself is in the free plan, so what you are paying for is the in-store experience rather than the list.
What is the best Cozi alternative for shopping lists?
None of them, if you also need the family calendar — that is the part Cozi does that a list app does not touch. For the list alone, AnyList and Bring! are both stronger, because they sort items into shop sections automatically and Cozi's list does not. If food going off at home is the reason you shop from a list in the first place, Fango is the only one here that carries on tracking after the till. Many households end up running a calendar and a list app side by side.
Does Cozi sort the grocery list by aisle?
Cozi does not advertise automatic aisle sorting. Its plan pages describe shared grocery and to-do lists, real-time updates when someone adds an item, and Shopping Mode for the in-store experience, but the ordering of the list is left to the family. Bring!, OurGroceries, AnyList, Apple Reminders and Fango all group items into shop sections on their own, which is the single biggest practical difference for a large weekly shop.
Can I keep Cozi and use another app for the list?
Yes, and for a lot of families that is the sensible answer. Cozi earns its place as the shared calendar, the to-do lists and the recipe box, none of which a shopping list app replaces. Running a separate list app costs you one thing: the person holding the list has to be in that app rather than in Cozi. If everyone in the household adds items, keep it in Cozi; if one person does the shop, a dedicated list app is the better tool.
