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Help & Documentation

Welcome to Recipe App. This page covers everything you need to use the product, from your first recipe to managing your subscription.

If you can't find what you're looking for, email support@recipeapp.io.

Getting started

Creating your account

  1. Go to book.recipeapp.io/signup
  2. Enter your name, email, and a password (8 characters minimum)
  3. Check your inbox — we'll send a verification link from noreply@recipeapp.io
  4. Click the link in the email to confirm and sign in

If the verification email doesn't arrive within a minute or two, check your spam folder. You can also request a fresh one from the verify-email screen.

Signing in

Visit book.recipeapp.io/login. Forgot your password? Click "Forgot?" next to the password field — we'll email you a reset link.

Installing on your phone

Recipe App is a Progressive Web App, so it works perfectly on your phone without an App Store download:

  • iPhone (Safari): tap the Share button → "Add to Home Screen"
  • Android (Chrome): tap the menu (⋮) → "Add to Home screen" or "Install app"

It'll show up like a native app — handy when you're cooking and don't want to dig through tabs.

Adding recipes

You have five ways to capture a recipe. Pick whichever is most convenient — they all end up at the same place: a structured recipe ready to save.

1. Manual entry

Type a recipe in directly. Every field is editable, you can add as many ingredients and steps as you need, and you can attach an image, tags, prep time, and notes.

Use this when you're making up your own recipe or transcribing something on paper.

2. Paste text

Copy a recipe from anywhere — a forwarded email, your Notes app, a blog post, a screenshot's OCR'd text — and paste it into the Paste text tab. We'll automatically pull out:

  • Title
  • Ingredients (preserving exact quantities)
  • Steps in order
  • Servings, prep/cook times if mentioned
  • A category (Breakfast, Dinner, Dessert, etc.)
  • A few useful tags

You can review and tweak everything before saving.

3. Photo

Snap a photo of a cookbook page, a handwritten recipe card, or even a finished dish. Drag it in (or click to upload) under the Photo tab.

We use Anthropic's vision model — not OCR — so it handles handwriting, weird fonts, and photographed text on curved pages. Works on JPEG, PNG, WebP, and GIF up to 10 MB.

The photo you upload gets attached as the recipe's image by default. If it's a handwritten card or cookbook page (not the actual dish), use the image controls to Remove or Replace with a different image.

4. Link (web pages and YouTube)

Paste any recipe URL into the Link tab. Two pipelines:

  • Recipe blog or food site: we fetch the page, prefer the structured recipe data when available (most major sites embed it), fall back to scraping the visible text.
  • YouTube videos (full videos, Shorts, youtu.be/... shortlinks): we pull the video's title, channel, full description, and auto-generated transcript via the same API the YouTube app uses. The recipe usually lives in the description; the transcript fills in any gaps.

If the channel name was on the page, we auto-fill the From / Attribution field for you (e.g. from Joshua Weissman).

5. Voice dictation

Hands messy? Open the Dictate tab, tap Start, and just talk through the recipe — ingredients, steps, anything. Hit Stop when you're done, then Turn into recipe and we'll structure your transcript.

Supported in Chrome and Safari. Firefox doesn't expose speech recognition; use Paste text instead.

Editing and organizing recipes

Reviewing the AI's draft

After any AI-assisted ingestion (paste, photo, link, dictate), you'll land on a pre-filled form. Always review before saving — AI parsing is good but not perfect. Common things to double-check:

  • Quantities (especially fractions like ¾)
  • Serving size
  • Whether ingredients accidentally got merged or split

Image controls

Hover over the recipe image to see Replace and Remove buttons. The empty state shows a drop zone where you can upload a different image. Files are stored privately and served via Vercel's CDN.

Categories and tags

  • Category (single, required): the main meal slot — Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert, Snack, Drink, Side, Sauce, Bread, Soup, Salad, or Other.
  • Tags (multiple, optional): free-form labels like vegetarian, quick, weeknight, instant-pot. Comma-separate or hit Enter to add.

Click any tag on a recipe page to filter your collection by that tag.

Attribution ("From / where this came from")

A dedicated free-text field for who or what gave you this recipe — Grandma's recipe box, Joy of Cooking p. 241, Aunt Sarah's email, a YouTube creator. Different from a tag. Click the attribution on any recipe page to see all the recipes from that source.

When ingesting from a URL or YouTube link, this gets auto-filled with the site or channel name.

Notes

Use the Notes field for anything that doesn't fit the recipe itself: substitutions you've tried, a memory ("first thing I cooked for Emma"), a tweak ("next time, half the salt"). Notes are searchable.

Search and filters

The search bar uses Postgres full-text search across title, description, ingredients, instructions, tags, and attribution. Try:

  • chicken garlic — finds recipes with both
  • aunt — finds anything from "Aunt Sarah" or similar
  • grandma cookies — finds "Grandma's Famous Sugar Cookies"

You can also click any category pill to filter, or click an attribution / tag link.

Print mode

Open any recipe and click Print in the top-right. The print view strips navigation, buttons, and decoration — what's left is a clean recipe card ready for paper or PDF.

Macros and calories

Every recipe has a Per serving panel showing calories, protein, carbs, and fat.

  • After saving a new recipe, macros are estimated automatically using Claude based on your ingredient list and serving count.
  • If macros aren't shown yet, click Estimate macros on the recipe page.
  • Click re-estimate at any time if you change ingredients.

These are estimates, not lab-measured values. Confidence depends on how specifically you wrote the ingredients ("2 tbsp olive oil" gives a more accurate estimate than "olive oil"). Don't use these numbers for medical or precise dietary decisions.

Account and billing

Free vs Pro

  • Free — Up to 20 saved recipes. Every other feature (all five ingestion modes, AI macros, search, attribution) is fully available.
  • Pro — $7/month, unlimited recipes. Cancel anytime.

Your usage is shown on your Account page (top-right of the header → "Account").

Upgrading

When you try to save your 21st recipe on the free plan, you'll see an inline upgrade panel with a button. Or visit Account → Upgrade to Pro at any time.

We use Stripe Checkout — no card data ever touches our servers.

Promo codes can be entered on the Stripe Checkout page. We sometimes run discount campaigns; redeemable codes will be sent in launch emails.

Managing your subscription

On your Account page, click Manage subscription to open the Stripe billing portal. From there you can:

  • Update your payment method
  • View past invoices
  • Cancel your subscription (you keep Pro access until the end of the billing period)

Cancellation and refunds

Cancel anytime via the billing portal. Refunds are issued case-by-case for billing errors and within 7 days of the most recent charge — email billing@recipeapp.io.

Your data and privacy

  • Recipes you create are private to you. No one else sees them.
  • Photos you upload are stored on Vercel Blob and served via random unguessable URLs.
  • AI processing (Claude vision/text/Anthropic) sees the content of your inputs only when you trigger an ingestion, and we don't pass your account info along.
  • Your data, on demand: email privacy@recipeapp.io to request a full export or permanent deletion.

See the Privacy Policy for the full picture.

Troubleshooting

"Free tier limit reached" on save

You've hit 20 recipes on the free plan. Either delete some you don't need, or upgrade to Pro.

Verification email never arrives

  1. Check spam / junk
  2. Wait 60 seconds (Resend can occasionally lag during their busy hours)
  3. On the verify-email screen, click Resend verification email
  4. Still nothing? Email support@recipeapp.io — we can verify the account manually

"This video has no description or transcript we could read"

YouTube creators can disable captions, and some videos don't have a description. We try four different YouTube clients to maximize what we can read, but if all fail you'll get a partial draft with just the title and channel — fill in the rest from the video itself.

URL ingestion returns generic "Page text" results

Some sites use heavy JavaScript or anti-scraping measures that prevent server-side fetching. Workaround: open the page, copy the recipe text manually, and use Paste text instead.

AI got the recipe wrong

AI parsing isn't perfect. The pre-filled form is editable — fix what's wrong and save. If you see the same kind of mistake repeatedly, email support@recipeapp.io with an example URL or text and we'll tune the prompts.

Can't sign in after password reset

Make sure you're using the new password and clearing any saved password autofill. Reset links expire in one hour — request a new one if needed.

FAQ

Is there a mobile app? It's a PWA — installable on iOS Safari and Android Chrome via "Add to Home Screen". Looks and feels like a native app without taking up the App Store space.

Can I share my recipes with family? Not yet. Sharing and household accounts are on the roadmap — see the Changelog for the latest.

Where are my recipes stored? In a Postgres database hosted on Neon (US-East). Photos are on Vercel Blob (also US-East). Backups run automatically.

Do you train AI on my recipes? No. Your inputs are sent to Anthropic's API for ingestion and macro estimation only. Per Anthropic's terms, customer API data is not used to train their models.

What happens to my data if I cancel? You keep all your recipes; you just can't save new ones beyond 20 until you upgrade again. If you delete your account, all data is permanently removed within 30 days.

Can I export my recipes? Email privacy@recipeapp.io and we'll send you a JSON export. A self-serve export button is coming.

Why $7/month? It's the lowest price that covers the AI inference costs (each photo, paste, URL, or YouTube ingestion uses Anthropic credits) plus hosting and email delivery. We'd rather charge a fair price than show ads.

Last updated: April 27, 2026