What Souva costs
Every number on this page is read straight from the code that enforces it, and was last checked on 2026-10-04. If you meet a limit that does not match what is written here, tell us and this page gets fixed.
Souva is free on iPhone and Android, with no account and nothing to subscribe to. There is one optional purchase, Souva Unlimited, which costs $4.99 once.
Free
$0
Everything the app does, with an allowance on the four features that call an AI model. No account, no card, no trial that ends.
Rewarded ads
Optional
Ran out of shelf photos, receipt scans, or link imports? Watch a short ad for a few more. You are never made to watch anything, there are no banners, and AI recipes have no ad at all.
Souva Unlimited
$4.99once
No ads, and the limits lift to a daily fair-use ceiling. One purchase, not a subscription, bought in the app through the App Store or Google Play.
What has no limit at all
Your pantry, ingredient search across the recipe web, barcode scanning, saved recipes and folders, the shopping list, dietary preferences, and every recipe you have already saved. None of it is capped, none of it needs an ad, and none of it needs the purchase. Those parts do not cost us anything per use, so they are not rationed.
What is limited, and by how much
| Feature | Free | With rewarded ads | Souva Unlimited |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI recipes written for your shelvesSouvAI, when nothing published fits | 3 a day | No ad offered | 50 a day |
| Photographing a shelf or a fridgethe photo is read by a vision model | 6 a week | 10 a week (up to 2 ads, +2 each) | 15 a day |
| Scanning a grocery receiptread on your phone, only the item text is sent | 1 a day | 3 a day (up to 2 ads, +1 each) | 40 a day |
| Importing a recipe from a linkpaste a TikTok or YouTube URL | 15 a week | 21 a week (up to 2 ads, +3 each) | 40 a day |
Allowances are per install. A daily limit resets at midnight in your phone’s time zone. A weekly limit resets at the midnight that starts Sunday, in the same time zone, and the rewarded ads on those features are counted by the same week, so they come back with it. Only a successful use counts: a repeated question answered from the cache is free, and so is the first shelf photo each day that finds no food, the first receipt each day with no food on it, and the first link each day that turns out to hold no recipe.
Versions 1.2.2 and earlier of the app count every limit by the day instead, resetting at midnight UTC, with 3 AI recipes, 3 shelf photos, 1 receipt scan, and 15 link imports a day before any rewarded ad. Updating the app moves you to the limits above.
About the ads
Souva shows one kind of ad and only one: a rewarded video you choose to watch, at the moment you have run out of shelf photos, receipt scans, or link imports, in exchange for a few more of whatever you ran out of. AI recipes have no ad. There is no banner anywhere in the app, nothing that interrupts a recipe, and nothing that plays when you open it. If you buy Souva Unlimited you are never offered an ad again. Ads are served by Google AdMob; what that means for your data is in the privacy policy.
What Souva Unlimited is, exactly
- One payment. $4.99 in the United States, once. Not a subscription: nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel. Other countries see their own price, set by the store.
- No ads. A rewarded ad is never offered to you again.
- Higher daily ceilings, not none. 50 AI recipes, 15 shelf photos, 40 receipt scans, and 40 link imports a day, every feature counted by the day, including the two that are counted by the week on the free tier. In the app’s own words if you ever reach one: “Even Unlimited has a daily fair-use ceiling.” It is what lets a single payment keep paying for per-use compute years from now.
- Your own devices. One purchase covers the phones and tablets you use it on, and survives reinstalling. It is not a shared or transferable license.
- Bought and refunded through the store. Apple and Google take the payment and handle refunds under their own policies; Souva never sees your card. See the terms.
Questions people ask
Is Souva free?
Yes. Souva is free to download on iPhone and Android, and it needs no account. Your pantry, ingredient search, barcode scanning, saved recipes, and shopping list have no limit at all. The four features that call an AI model on our bill do: 3 AI recipes and 1 receipt scan a day, and 6 shelf photos and 15 link imports a week. A daily limit resets at midnight in your phone's time zone, and a weekly limit resets at the midnight that starts Sunday, in the same time zone. Versions 1.2.2 and earlier of the app count every limit by the day, in UTC.
Is Souva Unlimited a subscription?
No. Souva Unlimited is a one-time purchase, $4.99 in the United States, and it stays yours. There is nothing to renew and nothing to cancel. The stores show the price in your own currency, and they handle the payment and any refund.
Does Unlimited actually mean unlimited?
No. Unlimited has a daily fair-use ceiling. Unlimited removes ads and lifts the free limits to 50 AI recipes, 15 shelf photos, 40 receipt scans, and 40 link imports a day. Those ceilings are set well above what cooking for a household takes, and they exist so that one payment can keep covering per-use compute costs for years. They reset at midnight in your phone's time zone (at midnight UTC on versions 1.2.2 and earlier).
Do I have to watch ads?
Never. Souva has no banner ads and no ads that interrupt you. The only ad in the app is a rewarded one you can choose to watch when you run out: it adds 2 more shelf photos, 1 more receipt scan, or 3 more link imports, up to 2 a week for shelf photos and link imports, and up to 2 a day for receipt scans. AI recipes have no ad at all; when the 3 a day are used, they come back at midnight, or with Souva Unlimited. If you own Souva Unlimited, you are never offered an ad.
What happens when I reach a limit?
Souva tells you which limit you reached, and offers you a rewarded ad if that feature has one and you have not used them all for its current period. Nothing you have already saved is taken away, and the rest of the app keeps working: you can still add ingredients by typing or by barcode, search recipes by ingredient, and open anything you saved.
Try it before you spend anything
The ingredient search runs in a browser here, with no download and no account. Type what is in your kitchen and read the recipes it finds.
Where these numbers come from
The allowances, their windows, and the rewarded-ad grants are the rules the server enforces; the Unlimited ceilings are the fair-use constants it swaps in for a verified purchase. This page renders those constants rather than repeating them. The price is the United States list price of the one in-app product. Checked 2026-10-04.