Budget Bytes 12+

Gorgeous app with great features

Wow! This app is set up so beautifully, it’s very pleasing to browse and save recipes. I just made my first recipe last night and I was so impressed by the cook along recipe feature! Click start cooking and the app reads the directions step by step for you and even has integrated timers!!! So perfect.
I was initially disappointed that the app and the website don’t talk to each other, so I needed to create another profile and all of my favorite recipes were not ported over to the app. Also, the website has a wonderful grocery list function that the app does not have. I was assuming the app would replace my need to go in the website but I will be using both. The website to plan my meals and the app to view the recipe and cook them. I hope the development team could consider adding these features eventually and it would be truly perfect.
Either way I love budget bytes and I’m so glad I finally purchased the app! Highly recommend.

Is so dysfunctional it doesn’t work, what a rip off

First off, I love budget bytes online. The blog is great: it has price breakdowns of each ingredient if you use the exact amount, it’s easy to search, and it’s free.

The app is $3 to even see the app, and then you have to pay more to see 80% of the recipes you can see online for free. The layout is terrible, the search bar is unusable and you can’t get out of it once you tap on it unless you search something and luck out with the home bar coming back, and overall while I bought this on an iPad and it says it’s compatible for the iPad...it’s not at all. I couldn’t even type anything in the search bar or this review when trying to review in app because it won’t allow my Bluetooth keyboard to type AND for whatever reason blocks the iPad on screen keyboard (wether or not my physical keyboard is disconnected). It won’t rotate in landscape view so also weirdly unusable.....and it just point blank doesn’t have a lot of the great recipes and features the FREE site does. The recipes don’t show the cost per ingredient use and take an extra input step (that’s broken) to even see the cost per serving, and the whole app reads more like the cooking channel or some standard food app than budget bytes and all the things that are wonderful about the site.

I’m not an old person who’d demand a refund typically but I feel scammed and genuinely feel like I need to ask for my money back. What a rip off!

Developer Response ,

Hi there, thank you for the feedback. I've sent it to our design team for review. It's definitely not acceptable that you can't use search. We haven't received this bug from other users and are having a hard time reproducing it. Send us an email so that we can help you debug this problem. We hear you!

Credit system is clunky

I want to start off this review by saying that I LOVE the blog and I also understand that content creators need to get paid. BUT I purchased the app before the in app purchase/credit feature was added and I feel like I paid for a product thinking I was getting access to one thing and am now being asked to purchase more to get access to what I want. I would be less upset about this if it had been clear when I was purchasing the app that this was going to be the case, but it feels like a bait and switch to me. I do appreciate that you can earn free credits, but the avg recipe is 10 credits, so those free credits don’t really go that far. I would have been happy to pay far more for the app upfront (or a yearly or monthly subscription fee) with the guarantee I was getting access to everything as opposed to this new credit system, which is confusing, hard to use and doesn’t always work properly. Prior to this change, I enthusiastically recommended this app, but the new credits system is not an improvement. If the app developers are reading this, I would highly encourage you to consider a new pricing system - either charge more for the app up front or a monthly or yearly subscription fee. A monthly or yearly subscription fee would help cover some of the cost of new content and continued development of the app, but also allow you to abandon the very clunky credit system.

Developer Response ,

Hi there, thanks for the constructive feedback. You definitely don't need to spend any more money if you don't want to. We give away a ton of FREE credits for you when you download the app and get even more if you engage with the app. You can then easily unlock all the recipes for FREE! Let us know if you're encountering bugs by emailing us at budgetbytesapp@sidechef.com. We are a small startup with big plans, we also want to break norms by being inventive and Beth has been an amazing partner in our journey. This has been a great learning opportunity for us; we really value your feedback and please let us know if you have any ideas on how Budget Bytes can make your cooking life easier.