MyFitnessPal is an app long known for helping people keep track of their health through the monitoring of exercise and eating habits, but one of its best and most used features will be put behind the paywall that is MyFitnessPal Premium.

Starting on October 1, 2022, barcode scanning will no longer be offered as a free part of the app. In a blog post, MyFitnessPal said that the decision to remove the feature from free subscriptions wasn’t easy, but that it will “open doors for building even better features down the road.”

It’s important to note that the free version of the MyFitnessPal app still offers the same food logging features as it always has, meaning that users can still track their calories and other nutritional information. That said, the loss of barcode scanning — a feature integral to many people’s app usage — makes it a lot less enticing of an experience.

The simplicity of scanning a food label to know all its nutritional information is a game changer in making thoughtful choices about a person’s diet. Now that the feature won’t be offered for free anymore, recommending MyFitnessPal as a free health and lifestyle app becomes a little trickier thanks to the many other apps that occupy similar spaces. It still has a lot to offer, but taking barcode scanning out of the free subscription is certainly a blow to its usefulness.

As mentioned above, MyFitnessPal promises that the change to the free subscription will be opening the doors for new features, but it doesn’t mention what those will be or when subscribers can expect them. Either way, the company understands fan disappointment, but other than the vague mention of possible new features down the line, it doesn’t provide much in terms of an explanation as to why the feature is being moved to its premium subscription.

In anticipation of fan backlash, MyFitnessPal is offering 50% off the app’s premium subscription. To claim the deal, click this link and fill out your MyFitnessPal login information. The offer only lasts until October 1, so keep that in mind if you’re on the fence about upgrading. Without any deal or promotion, MyFitnessPal Premium costs $20/month or $80/year.