APPS AND SOFTWARE · FREE PLANS
Free Microgreen Tracking App: What Free Actually Buys You.
Most "free" grow apps let you track two trays. Sow a third and you hit a wall you did not know was there, usually on the week you were finally enjoying it. Here is what free means in Grown Like A Pro, what it excludes, and the honest case for using no app at all.
The wall most people hit in week three
Two trays is not a grow. Two trays is a trial with the word "free" written on it.
Think about how microgreens actually run. You sow a tray of broccoli on Sunday. It harvests around day 9. So on Wednesday you sow a second one, otherwise you have a week with nothing to cut. Then you want sunflower as well, because it tastes nothing like broccoli. Then pea, because you saw it on a sandwich. Now count what is physically on your shelf at any moment.
Four to eight trays. Not because you are scaling up. Because that is what a two-tray-a-week rotation looks like once the cycles overlap.
A free plan capped at two active trays does not survive contact with a second variety. Which is presumably the point.
What Grown Like A Pro Free actually includes
Whole list, nothing held back for a later paragraph.
- 8 active trays. Active means currently occupying a rack. Harvest one and the slot comes back, so this is a working rotation rather than a lifetime allowance.
- 8 sprout jars, with the full soak, rinse, ready, harvest and fridge lifecycle. Jars mirror the tray count on every plan.
- Unlimited microgreen varieties. Varieties used to be capped at five here. That cap was removed on 16 August 2026, because a plan should meter capacity, not knowledge.
- The full 60-profile cheat sheet. Soak hours per variety, blackout days across four stages, seed grams per 10 by 20 tray, expected harvest weight, watering volume in ounces and millilitres, pH range and temperature range with a stated optimum.
- A sprouting seed guide, with per-seed soak times, rinse intervals, pH ranges, food-safety flags and fridge shelf life stored per seed rather than one number for everything.
- Seed density calculator, scaled by tray square inch and correcting for the germination rate of the actual bag in front of you against a 92 percent baseline.
- Watering and stage-progression notifications, so blackout comes off on the right day instead of the day you remember.
- QR tray labels and rack assignment, 1 blackout rack and 1 light rack, plus seed and container inventory, fertilizer blend recipes, a basic cleaning checklist and the video library.
No credit card. No expiry. Nothing to cancel. It is a plan, not a countdown.
Eight against two, and why the difference is not marketing
We went looking for the next closest $0 option and found one capped at 2 active trays, checked 17 August 2026. It does not advertise sprout tracking, and it marks cost analytics and data export as paid rather than free. Both free plans are permanent and neither asks for a card. If you want named products side by side, including where we lose, that lives on our comparison pages rather than here.
Four times the free trays sounds like a marketing line, so here is the practical version instead. At 2 active trays you can run one variety on a rotation, or two varieties with a gap. At 8 you can run three varieties continuously, sow twice a week, and still have room for the tray you started on a whim. That is the difference between an app that watches you grow and an app you hit a wall in.
| Free plan | Grown Like A Pro | Next closest $0 option, checked 17 Aug 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Active trays | 8 | 2 |
| Sprout jars | 8, full soak and rinse lifecycle | Sprout tracking not advertised |
| Microgreen varieties | Unlimited | Crop library included, 80 crops and 284 varieties published |
| Credit card to start | Not required | Not required |
| Expiry | None | None |
That comparison was made on 17 August 2026 against the free tiers publicly published at the time, and "not advertised" means only that we could not find it described publicly on that date. Free plans change, and new ones appear. We recheck the field and will update this page as we find new options worth comparing against.
What free does not include
Listing this properly is the whole point of the page. A free plan whose limits you discover later is not free, it is a delay.
- No Glappy AI assistant and no AI photo tray diagnosis. Those start on Solo at $3.00 a month, capped at 10 questions a day.
- No analytics and no CSV export. Also Solo, since 17 August 2026.
- No client records, orders, invoicing or QuickBooks sync. Those start on Grower at $12.99 a month.
- No Bluetooth temperature or humidity sensors. Grower and Pro.
- No team members. Grower has 2, Pro has 10.
- One blackout rack, one light rack, one farm. Solo raises racks to 4, Grower removes the rack cap.
The free plan and the free trial are two different things
People merge these constantly, so here they are apart.
The free plan is permanent, takes no card, and never expires. 8 trays, 8 jars, unlimited varieties.
The free trial sits on the paid plans and works differently. Start an annual plan on Grower or Pro and the first 30 days cost nothing. A card is collected when the trial begins, nothing is charged until day 30, we remind you before that day, and cancelling inside the 30 days costs nothing. Monthly billing does not carry the trial. If you would rather not put a card down at all, use the free plan.
The case for using nothing at all
Worth saying, since we are the ones with something to sell.
If you sow one tray a fortnight, always the same variety, and you have never lost one, a paper notebook and the alarm clock on your phone do this job perfectly. Planted broccoli on the 3rd. Blackout off Thursday. Cut on the 12th. There is no version of an app that improves on that, and paying attention to your own trays is a better habit than paying attention to a screen.
The point where software starts earning its place is specific: several varieties on different clocks at the same time. Sunflower comes off blackout on day 2, radish on day 3 or 4, basil on day 5 or 6. Three varieties sown on different days is nine dates to hold, and that is where a notebook starts losing to notifications.
I ran a notebook for eight months and it worked fine. What killed it was adding cilantro. Different soak, different blackout, different everything, and I had it sitting next to radish that wanted the opposite. I was not disorganised. I just had more clocks than hands.
Home grower, four varieties, upstate New York
If you are new to this, start here
Nothing about the free plan assumes experience, and there is no stage of growing where it is the wrong tool. Two things to know on day one.
First, the cheat sheet is the useful part, not the tray counter. Sixty profiles with soak hours, blackout windows, seed grams and pH means your first tray is grown against numbers that were tested on a working farm rather than guessed. Several varieties carry a deliberate zero soak, because the small brassicas and the mucilaginous seeds like basil, chia, flax and cress rot if you soak them. That single field saves more first trays than anything else in the app.
Second, log the failures. A tray that goes wrong is data if you write down what you did, and a mystery if you do not. The growers who improve fastest are the ones whose third month can be compared against their first.
Start free, 8 trays, no card →Frequently asked questions
Is there a genuinely free microgreen tracking app?
Yes. Grown Like A Pro's Free plan is permanently free: 8 active trays, 8 sprout jars, unlimited microgreen varieties and the full 60-profile cheat sheet, with no credit card and no expiry date. It is a plan rather than a trial, so there is no day when it turns off. The next closest $0 option we could find caps its free plan at 2 active trays, checked 17 August 2026. Both free plans are permanent and neither asks for a card. We recheck the field periodically and will update this as new free options appear.
How many trays does the free plan of Grown Like A Pro allow?
Eight active trays and 8 sprout jars. Active means currently occupying a rack or a jar, so harvesting frees the slot. It is a working rotation, not a lifetime allowance. If you sow two trays a week on a 10-day cycle, 8 active trays is roughly what you will have going at any moment, which is why the number is 8 rather than 2.
Does the free microgreen app require a credit card?
No. The Free plan takes no card at all and has no expiry, so there is nothing to cancel. That is separate from the 30-day free trial, which is a different offer that sits on the paid annual plans: the trial does collect a card when it starts, nothing is charged until day 30, and cancelling before day 30 costs nothing. Two different things, and people run them together constantly.
What is not included in the free microgreen tracking app?
Stated plainly so nothing surprises you: no Glappy AI assistant, no AI photo diagnosis of a struggling tray, no analytics or CSV export, no client records, orders or invoicing, no Bluetooth temperature and humidity sensors, no team members, one blackout rack and one light rack, and one farm. Analytics and CSV export start at Solo, which is $3.00 a month as of 17 August 2026. Client tools start at Grower, $12.99 a month.
Can I track sprouts on the free plan?
Yes. Eight sprout jars are included on the free plan, with the full soak, rinse, ready, harvest and fridge lifecycle, and a built-in sprouting seed guide carrying per-seed soak times, rinse intervals, pH ranges and food-safety flags. Fridge shelf life is stored per seed rather than as one number applied to everything. Sprout jars mirror the tray limit on every plan, so 8 trays comes with 8 jars.
How many microgreen varieties can I grow on the free plan?
Unlimited, and the full cheat sheet comes with them. Sixty pre-loaded microgreen profiles carrying soak hours, blackout days, seed grams per 10 by 20 tray, expected yield, watering volume, pH range and temperature range. Varieties used to be capped at five on the free plan. That cap was removed on 16 August 2026 because growing knowledge is not what a plan should meter. Capacity is.
Is a free app enough for a hobby microgreen grower?
For most home growers, yes, and there is no timer running that forces you off it. Eight active trays covers a household growing for itself plus a couple of neighbours. The honest counterpoint is that if you sow one tray a fortnight and never lose one, a paper notebook does the same job for nothing, and you should use it. The app earns its place when you are running several varieties on different clocks and the dates stop fitting in your head.
Is Grown Like A Pro free on iPhone?
The free plan is the same on every device, but the way you reach it differs today. There is a native Android app on Google Play and a web app at app.grownlikeapro.com that runs in any browser, including Safari on an iPhone, and can be added to the home screen. There is no iOS App Store listing yet. The iOS app is in App Store review and we will not name a date until Apple approves it.
What is the difference between the free plan and the free trial?
The free plan is permanent, takes no card, has no expiry and is capped at 8 active trays and 8 sprout jars. The free trial is a separate offer that sits on the paid plans: start an annual plan on Grower or Pro and the first 30 days cost nothing, a card is collected when the trial begins, nothing is charged until day 30, and cancelling before then costs nothing. Monthly billing does not carry the trial. If you would rather not put a card down at all, the free plan is the one you want.
The bottom line
Free should mean you can actually grow. Eight trays, 8 jars, every variety and the whole cheat sheet, with no card and no clock running.
If a notebook is doing the job for you today, keep the notebook. If you are already writing dates on masking tape and losing track of which tray is which, the free plan costs nothing to find out with.