Let me save you some time.
I spent way too many hours downloading plant apps that claimed to be "free," only to discover that "free" meant "free to download, then pay us immediately if you want to do anything useful."
Three plants maximum. Basic features locked. Constant upgrade prompts. Ads after every tap.
It's frustrating, because all I wanted was something simple: an app to help me remember when I watered my plants. I wasn't asking for AI diagnosis or expert consultations or whatever premium features they're pushing. Just basic tracking.
Here's what I found after testing everything I could find on the Play Store.
The "free" apps that aren't really free
Let's get these out of the way first, because you'll probably encounter them.
Planta looks beautiful. The interface is genuinely nice. But the free version limits you to three plants. Three. I had three plants on my bedroom windowsill alone. The moment you add a fourth, you're looking at $8 per month.
To be fair, Planta does have good plant identification. If you just need to figure out what that mystery plant from IKEA is, the free version can help with that. But for tracking? It's basically a trial.
Greg has a fun personality and tries to make plant care feel like a game. I appreciated the effort. But same story: limited free tier, expensive subscription, and honestly the personalized watering schedules it generated for my plants were way off. It wanted me to water succulents every few days. That's how you get root rot.
PictureThis is purely for identification. You point your camera at a plant, it tells you what it is. That part works pretty well. But it's not a tracker at all, just an ID tool. And even the identification gets limited after a few uses unless you subscribe.
Most of these apps follow the same playbook: give you just enough to get hooked, then charge you monthly for features that should probably be included.
What I actually ended up using
After all that searching, I landed on Beflore. And I'll be honest about why.
The free version gives you 10 plants with every feature unlocked. Not "basic" features. All of them. Tracking, reminders, timelines, health logging, widgets, photo journal, everything.
Ten plants was plenty for me when I started. I've since upgraded because my collection grew (plant addiction is real), but I used the free version for months before that happened.
What I liked most was the lack of annoyances. No ads. No daily popups asking me to upgrade. No features that are visible but grayed out and locked. It just works like a normal app.
The other thing that sold me: it works offline. I water my plants in the morning before the wifi in my building wakes up properly. Sounds dumb, but apps that require internet for basic logging drove me crazy.
The identification problem
One thing Beflore doesn't do is identify plants from photos. If you buy a plant without a label and have no idea what it is, you need something else.
My workaround: I use Google Lens. It's free, it's already on your phone, and it's surprisingly good at plant identification. Point your camera at a plant, tap the Lens icon, and it'll usually tell you what it is.
For tricky cases, I just post a photo on Reddit (r/whatsthisplant) and someone identifies it within hours. Free, accurate, and you sometimes learn interesting facts about the plant from the comments.
You don't need to pay $30/year for plant identification when free options work just as well.
Other decent free options
Vera is worth mentioning if you want something extremely simple. It's basically a reminder app with a plant theme. No fancy features, just "remind me to water this plant every X days." The free tier gives you 5 plants.
If that's all you need, it works fine. But you won't get any insights about your watering patterns or help figuring out what went wrong when a plant struggles. It's just reminders.
Florish offers unlimited plants for free, but with ads. The ads aren't terrible, but they're definitely present. The app itself is aimed at beginners, with lots of educational content and encouragement. I found it a bit too hand-holdy for my taste, but if you're brand new to plants, it might be helpful.
My setup (costs me nothing)
Here's what I use, all free:
Beflore for tracking everything. Watering, fertilizing, notes, photos. The widget on my home screen makes logging take about two seconds.
Google Lens when I need to identify a plant. Works 90% of the time.
Reddit for the other 10%, and also for troubleshooting when something looks wrong and I can't figure out why.
Total cost: zero.
I could upgrade Beflore to get unlimited plants, and I eventually did, but I got genuine value from the free version for a long time first. That's rare.
What to watch out for
A few things I learned from downloading way too many apps:
Check the free limits before you invest time. Some apps don't tell you about plant limits until you've already set up five plants and try to add a sixth. Frustrating.
Read the privacy policy. Many free apps make money by collecting your data. Who knows why anyone would want data about my houseplants, but some apps are definitely harvesting more than they need. Beflore explicitly stores everything locally on your phone, which I appreciate.
Don't trust the ratings blindly. A lot of 5-star reviews are from people who just downloaded the app, not people who've used it for months. The 3-star reviews are usually more honest about limitations.
Free trials aren't the same as free tiers. "Start your free trial" means you'll be charged when it ends. "Free with premium upgrade" means there's an actually free version you can use indefinitely.
Is paid ever worth it?
For plant apps specifically? I'm skeptical.
The core job (reminding you to water, tracking what you've done) doesn't require sophisticated technology. It's not like a fitness app that needs GPS and motion sensors and complex algorithms.
The features that premium plant apps charge for (AI diagnosis, expert chat, detailed care guides) are things you can mostly get for free elsewhere. Google, Reddit, YouTube.
Where I do see the value: if you have way more than 10 plants and want everything in one place. Paying a few bucks a month to track 30+ plants in a well-designed app is reasonable. I did eventually upgrade Beflore for that reason.
But paying $8-10 per month for an app that limits you to 3 free plants and locks basic features behind a paywall? That's just bad value, especially when better free options exist.
The bottom line
If you're on Android and want a free plant tracking app, start with Beflore. Ten plants, all features, no ads, no catch. If you outgrow it, upgrading is cheap. If you don't, you never have to pay.
Use Google Lens for identification. Use Reddit for help. Don't let "free" apps guilt you into subscriptions you don't need.
Your plants don't care how much you spent on an app. They care that you're paying attention.
Beflore is free on Google Play if you want to try it. I'm not getting paid to say that, it's just what I actually use.