The best shared grocery list apps for families

Clemi is the best pick for a family that cooks from recipes: the week’s ingredients become one list, merged across recipes, sorted by aisle and updated live on everyone’s phone, and that shared list is free. Samsung Food is the better free tier if you want more than a list, and Mealime produces the tidiest list if you cook its own recipes.

Last updated August 22, 2026

The short answer

A family grocery list has to survive two people adding to it at once and one person shopping from it. Below, the apps are ranked on how well the list holds up in that situation, and on where the list comes from in the first place.

1
Best overall for families: Clemi
Clemi builds the list from the week’s recipes, merges the same ingredient across them, sorts it by aisle and syncs every tick in real time, so the person at the shop and the person at home never fall out of step. None of that sits behind Premium: the shared list, its sync and its aisle sort are free.
2
Best free tier beyond the list: Samsung Food
Clemi’s shared list is already free, so the question is what else you want at no cost. Samsung Food answers it with a large recipe database, meal planning and online grocery ordering in some countries, all on its free tier.
3
Cleanest generated list: Mealime
Mealime's list is the tidiest of any app on this page, with sensible quantities and clear categories, because it only ever has to handle its own recipes.

How they compare

App	Pricing	Shared grocery lists	Smart grocery details	Household sync	Meal planning
Clemi	Free tier; monthly or annual
Samsung Food	Free tier; monthly or annual
ReciMe	Free, 5 imports/week; annual
Mealime	Free tier; monthly Pro
Paprika	One-time, per platform

Features and pricing re-checked 22 August 2026. The table shows how each app charges, which holds everywhere; the amounts below are US store prices and differ by country.

1. Clemi

Best for: families who cook from recipes and shop together

Clemi treats the grocery list as the point of the whole app rather than an afterthought. Send a week of recipes to the list and the same ingredient across three recipes becomes one line with the quantities added up, sorted into the order you walk the shop, with pantry staples filtered out so you are not buying a fourth bottle of olive oil. Everyone in the Home sees the same list, and ticking an item updates the other phones while you are still in the aisle. Anyone can add to it, whether or not the item came from a recipe. The shared list, its real-time sync and its aisle sorting are all free.

Where it falls short: A free account gets one grocery list, so keeping a separate list per shop needs Premium. There is also no web version to build a list from a laptop, and no barcode scanning or store-price integration if that is what you want from a grocery app.

Price: free to use, including a shared grocery list. Premium is $6.99 a month or $39.99 a year in the US.

2. Samsung Food

Best for: families who want a capable shared list for free

Samsung Food shares a list with a group, fills it from recipes or its database, and organises by category. Combined with a free tier that covers most of it, this is the strongest no-cost option on the page, and it connects to online grocery ordering in some countries.

Where it falls short: The list is one feature inside a broad product, so it carries more interface than a shopping list needs, and it wants a Samsung account for everyone in the group.

Price: free tier, with Food+ at $6.99/month or $59.99/year in the US.

3. ReciMe

Best for: families whose recipes come from social video

ReciMe generates a grocery list from imported recipes and shares it with other people, with quantities carried across from the original recipe and a grocery checkout integration in some regions.

Where it falls short: How much you can put on the list depends on the import cap: five recipes a week on the free tier, which a family gets through quickly.

Price: free for 5 imports a week, with Plus at $39.99/year in the US.

4. Mealime

Best for: families who cook the app's own meal plans

Because Mealime controls the recipes, its list is the most consistent here: sensible quantities, no duplicate entries, sorted into categories that match how shops are laid out. If the meal plan came from Mealime, the shopping is close to effortless.

Where it falls short: The list can only be built from Mealime's own recipes and plans. Nothing you saved elsewhere reaches it, and sharing with the rest of the household is limited.

Price: free tier, with Pro from about $3/month in the US.

5. Paprika

Best for: families who want an offline list with no subscription

Paprika's list combines duplicate ingredients from the recipes you planned and groups them into categories you can edit, all offline and all paid for once.

Where it falls short: It is a one-person list. There is no way to share it live with a partner or a teenager, so whoever holds the phone does the shopping.

Price: $4.99 per mobile platform and $19.99 on desktop in the US, paid once.

How we picked

Every app here was assessed on the same capabilities, checked in the app itself or in its official documentation rather than taken from a marketing page. Ranking is by how well an app does the one job in the title, so an app can lead one of these lists and sit mid-table in another. Prices are US list prices.

Clemi is our app, so weigh our enthusiasm accordingly. Where another app does the job better, this page says so and names it.

Common questions

What is the best free shared grocery list app?

Clemi, if what you want is the list itself: the shared list, its real-time sync and its aisle sorting are free, and Premium covers AI recipe imports and keeping more than one list rather than the list itself. Samsung Food has the broader free tier if you want a recipe database and meal planning alongside it.

Which grocery list app sorts items by aisle?

Clemi sorts automatically by aisle and merges the same ingredient across every recipe on the list. Mealime and Samsung Food group by category, which is close but tied to their own layout rather than your route through the shop.

Can the whole family add to the same list?

In Clemi, Samsung Food and ReciMe, yes: anyone in the Home or group can add an item, and everyone sees it. Paprika and Mealime keep the list on a single account, so it has to be read out or screenshotted to whoever is shopping.

Do these apps stop you buying things you already have?

Clemi filters out pantry staples you have marked as already owned before they reach the list. The others rely on you spotting the duplicate, which is why the fourth bottle of olive oil is such a common outcome.