**Best PictureThis Alternatives — 6 Apps Compared on Real Prices**

> Six PictureThis alternatives ranked, with every in-app purchase price read from the App Store. Three have no in-app purchases at all.

Source: https://orvik.app/alternatives/picturethis/ · updated: 2026-09-04

1. [Orvik](https://orvik.app/)

2. [Compare](https://orvik.app/compare/)

3. PictureThis alternatives

PictureThis alternatives

# PictureThis alternatives that actually identify plants

PictureThis is the biggest plant identifier there is — **1.1 million ratings at 4.8 stars** is not an accident. People go looking for an alternative for one of three reasons: the free tier ran out, they wanted more than plants, or they wanted a result they could check rather than a single confident name. This page sorts the field by which of those three you have.

Alternatives **6** Free outright **3** Store data **2026-09-03** Updated **2026-09-04**

Short answer

If you want the same job done for nothing, **PlantNet** is the answer — it is run by four French public research institutes, it lists no in-app purchases at all, and it shows you a ranked list with confidence rather than one confident guess. If you want plants *and* everything else in one app, **Seek** is free and identifies living things on the device itself.

## What PictureThis charges

*Every in-app purchase Apple lists for , verbatim, on 2026-09-03. Apple does
 not label the billing period, so where two tiers share a name they are usually the same
 product billed weekly, monthly and annually.*

| In-app purchase | Price |
| --- | --- |
| PictureThis Pro | $39.99 |
| PictureThis Pro | $7.99 |
| PictureThis Pro | $3.99 |
| PictureThis Family Plan | $49.99 |

## The 6 alternatives, ranked

1. PlantNet The free one Free — no in-app purchases · 4.6★ from 7,040 PlantNet is published by **CTRE COOP INTERNAT RECHERCHE AGRO DEV** — a consortium of French public research institutes — and it lists **no in-app purchases whatsoever**. It is also the most intellectually honest identifier in the category: you tell it which organ you photographed, and it returns a ranked list with similarity scores instead of one answer, which is exactly how a botanist would hedge. Every identification you confirm feeds a shared scientific dataset. **Against it:** It is built for wild flora, so it is weaker on cultivars and houseplants than PictureThis, there is no care or watering guidance at all, and the interface assumes you can tell a leaf from a bract.
2. Seek The one that covers everything Free — no in-app purchases · 4.8★ from 30,894 Seek is iNaturalist's free identifier and it works on **anything alive** — plants, insects, birds, mammals, fungi. Point the camera and it identifies in real time *on the device*, with no photo to take, no upload and no signal needed. No account, no advertising, no in-app purchases. It is the app to give a child. **Against it:** It deliberately declines to guess when it is unsure, which reads as failure if you expected a name every time, and it covers only living things — no rocks, no coins, no made objects.
3. iNaturalist The one that is actually right Free — no in-app purchases · 4.1★ from 658 iNaturalist proposes an identification and then **real naturalists confirm or correct it**, often specialists in that exact group. A community-confirmed identification is the most reliable answer any app on this page can give you, and confirmed records become research data used in published science. **Against it:** It is not instant — confirmation takes hours to days — it needs an account, and your observations are public by default, including their location unless you obscure it.
4. PlantSnap The closest like-for-like In-app purchases $0.99–$59.99 · 4.6★ from 68,206 If what you actually liked about PictureThis was the shape of it — photograph, get a name, get a care card — PlantSnap is the nearest thing with a different bill. It has been doing this since before the current crop of apps existed and its reference set is deepest on wild and garden plants in North America and Europe. **Against it:** It is fussier about framing than newer apps, wanting a single leaf or flower against a plain background, and its subscription ladder runs to $59.99 — this is a swap, not an escape. [More on PlantSnap](https://orvik.app/plants/plantsnap-plant-identification-app/)

5. Google Lens The one already on your phone In-app purchases $0.89–$99.99 · 4.6★ from 5,028,083 Google Lens is inside the Google app and costs nothing to try. For a plant that is common and distinctive it will get you there, and it is genuinely unbeatable for anything man-made — a plant label, a seed packet, a garden centre tag. **Against it:** It is visual search, not species identification. It finds pictures that look like yours and leaves the conclusion to you, which on subtle look-alikes means it will confidently show you the wrong plant. [More on Google Lens](https://orvik.app/plants/google-lens-plant-identifier/)

6. Orvik The one that does the other seven things too In-app purchases $4.99–$29.99 Orvik is ours, so read this with that in mind. It identifies plants alongside insects, animals, birds, rocks, collectibles, food and natural phenomena from the same camera, and it shows the ranked near-misses rather than one confident answer — the same instinct PlantNet has, applied more broadly. **Against it:** It is new, with far fewer ratings than anything else on this page, there is no community verification behind the result, and on plants specifically PictureThis has a much larger reference set and better care guidance.

## All of them, priced

*PictureThis and every alternative on this page. Every figure is read from the US App Store
 listing on 2026-09-03; in-app purchase tiers are Apple\'s own list, not a summary.*

| App | Download | In-app purchases | Cheapest | Dearest |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| PictureThis | Free | 4 tiers | $3.99 | $49.99 |
| PlantNet | Free | **None** | — | — |
| Seek | Free | **None** | — | — |
| iNaturalist | Free | **None** | — | — |
| PlantSnap | Free | 10 tiers | $0.99 | $59.99 |
| Google Lens | Free | 8 tiers | $0.89 | $99.99 |
| Orvik | Free | 2 tiers | $4.99 | $29.99 |

## What people actually mean by "free"

Every app on this page is free to download. That is not the question people are asking when they type "free plant identifier" into a search box — the question is whether it will keep working after the third photograph.

The App Store draws a line that matters here, and it is checkable rather than a matter of opinion: an app either lists in-app purchases or it does not. **PlantNet, Seek and iNaturalist list none at all.** There is nothing inside them to buy, no unlock, no consumable, no subscription. That is not a generous free tier; it is the absence of a paid tier.

Everything else on this page, PictureThis included, is a free download with a subscription behind it. That is a legitimate way to sell software, and the apps that do it generally have more polish, more care content and better cultivar coverage than the free ones. But it means the answer to "is it free" is *no*, and the honest version of this comparison says so.

The three genuinely free apps have something else in common worth noticing: none of them is a commercial publisher. PlantNet comes out of public agricultural research, Seek and iNaturalist out of a non-profit joint initiative. They are free because identifying plants is the mission rather than the funnel.

## Read the billing period, not the price

The single most expensive mistake in this category is misreading a weekly subscription as a one-off. Apple lists in-app purchase names and prices but **not the billing period**, so a tier called "Premium" at a low price can be weekly, monthly or annual, and the listing looks identical either way.

The table further down this page prints every tier verbatim, and the pattern is visible once you know to look for it: an app with three tiers at roughly the same name is usually selling one product billed weekly, monthly and annually. The weekly tier is always the worst value and is always the one presented first inside the app, because it has the smallest number on it.

Work it out before you tap. A weekly subscription at a few dollars is several hundred dollars a year — more than the annual tier of the same product, often by a factor of five or more. If an app offers you a free trial that converts to weekly billing, that is the tier to avoid, and the annual one is usually two taps away in the same sheet.

## What you give up by leaving PictureThis

A comparison that only lists reasons to switch is marketing. Three things PictureThis does better than most of this page:

- **Cultivars and houseplants.** The free research apps are built on wild flora, and they show it. If your question is which of forty named hosta varieties is in the pot, PictureThis has the reference set and PlantNet does not.
- **Care guidance.** Watering, light, repotting, and a diagnosis path when the leaves go yellow. Seek and iNaturalist do not attempt this at all; it is not what they are for.
- **Answering every time.** PictureThis returns a name. Seek and PlantNet will tell you they are not sure, which is more honest and, when you just want to know what is in the border, more annoying.

The reasonable position is that these are different products wearing the same category label. A research identifier and a plant-care subscription are not competitors so much as neighbours, and which one you want depends on whether the plant is a specimen or a pet.

## Cancelling a subscription before you switch

Deleting an app does not cancel its subscription. This catches people constantly, and it is the reason a lot of the searching behind this page happens at all.

**On iPhone or iPad:** Settings → tap your name at the top → Subscriptions. Every active subscription across every app is in that one list. Tap the one you want and choose Cancel Subscription. It keeps working until the end of the period you already paid for.

**On a Mac:** App Store → click your name at the bottom of the sidebar → View Information → Manage, next to Subscriptions.

**On Android:** Play Store → profile icon → Payments and subscriptions → Subscriptions.

Two things worth knowing. Apple's subscription list is the authority regardless of what an app's own settings screen says, so cancel there. And if you were charged for something you never meant to buy — a weekly tier you thought was one-off, or a trial that converted — you can request a refund at *reportaproblem.apple.com* with the same Apple Account. Apple grants those more often than people expect, particularly for a first accidental subscription.

## How this list was built

Every price, rating, version, download size and update date on this page is read from the app's own **US App Store listing on 2026-09-03** through Apple's Lookup API and product pages. Nothing here is a figure typed from memory — the build fails if one appears in the text — and the date is printed on every table because prices in this category move.

The ranking is not by rating. PictureThis has the highest rating and the most reviews on this page by an enormous margin, and it is still the app being replaced, because a rating measures satisfaction among people who kept using it rather than suitability for the person about to leave. The order above is: free and honest first, then free and broad, then accurate, then like-for-like, then convenient, then ours.

Apps were left out where they are plant-care products with identification bolted on rather than identifiers — that category is real and useful, and it is a different question from the one this page answers.

## Questions people ask

Is there a completely free alternative to PictureThis?

Three, and the App Store listing is the proof rather than a claim: PlantNet, Seek and iNaturalist list **no in-app purchases at all**. PlantNet is run by French public research institutes and is the closest like-for-like for plants; Seek identifies anything alive on the device itself with no account; iNaturalist adds human confirmation from other naturalists. None of them has a paid tier to run out of.

Which PictureThis alternative is most accurate?

For a definitive answer, iNaturalist, because a real naturalist confirms it — that is a different kind of accuracy from a model's confidence score and it is the most reliable result available from any app here. For an instant answer on wild plants, PlantNet, which shows you ranked candidates with similarity rather than one guess. For cultivars and houseplants, PictureThis itself remains the strongest, which is worth saying on a page about replacing it.

How much does PictureThis actually cost?

Its App Store listing carried **4 in-app purchase tiers between $3.99 and $49.99** when this page was last checked on 2026-09-03. Apple does not publish the billing period next to each tier, so the low figure is not a one-off purchase — it is almost certainly a weekly or monthly rate for the same product the top figure buys for a year. Check the current sheet in the App Store before subscribing.

Does deleting the app cancel the subscription?

No, and this is the single most common billing mistake there is. Subscriptions live with your Apple Account, not with the app. Go to Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions, and cancel there — that list is the authority regardless of what the app's own settings say. On Android the equivalent is Play Store, profile icon, Payments and subscriptions.

Can Google Lens replace a plant identifier?

Partly, and it is free and already on your phone. But Lens is visual search rather than species identification: it finds photographs that look like yours and leaves the conclusion to you. On a distinctive plant that works fine; on the pairs that actually matter — hemlock and wild carrot, sassafras and mulberry — it will show you convincing pictures of the wrong species, because they look alike, which is the entire problem.

What if I need more than plants?

Seek is the free answer and covers everything alive. If you also want rocks, coins and other made objects — which no free naturalist app covers, because they are not alive — you are into general identifiers, which is what Orvik does and why it is on this page. Being explicit: that is our app, and on plants specifically PictureThis has a bigger reference set and better care content than we do.

Are these prices current?

They were read from the US App Store on 2026-09-03, and that date is printed on every table for a reason: prices, tiers and trial terms in this category change often, and regional storefronts differ. Treat the figures here as a snapshot that tells you the shape of each app's pricing, and check the App Store sheet itself before you buy.

## One app instead of 6

Orvik identifies plants, insects, animals, birds, rocks, collectibles, food and natural phenomena from one camera, and shows the near-misses so you can check the answer rather than take it on faith.

- [Get Orvik free](https://orvik.app/app/)

## Keep reading on Orvik

- [What PictureThis actually does](https://orvik.app/plants/picture-this-plant-identifier-app/)

- [Free plant identifier apps](https://orvik.app/plants/free-plant-identifier-app/)

- [PlantSnap, reviewed](https://orvik.app/plants/plantsnap-plant-identification-app/)

- [Google Lens as a plant identifier](https://orvik.app/plants/google-lens-plant-identifier/)

- [Identify a tree by its leaf — free browser tool](https://orvik.app/tools/leaf-identifier/)

- [Is this plant poisonous to dogs or cats?](https://orvik.app/tools/plant-toxicity-checker/)

- [What plant is this?](https://orvik.app/plants/what-plant-is-this/)

- [Identify a plant by leaf shape](https://orvik.app/plants/identify-plant-by-leaf-shape/)

## Other comparisons

- [PictureThis or PlantNet: which plant identifier should you use?](https://orvik.app/compare/picturethis-vs-plantnet/)
- [PictureThis or PlantSnap: which plant subscription is worth it?](https://orvik.app/compare/picturethis-vs-plantsnap/)
- [PictureThis or Seek: paid depth against free breadth](https://orvik.app/compare/picturethis-vs-seek/)
- [PictureThis or iNaturalist: a confident guess against a confirmed answer](https://orvik.app/compare/picturethis-vs-inaturalist/)
- [PictureThis or Google Lens for plants: is the subscription worth it?](https://orvik.app/compare/picturethis-vs-google/)
- [PlantNet or PlantSnap: free research against a paid reference set](https://orvik.app/compare/plantnet-vs-plantsnap/)
- [Seek or iNaturalist: the same non-profit, opposite trade-offs](https://orvik.app/compare/seek-vs-inaturalist/)
- [Seek or Google Lens: identification against visual search](https://orvik.app/compare/seek-vs-google/)

## Where these figures come from

- Prices, in-app purchase tiers, ratings, versions, download sizes and update dates are read from each app’s **US App Store listing on 2026-09-03** using Apple’s own Lookup API and product pages. Nothing on this page is a figure somebody typed from memory, and the build fails if one appears.
- Apple does not publish billing periods next to in-app purchase names, so where two tiers share a name they are usually the same subscription billed over different terms. Check the current price in the App Store before you buy anything.
- Scope and behaviour — what each app identifies, whether it works offline, whether a human confirms the result — come from the apps’ own listings and from using them.
- Orvik is our app. We have tried to be specific about where these competitors are better, because a comparison that never concedes anything is not worth reading.

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