Avo Pregnancy vs What to Expect: Week-by-Week Guide or Food Safety Checker?

What to Expect is the pregnancy app many people download first, and it has earned that: free, 4.9 stars from 381K ratings and a community of other parents due the same month. Avo Pregnancy is the app we make, and it does one thing What to Expect does not: it tells you whether the food in front of you is safe to eat. If you are choosing between them, the short answer is that you probably are not choosing. What to Expect is a guide to the pregnancy; Avo is a checker for the meals in it.

This comparison was written by the Avo Parenting team, so read it knowing who wrote it. Everything about What to Expect comes from its own App Store listing, read on 3 November 2026, and we have put our own app's weaknesses in the same rows as theirs. Our wider roundup of pregnancy food apps compares the other food scanners if a food checker is what you are after.

What each app does and what it costs, from their own App Store listings on 3 November 2026.

How we compared the two apps

Across nine months a pregnant person asks a pregnancy app six kinds of question: what is happening this week, can I eat this, am I getting enough of the nutrients that matter, how do I log what my body is doing, what do other people in the same week say, and what do I need to buy and plan. We compared the apps on those six jobs, on what is free and what is paid, and on who stands behind the content. We did not score design, notifications or the size of each company's audience.

Avo Pregnancy vs What to Expect at a glance

Ratings measure age and audience as much as quality. What to Expect has years of head start and a very large audience; Avo launched this year.

Where What to Expect is stronger

It is free, and complete. The listing shows no in-app purchases. For the price of nothing you get the weekly videos, the size comparisons, the symptom and weight log, the registry, the journal and the community. Avo's unlimited scanning and full recipe library cost $29.99 a year.

The weekly videos. What to Expect shows 3D pregnancy videos of the baby's development each week from conception to birth. Avo's week-by-week is text and illustration: a size comparison, what is developing, what you may feel. If you want to see the week, What to Expect wins it.

The community. Other parents due in the same month are the feature no editorial team can write. Questions about a twinge at 2 a.m. get answered by someone who had the same twinge last week. Avo has no community and does not plan to pretend otherwise.

It carries on after the birth. Twin mode, a newborn feeding, diaper and sleep log, and month-by-month milestones mean one app runs from the ovulation calculator to the first birthday. Avo Pregnancy stops at the birth; our baby-feeding app, Avo Starting Solids, picks up at six months.

Where Avo Pregnancy is stronger

It answers "can I eat this?" about the thing in your hand. What to Expect's answer to a food question is an article. Avo's answer is a verdict on the specific food: 365 foods rated Safe, Caution or Avoid with the reason, from brie to bubble tea, and the same list free on this site in our pregnancy food library. Snap a plate or a product and Avo names what is on it and rates each part.

It reads the menu. Point Scan Menu at a restaurant menu and it sorts the dishes into "Best Picks for You" and "Better to Skip" before the waiter arrives. What to Expect's listing describes nothing similar. Our eating out guide explains the rules the scan is applying.

It counts the nutrients, not just the weight. Avo tracks iron, folate, calcium, DHA, protein and water against targets for your trimester, filled by what you log or scan. What to Expect logs weight and symptoms; it does not describe nutrient tracking.

It shows the rule and where it differs. Soft cheese, runny eggs and sushi are judged differently by the FDA, the NHS and the French and German agencies. Avo's verdicts link to the guidance behind them, and our foods to avoid during pregnancy guide sets the US, UK and EU positions side by side.

Languages. The app runs in 19 languages and the food library and guides on this site are published in 19. What to Expect's listing shows English only.

Recipes built for the trimester. 500 pregnancy-safe recipes filtered by trimester and dietary need, each ingredient marked Safe, Caution or Avoid. What to Expect does not describe recipes.

Which app should you choose?

Choose What to Expect if:

• You want one free app for the whole pregnancy and the first year.
• You want weekly 3D videos of your baby's development.
• You want a community of parents due the same month.
• You want a registry inside the app.

Choose Avo Pregnancy if:

• Your most frequent pregnancy question is "can I eat this?", and you want an answer in seconds, not an article.
• You eat out and want the menu checked before you order.
• You want iron, folate, calcium, DHA and protein counted against your trimester.
• You want the rule behind each verdict, and to know where the US, UK and EU differ.
• You use the app in a language other than English.

Can you use both?

Yes, and it is the natural pairing. What to Expect is for the pregnancy: the week, the videos, the community, the registry. Avo is for the meals: the packet in the shop, the cheese board at a party, the sushi menu. There is almost no overlap, so you will not be logging the same thing twice. What to Expect is free, so the only cost of running both is Avo's $29.99 a year if you want unlimited scans and the full recipe library.

The bottom line

What to Expect is the better pregnancy app and Avo is the better food checker. If you only want one app, What to Expect does more things for nothing. If "can I eat this?" is the question you ask most, Avo answers it about the actual food in front of you, which an article never will. We would keep What to Expect for the week and open Avo at the table.

Our cheese in pregnancy and listeria in pregnancy guides cover the two food rules that matter most, and we have compared Avo with Flo, Pregnancy+, The Bump and BabyCenter the same way.

Prices, features and ratings are from the US App Store on 3 November 2026 and will change. Avo Pregnancy is made by Avo Parenting, the publisher of this site. What to Expect is a trademark of its respective owner, who are not affiliated with Avo Parenting and have not reviewed or endorsed this comparison.