Nara Baby is one of the most popular free baby trackers out there, and for good reason. It's genuinely well made, it has no ads, and it's trusted by more than a million parents. If you've been searching for a tracker that doesn't hit you with a subscription or pepper you with banner ads, Nara looks like the obvious answer.
MilkMode costs $4.99. So the fair question is: why would anyone pay for a breastfeeding timer when Nara Baby gives you a full tracker for nothing?
The honest answer is in how each app makes money, and what it's really tracking.
TL;DR: Nara Baby is a free, ad-free, full-featured tracker, but it's owned by formula maker Nara Organics and exists, by the company's own account, to build a relationship with future formula customers. MilkMode is a focused breastfeeding timer, $4.99 once, with no account, no cloud, and no company trying to sell you anything else.
Quick comparison
| Feature | MilkMode | Nara Baby |
|---|---|---|
| Breastfeeding timer | Yes (core focus) | Yes (one of many) |
| Left/right tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Home Screen widget | Full feed control | Limited |
| Live Activities / Dynamic Island | Yes | No |
| Diaper / sleep / pumping tracking | No | Yes |
| Ads | No | No |
| Owned by | An independent app team | Nara Organics (a formula company) |
| Account required | No | Yes (for sync & sharing) |
| Data & sync | On-device only | Cloud-based |
| Platforms | iPhone only | iPhone, Android |
| Pricing | Free 7-day trial, then $4.99 once | Free |
The Nara Baby experience
Nara Baby is a clean, full-featured tracker. It logs breastfeeding, bottles, pumping, sleep, diapers, and growth, and it lets caregivers sync and share a baby's day across devices. There are no ads, the design is calm, and it's free. On the surface, it's hard to fault.
The context worth knowing: Nara Baby was launched by Esther Hallam, who founded Nara Organics after struggling to find an infant formula that met her standards. The app came first and grew to over a million parents, largely by word of mouth, while the company developed its organic formula. As Inc. reported, the app effectively became a marketing funnel, a way to build a trusted relationship with parents who are exactly the company's future formula customers.
None of that makes Nara a bad app. The team is clearly thoughtful, and a free, ad-free tracker is a real gift to a lot of families. But it's worth being clear-eyed about the arrangement: the app is free because you, and your relationship with the brand, are the product the company is ultimately investing in.
"Free" has a business model
Every app has to make money somehow. The useful question is always: how?
- Subscription apps (Huckleberry, Glow) charge you directly, often $70 to $120 a year.
- Ad-supported apps sell your attention to advertisers.
- Nara Baby is free and ad-free because it's owned by a company that sells formula, and the app builds the brand relationship that supports that business.
- MilkMode charges $4.99 once. That's the entire business model. There's nothing else to sell you.
If you're exclusively breastfeeding, there's something a little ironic about logging every feed inside an app owned by a formula company. To be fair, Nara doesn't push formula at you inside the tracker. But the relationship exists, your account and data live in their cloud, and the long game is a commercial one. Some parents won't mind that at all. Others would rather their breastfeeding data not sit inside a formula brand's ecosystem.
The MilkMode experience
MilkMode does one thing: it's the fastest, calmest way to time a breastfeed. A Home Screen widget lets you start, switch sides, pause, and finish without opening the app. Live Activities put the running timer on your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. It remembers which side you started on last time, and it has a dark mode built for 3am.
There's no account to create and no cloud. Your feeding data never leaves your phone. Not to us, not to anyone. You pay $4.99 once, and that's the whole relationship. No formula emails, no upsells, no data funnel.
When Nara Baby makes more sense
- You want a free, ad-free app that tracks everything (feeds, diapers, sleep, pumping)
- You need Android support (MilkMode is iPhone only)
- You want cloud sync and easy sharing across multiple caregivers
- You're comfortable with a formula company owning the app and your account data
When MilkMode makes more sense
- You mainly want a breastfeeding timer, and you want it to feel effortless
- You want the fastest logging possible: a widget + Live Activities, usable one-handed
- You'd rather pay $4.99 once than have your data live in a formula brand's cloud
- You want zero account and data that stays entirely on your phone
- You want a calm, single-purpose app instead of a full dashboard
The bottom line
Nara Baby is a good, free, ad-free tracker, and for plenty of families that's exactly right. Just go in knowing why it's free: it's owned by a formula company, it runs on an account in their cloud, and the long-term relationship is the point.
If that sits fine with you, Nara is a solid pick. If you'd rather keep your breastfeeding data on your own phone, skip the account entirely, and use an app whose only job is to be a great timer, that's exactly what MilkMode is built for, at a one-time $4.99 and nothing else.
Curious how Nara stacks up against the big subscription apps? Read Nara Baby vs. Huckleberry, or see our roundup of the best breastfeeding app alternatives.
Try MilkMode free for 7 days
No ads. No account. No data leaving your phone. Just a really good timer.
Download on the App Store