What to Expect When You Sign Up

Signing up for PrepSmart takes minutes, not effort. There's no long form, no spreadsheet of preferences, and no data entry. You make a handful of quick taps, and PrepSmart builds your personalized food world around them. By the time you reach Home, you already have saved recipes and a first Weekly Plan waiting — not a blank screen.

Here's exactly what happens, step by step.

1. Sign Up With Your Phone Number

PrepSmart is password-free. To create your account, you enter your phone number and we text you a one-time code (OTP). Type in the code, and you're in. That's it — no email, no password to remember, nothing to reset later.

Logging in next time? Same thing: enter your phone number, get a fresh code by text, and type it in. If the code doesn't arrive, tap Resend.

2. A Quick Hello

Right after you verify your number, PrepSmart notes how you found us so we can tailor a few first touches. There's nothing for you to do here — it's instant and behind the scenes.

3. Pick Your Diet

This is the one choice that shapes everything else. You'll see 25+ diet types and growing — Keto, Vegan, Mediterranean, High Protein, Gluten Free, and many more — shown as one simple, scrollable list. You pick one.

A few things worth knowing:

• Your diet is your YES list — it's about what you can eat, not what you "should." PrepSmart filters your food world to recipes that fit the way you actually eat.
• It's the organizing principle of your whole experience, not just a checkbox filter. Everything you see — recipes, creators, ideas — is shaped around it.
• You can change it anytime, and nothing is deleted. Switching diets simply re-filters your Food World; your saved recipes and plans stay safe.
• Don't see your way of eating? There's a request a diet row right in the list — tap it and let us know.

4. The Noise Fades

The moment you choose your diet, you'll notice a quiet shift: the clutter of recipes that don't fit your life drops away. This is your first taste of what makes PrepSmart different — instead of scrolling past a thousand things you can't or won't eat, you're looking at a world that already gets you.

5. Follow at Least 3

Next, you'll follow at least 3 sources to fill your food world with people and brands you trust. These can be:

• Creators — the cooks and chefs whose food you love
• Food brands — the products you already buy
• Grocery stores — so recipes and shopping match where you shop
• Appliances — like your air fryer or Instant Pot, so suggestions fit your kitchen

Following is always free. (Following a creator is different from subscribing to one — more on that at the very end. You never pay just to follow.)

Your account also comes with a small set of Starter Recipes — a free, diet-matched starter pack that's included with every account. It counts as one of your three follows, so you're already partway there before you tap a thing.

6. Add Your Grocery Store and Appliances

If you didn't already, you'll confirm a grocery store and the appliances you cook with. This is what lets PrepSmart match recipes to your real kitchen and keep your future shopping list aligned with where you actually shop.

7. Set Your Household Size

Tell PrepSmart how many people you usually cook for. You'll choose 2, 4, or 6 servings — the default is 4. This sizes your recipes and shopping automatically, so quantities are right from day one. You can change it anytime.

8. Pick a Weekly Planning Reminder

Choose a day and time for a gentle weekly nudge to plan your meals — for example, Sunday at 5 PM. This is a real reminder that arrives on your phone, so planning the week ahead becomes a habit instead of an afterthought. Don't want it? You're in control of your notifications.

9. "Building Your Food World"

Now PrepSmart does the work. You'll see a short "Building your food world" loader while it assembles everything around the choices you just made — your diet, your follows, your kitchen, your household. This is the part where, in any other app, you'd be typing things into a form. Here, you just watch it come together.

10. Claim Your Picks

When it's ready, you'll get a little gift: Claim Your Picks. For every creator you follow, PrepSmart hands you one free recipe to start your collection. The first is the creator's top-rated recipe; the others are swappable, so you can trade them for something that catches your eye. These recipes are yours to keep.

11. Meet Your Recipe Box and Weekly Plan

The recipes you just claimed land in your Recipe Box — your home for saved recipes. And PrepSmart has already started your first Weekly Plan for you.

Your Weekly Plan is a freeform canvas, not a rigid calendar grid. You arrange meals into Meal Tiles — workspaces you can label however you like, such as "Taco Tuesday" or "Quick Lunches." It bends to how you actually cook, instead of forcing your week into fixed slots.

12. A Quick Orientation

You'll get a brief orientation that shows how the pieces fit together — Plan → Shop → Cook:

• Plan your week on your Weekly Plan canvas, building Meal Tiles from your Recipe Box and from Explore (where you discover new recipes and creators).
• Shop with your Smart Shopping List — it auto-builds from your Meal Tiles, organizes by aisle, knows your store, and updates itself the moment you change a meal. (Exporting your list to Instacart is in development, and will be a simple hand-off — not live checkout.)
• Cook with your Cook List, and split the work across your household with Flex Steps. Smart Convert helps adjust recipes to fit your needs.

13. Your PrepSmart+ Trial Decision

Only now — after you already have a populated Recipe Box and a first Weekly Plan — does PrepSmart mention an upgrade. There's nothing to buy to keep going.

PrepSmart is free by default, free forever, and 100% ad-free. Your free foundation includes:

• The full Plan → Shop → Cook loop
• Your Recipe Box plus sortable shopping lists
• Your Starter Recipes
• Recipes from the brands, stores, and appliances you follow
• 3 free recipes from every creator you follow — yours, kept forever

If you want more, PrepSmart+ is an optional upgrade ($4.99/month or $39.99/year, with a 7-day free trial that requires a card). It adds exactly four things:

1. Save & reload any week
2. Import any recipe
3. Shop smarter
4. One pass, many hands

(PrepSmart+ also includes cloud sync across devices, household sharing for up to 5 people, and offline access.)

You can start the trial now or skip it — either way, you land on the same place: a populated, fully planned Home, ready to use. The trial is a choice, never a gate.

A Note on Following vs. Subscribing

Throughout PrepSmart, following a creator is always free — and gives you 3 of their recipes forever. If you later want a creator's full catalog, you can subscribe to them directly (most set a price between $2.99 and $9.99 a month). That's a separate, optional choice you make inside the app whenever you like — it's independent of PrepSmart+, and you never need PrepSmart+ to subscribe to a creator.

That's It

No forms. No homework. A few taps, a short loader, and you arrive at a Home that's already organized around how you eat — with recipes saved and your first week planned. Welcome to your food world.

Questions? Browse the rest of this help guide or reach out to our support team.