Is the Mayo Clinic Diet Free? Pricing, Refund and Cancel Rules
ChatGPT 
Claude 
AI Mode 
Perplexity 
The Mayo Clinic Diet is not free: its pricing page opens with "The Mayo Clinic Diet is just $49.99/month but you can save by paying upfront", and its terms say "We do not offer refunds." The ideas are free to read on Mayo Clinic's main website. The digital program, with meal plans, trackers, coaching and app, is a paid membership.
I work on the NutriScan team, which makes a food tracking app, so read this with that in mind. Every number below comes from the program's own pages, the store listings or a study I link to. Where two of its pages disagree, I show both.
I read the US pricing page, the terms (last revised June 23, 2025), the FAQ, the cancelation policy, the Success Reward and HSA/FSA pages and the help center on October 5 and again on October 17, 2026. The registration pages, store listings and App Store reviews are as of October 5; the registration pages said "No Promotion Available" for my region on October 17. Promotions change often, and tax may be added at checkout.
IMPORTANT
Your Mayo Clinic Diet pricing check, in four steps.
⏱️ Progress 0/4 • ~0 minutes in • Keep going
⏳ Step 1: What each plan costs, and what a year costs
⏳ Step 2: The 3-day window, the refund rule and auto-renewal
⏳ Step 3: What the membership includes and what the research found
🔍 What leaving a contract early costs, because two of the program's own pages disagree (revealed near the end)
TL;DR: Mayo Clinic Diet pricing in 30 seconds
- Free plan: none, and no free trial. The standard fee is $49.99 a month.
- Contract prices: $39.99 a month for 3 months or $19.99 a month for 12 months. You owe the whole term.
- Paid upfront: $120 for 12 months and $102 for 6 months on the October 2026 pricing page, both promotional.
- Refunds: none, apart from a 3-day window described in the FAQ.
- Renewal: every plan renews automatically, and the terms say no renewal notice is sent.
The quick answer: no free plan and no free trial
Three things connected to the Mayo Clinic Diet cost nothing:
- The method. Mayo Clinic's article The Mayo Clinic Diet: A weight-loss program for life explains both phases, the 15 habits and the Healthy Weight Pyramid, with a sample 1,200-calorie day.
- The assessment. The program's site offers a "FREE Personalized Assessment" before you join.
- The app download. The App Store listing and the Google Play listing both show the app as free with in-app purchases.
Everything inside the program is paid. That covers the meal plans, the food and weight trackers, group coaching and the 12-week course.
The billing makes more sense once you know who runs the program. The terms and conditions say Digital Wellness US LLC operates the website and apps "on behalf of the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research", so billing questions go to Digital Wellness, and the App Store lists it as the seller.
The method leans on vegetables, and the article that explains it costs nothing. The salad is yours to defend.
IMPORTANT
Checkpoint: the answer is no, now the numbers.
⏱️ Progress 1/4 • ~2 minutes in • Keep going
✅ Free plan: none, only the method and an assessment are free
👉 Step 1: What each plan costs, and what a year costs (you're here)
⏳ Step 2: The 3-day window, the refund rule and auto-renewal
🧩 What leaving a contract early costs (coming soon)
Mayo Clinic Diet price list for 2026
The program sells the same membership in two ways: paid upfront, or paid monthly on a contract. The length of the term changes the price a lot.
Plans paid upfront
These are the prices on the pricing page on October 17, 2026, under a banner that reads "Special offer: just $10/month."
| Plan | You pay today | Listed monthly rate | Standard fee shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Month Plan | $120 | $10 | $599.88 |
| 6 Month Plan | $102 | $17 | $299.94 |
| 1 Month Plan | $49.99 | $49.99 | $49.99 |
The page says the 12 Month Plan saves $479.88 and the 6 Month Plan saves $197.94 against the standard fee, which is $49.99 times the number of months. On October 5 the banner read "Limited time: $10/mo + 1 month free", so the page changed within 12 days while the $120 price held.
A second registration page showed different upfront prices on October 5: a 12 Month Plan at $199.99 and a 3 Month Plan at $99.99. Its order summary said: "At end of the term, this plan will autorenew for 12 months at $199.99 + tax if applicable." I read $199.99 as the regular 12-month upfront price and $120 as the promotion.
Plans paid monthly on a contract
| Plan | Monthly charge | Per week, as listed | Total you commit to |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Month Plan | $19.99 | $4.61 | $239.88 |
| 3 Month Plan | $39.99 | $9.23 | $119.97 |
| 1 Month Plan | $49.99 | not listed | $49.99 |
The totals are my arithmetic: the monthly charge multiplied by the number of months. The terms describe these plans in one sentence: "Our pay-per-month plans of 3, 6 and 12 months are commitment contracts with discounted monthly rates."
Prices in the app stores
The US App Store listing shows two in-app purchases, both named "Mayo Clinic Diet", at $119.99 and $99.99, with no period shown. One reviewer said a subscription renewed "for not just 1, but 3 months", so check the period before you confirm.
What a year of the Mayo Clinic Diet costs
The cheapest month and the cheapest year are different plans. This table shows what each route costs over 12 months, using the prices above.
| Route | Cost over 12 months |
|---|---|
| 12 Month Plan, paid upfront at the October 2026 promotion | $120 |
| 12 Month Plan, paid upfront at $199.99 | $199.99 |
| 12 Month Plan, paid monthly at $19.99 | $239.88 |
| 3 Month Plan paid upfront at $99.99, renewed three times | $399.96 |
| 3 Month Plan paid monthly at $39.99, renewed three times | $479.88 |
| 1 Month Plan at $49.99, twelve times | $599.88 |
Figure 1: The upfront promotion is the cheapest year and twelve single months the dearest (rounded to the dollar)
Two invented examples show the math. A 12-week user pays $119.97 on the 3 Month contract, so the $120 annual promotion costs about the same and adds nine months, but it renews for a full year unless you turn renewal off. A one-month tester pays $49.99, the highest rate and the lowest risk, since there is no commitment period.
For scale, our WeightWatchers pricing guide found CORE listed at $12 a month on a 12-month commitment, and our Noom cost breakdown found Noom Weight at $17.42 a month on the annual plan. The $19.99 contract rate sits above both and the $120 promotion sits below both.
The free trial: a 3-day cancel window instead
The program's FAQ page asks "Do you offer a free trial?" The answer does not say yes or no. It says: "If our program is not a good fit, you can contact us within 3 days of purchasing the program to cancel your contract."
So there is no trial in which you use the program before paying. You pay on day one and have three days to change your mind.
The 3-day window is in the FAQ, not the terms
The FAQ says "you must contact us within 3 days of purchasing the program." The cancel button stops renewal but, by the FAQ's wording, does not end the contract. The FAQ says to "review our terms for details", yet I found no 3-day window in the terms, and "trial" appears there only in the jury trial waiver. If you use the window, quote the FAQ and keep a copy.
The program once had a real free trial. A PBS NewsHour article from June 2015 quotes it: "The Mayo Clinic Diet's online program is yours FREE for 7 days!" It is gone now.
Refunds: "We do not offer refunds"
The terms give the refund rule twice. Under Cancellation: "We do not offer refunds." Under Payments: "All fees are nonrefundable."
The help center's Cancel Membership article adds: "Refunds are not provided for unused months of membership."
In practice this means:
- Paid upfront: canceling stops the next renewal. You keep access until the term ends and get no money back for the months you do not use.
- Paid monthly on a contract: the help center says "you will continue to be billed for the remaining months of your commitment period."
- Bought inside the app: Apple or Google took the payment, so a refund request goes to them. Apple's process is its request a refund page, and Google's is in its Google Play refunds help. Neither promises approval.
Recent App Store reviews show how this plays out. A January 2026 reviewer wrote: "Paid for a year and only used it for a week and no refund." A June 2026 reviewer wrote that support refused a refund "because 'it's in the agreement.'"
Auto-renewal: no reminder, and the regular price
Three sentences from the terms matter most:
- "For your convenience, all of our membership plans automatically renew after the initial contract period."
- "Please note that we will not send prior notice of automatic renewal."
- "If you commit to a plan using a discount or special offer, you will be automatically renewed at the then-current regular price for the same length of commitment."
Put together: a 12-month plan bought for $120 renews for another 12 months, without a reminder email, at the regular price on that date. The terms do not name the figure. The only regular 12-month upfront price I found on the site is $199.99.
The deadline is also in the terms: "You must cancel at least 1 day prior to your renewal date." Six of the 50 most recent US App Store reviews complain about a renewal, a refused refund or the commitment length. One from April 2026 says: "There was no renewal reminder email or anything."
A date in your own calendar is the only reminder you will get.
What a renewal with no reminder email can feel like.
IMPORTANT
Checkpoint: halfway.
⏱️ Progress 2/4 • ~7 minutes in • Keep going
✅ Step 1: the cheapest year is the $120 upfront promotion
✅ Step 2: a 3-day window in the FAQ only, then no refunds, and renewal with no notice
⏳ Step 3: What the membership includes and what the research found
🔍 What leaving a contract early costs (after the research)
The $75 Success Reward
The Success Reward page offers $75 to members who meet all of these conditions:
- Buy the eligible plan. The page says it "is available on the 12 month pay upfront subscription" and is "not available in conjunction with promotional discounts or in-app purchases."
- Start within 7 days of purchase.
- Record your weight weekly and track food at least 3 days a week for 12 consecutive weeks.
- Finish with a net weight loss, which "can be as little as 1 ounce."
- Complete a survey, describe your experience, and submit the request within 7 days of finishing week 12.
The program allows two "free passes" for missed weeks.
The reward applies to the $199.99 plan, which makes the net cost $124.99. The $120 promotion is $4.99 cheaper and has no conditions, so the reward only wins if the promotion is gone when you join.
Three ways to lower the cost
HSA or FSA funds. The program's HSA/FSA page says you may be able to use these funds "if your doctor recommends weight loss for a specific health condition", such as obesity, pre-diabetes, hypertension or heart disease. You need a letter of medical necessity and your receipt, and claim rules vary by provider.
CareCredit financing. The pricing page offers promotional financing with CareCredit "on membership purchases of $200 or more." Financing a $199.99 membership spreads the payment. It does not reduce it.
The free route. Mayo Clinic's article lists the five habits to add, the five to break and the five bonus habits, and sets a daily movement goal of at least 30 minutes.
Screenshot the offer before you pay
The pricing banner changed between October 5 and October 17 while I wrote this guide. Capture the plan length, the price and the renewal line on the checkout screen, and save the receipt email.
What a Mayo Clinic Diet membership includes
The FAQ lists what members get from the day they join:
- A 12-week course built on two phases, "Lose It!" for 2 weeks and "Live It!" for 10. The heart health and weight-loss medication programs run 24 weeks.
- A food and exercise tracker with "over 1 million foods with barcode scanner", plus weight, measurement and habit trackers, and sync with Apple Health and Google Fit.
- A 100-point Diet Score with daily feedback on five behaviors.
- "Unlimited group coaching plus optional 1-on-1 dietitian sessions."
- More than 1,400 recipes and 8 meal plans, including Mediterranean, Higher Protein and Heart Smart Superfoods. The pricing page now also lists meal plans you can tailor to your tastes and allergies and a "My Plan" roadmap, both marked NEW.
- At-home workout videos and a members-only Facebook community.
Photo by VD Photography on Unsplash
Calorie counting is optional: the FAQ answers "Do I have to count calories?" with "No" and describes a food group method.
Three limits to know before you pay: medication is billed separately, the services are "not intended for persons under the age of eighteen (18)", and disputes go to mediation and then individual arbitration under New York law.
What users say about the Mayo Clinic Diet app
The App Store shows 4.7 out of 5 from 3,715 ratings for version 4.6.2, released May 28, 2026. Google Play shows 4.5 from 567 reviews and more than 10,000 downloads.
I read the 50 most recent written US App Store reviews, dated November 2024 to September 2026. Twenty-one give 5 stars and 14 give 1 star.
Praise centers on the method. Reviewers mention steady weight loss, recipes they like and no calorie counting. One from August 2026 wrote: "I've lost about 20 pounds even though I've taken several weeks off when traveling."
Complaints fall into two groups:
- Billing. Six reviews are about renewals, refused refunds or the 12-month commitment. One from April 2026 warns: "DON'T sign up unless you are ready to commit to $20/month for an entire year."
- The app. Several reviewers call it clunky. A January 2025 review is titled "The diet works but the app is not great", and a February 2025 reviewer said logging a meal took 5 to 10 minutes.
What the research says about the digital program
The main study. Anazco et al., 2024, in Obesity Pillars, compared 9,603 members of the digital program with 133 people who attended Mayo Clinic's 2-day in-person program. Digital members lost 3.4% of body weight at 1 month, 4.7% at 3 months and 5.3% at 6 months. The in-person group lost 1.5%, 2.4% and 2.9%.
Figure 2: Digital members who kept logging lost more than the in-person group, with the limits listed below (Anazco et al., 2024)
For the average digital member, who started at 91.8 kg, 5.3% is about 4.9 kg, or 10.7 lb, over six months. That conversion is my arithmetic from the paper's figures.
The paper lists its own limits, and they matter:
- It is retrospective, with no control group.
- Digital members reported their own weights.
- Only people with weight data at least 3 months after starting were included: 9,603 of 47,193, or 20.3%. The authors write that excluding the others "might lead to an overestimation of the weight loss outcomes."
- Funding came from Mayo Clinic internal funds.
Set that next to the marketing: Mayo Clinic's article says the diet is "designed to help you lose up to 6 to 10 pounds" in the first two weeks, while the members who kept logging averaged about that amount over six months.
A randomized trial is under way. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06862375, sponsored by Mayo Clinic, is recruiting an estimated 250 participants to test the diet against usual care. Primary completion is estimated for March 2027.
Tracking is the common factor. A systematic review of 39 trials, Patel et al., 2021, linked greater digital self-monitoring to weight loss in 74% of occurrences, and found that few programs kept people tracking on 75% of days or more.
People stop tracking early. In a 6-month program with 54 adults, Carpenter et al., 2022 measured a median of 4 weeks before participants stopped tracking weight consistently and 10 weeks for diet. On a 12-month contract, the billing continues for 52 weeks.
IMPORTANT
Checkpoint: final stretch before the reveal.
⏱️ Progress 3/4 • ~9 minutes in • Keep going
✅ Step 1: What each plan costs, and what a year costs
✅ Step 2: The 3-day window, the refund rule and auto-renewal
✅ Step 3: What the membership includes and what the research found
✨ What leaving a contract early costs (about to reveal)
How to cancel the Mayo Clinic Diet
Cancel in the place where you paid.
If you joined on the website, the help center lists these steps:
- Log in to your Mayo Clinic Diet account.
- Open the navigation menu and click Account & Settings.
- Click Manage Membership.
- Click Cancel Plan.
- Complete the short survey. The help center says "You will receive an automated email to confirm that your membership has been canceled." Keep that email.
The same Manage Membership screen shows your program end date.
If you joined inside the mobile app, the help center says the membership "must be canceled via the App Store / Play Store directly." On iPhone, follow Apple's cancel a subscription steps. On Android, follow Google's cancel a subscription steps.
Leaving a contract early
This is the open question from the top of this guide, because the program's pages disagree. The terms say that if you cancel before the commitment period ends, "You will be charged the remaining balance of the total plan commitment."
The Pay-Per-Month Cancelation Policy is more flexible. It says you can leave early "by downgrading to a shorter plan and paying the difference between the monthly fees." Its example: buy the 12 Month Plan, cancel after 3 months, and "you will be asked to pay the difference between the 12 Month ($19.99/month) and 3 Month fees ($39.99/month)."
The page does not give a total. My reading is $20 for each of the three months, or $60, against nine remaining payments of $19.99 ($179.91). The terms say "we may allow you to downgrade", so ask support for the exact figure in writing.
Who the Mayo Clinic Diet is worth paying for
Good fit: you want a set eating plan with recipes more than a calorie counter, you prefer food groups to numbers, and you are confident you will use it for a year. At $120 for the promotional 12 Month Plan, it is one of the cheaper structured programs.
Fair fit: you want the 12-week course once. Compare the 3 Month Plan with the annual promotion, and turn renewal off on day one.
Poor fit: you are unsure, you dislike long commitments, or you mainly want a fast food logger. The $49.99 single month has no commitment period. Our guide to Noom alternatives compares other coached programs.
Mayo Clinic's own article says to talk with your healthcare professional before starting, especially with ongoing health conditions.
IMPORTANT
Recap: everything you checked this round.
⏱️ Progress 4/4 • ~12 minutes in • Nicely done
✅ Step 1: $49.99 a month, $19.99 on a 12-month contract, $120 for 12 months upfront
✅ Step 2: a 3-day window in the FAQ only, then no refunds, and renewal with no notice
✅ Step 3: a tracker, coaching and 8 meal plans; the published data is retrospective, with no control group
✅ The reveal: the terms charge the remaining balance (about $179.91 for nine months) while the cancelation policy lets you downgrade and pay the difference (about $60 in its example), so get the figure in writing
How to join without losing money: 5 steps
Photo by NORTHFOLK on Unsplash
- Read the free material first. Mayo Clinic's article explains the phases, habits and pyramid. Take the free assessment too.
- Pick a term you are sure you will finish. Longer plans cost less per month, and you owe the whole term.
- Buy on the website and save the receipt. In-app purchases go through Apple or Google and do not qualify for the Success Reward.
- Decide inside 3 days. Use the tracker, read a week of the meal plan and join one coaching session. If it does not suit you, contact support before day 3 ends and quote the FAQ.
- Turn off auto-renewal early. Account & Settings, then Manage Membership. You keep access until the term ends.
Tracking food with a free tier
If you want to follow the method from Mayo Clinic's free article and only need a way to log meals, NutriScan logs food from a photo and returns calories, protein, carbs and fat for mixed plates. It has no Mayo Clinic Diet meal plans, coaching or 12-week course. It has a free tier of 5 scans a week and Premium at about $59 a year; NutriScan's pricing is laid out the same way as this guide.
Bottom Nav > Home > Overall tab
FAQ
Is the Mayo Clinic Diet free?
No. The digital program is a paid membership with a standard fee of $49.99 a month. Mayo Clinic's article about the diet, the Healthy Weight Pyramid and the site's personalized assessment are free to read and use.
How much does the Mayo Clinic Diet cost per month?
$49.99 for a single month. On a contract it is $39.99 a month for 3 months or $19.99 a month for 12 months. In October 2026 the pricing page also showed a 12-month plan paid upfront for $120 and a 6-month plan paid upfront for $102.
Does the Mayo Clinic Diet have a free trial?
No. The program's FAQ answers the free trial question with a 3-day window: contact support within 3 days of purchase and you can cancel your contract.
Can I get a refund from the Mayo Clinic Diet?
Only inside the 3-day window described in the FAQ. The terms say "We do not offer refunds" and "All fees are nonrefundable", and the help center says refunds are not provided for unused months.
How do I cancel the Mayo Clinic Diet?
Log in on the website, open Account & Settings, then Manage Membership, then Cancel Plan. If you joined inside the mobile app, cancel through the App Store or Google Play. Cancel at least 1 day before the renewal date.
