Honest comparison
Kounts Dose vs Medisafe
Medisafe is the biggest medication app on the App Store — and in 2026 it became a subscription. Here's the honest comparison.
Free with one medicine · $9.99 one-time unlock · No account
Medisafe has earned its reputation: over 100,000 App Store ratings, a 4.7-star average, and features no indie app matches — drug-interaction warnings and Health Records import in the US, a whole family-sharing system. If you want a clinical hub for a complex household, it is a serious product and this page will not pretend otherwise. What changed in 2026 is the deal. Medisafe's own terms now state that from 1 January 2026, continued access in certain countries outside the United States requires an active paid subscription, and its free tier is widely reported to cap you at two medications. Kounts Dose answers a narrower question — will I take this, and will I run out? — and answers it for one $9.99 purchase, with no account and nothing leaving your iPhone.
The short answer
Choose Medisafe if you need drug-interaction checks, US Health Records import, or a shared family pillbox with caregivers logging for each other. Choose Kounts Dose if you want your own medication routine handled beautifully, without a subscription, without an account, and without your health data leaving your phone.
Side by side
Competitor details checked July 2026. Pricing and features change — please confirm on the App Store before deciding.
| Feature | Kounts Dose | Medisafe |
|---|---|---|
| Price for full features | $9.99 once (or $1.99/mo if you prefer)✓ | $4.99/month or $39.99/year |
| Free tier | 1 medicine, reminders, logging, critical alarms✓ | Reportedly 2 medicines, with limits on sounds and sharing |
| Usable free outside the US | Yes — same app everywhere✓ | Per Medisafe's terms, certain non-US countries require a paid subscription from 1 Jan 2026 |
| Account required | No account, ever✓ | Yes — an account underpins sync and Medfriends |
| Where your data lives | On your iPhone; optional sync uses only your private iCloud✓ | On Medisafe's servers, to power sync and sharing |
| Supply / “days left” tracking | Amount-weighted days remaining on every medicine, with a refill nudge | Refill reminders included |
| Alarms through Silent & Focus | Yes, per medicine — and always free✓ | Yes, with reminder customisation largely in Premium |
| Cycles (21 on / 7 off) and fixed courses | Built into the scheduler | Supported |
| Drug-interaction warnings | No — out of scope by design | Yes, in the US |
| Import from US Health Records | No (imports from Apple Health instead) | Yes, 100+ US health systems |
| Family / caregiver sharing | No — single-person by design | Yes, Medfriends and family profiles |
| Home & Lock Screen widgets | Yes, with an interactive Take button | Yes |
| Export your history | CSV export of dose log and medicine list | PDF progress reports |
Where each app is stronger
Where Kounts Dose is stronger
You buy it once and you're done
$9.99 unlocks unlimited medicines, the full scheduler, widgets, iCloud sync and export — permanently. Medisafe Premium is $4.99/month or $39.99/year, so a single year of it costs about four times what Dose costs forever. There is an optional $1.99/month plan in Dose for people who genuinely prefer paying monthly, but nothing is held hostage to it.
No account, and no servers holding your medication list
Dose has no sign-up screen because it has no back end. Your medicines and history sit in on-device storage; if you turn on sync, it goes to your own private iCloud database via CloudKit, which we cannot read. Sharing and cross-account features are exactly what force an app to keep your health data server-side — Dose skips the features and skips the server.
The free tier stays useful, everywhere
One medicine, real reminders, one-tap logging and critical alarms, in every country, with no trial clock. If you take a single daily pill, Dose free may be all you ever need — and critical alarms are never paywalled, because an alarm you can't sleep through is a safety feature, not an upsell.
Where Medisafe is the better choice
Interaction checks and Health Records import
In the US, Medisafe warns about drug-to-drug interactions and can pull your prescriptions in from 100+ hospital systems. Dose deliberately does neither: it is an organiser, not a clinical tool, and it will not pretend to vet your regimen. If you want software double-checking your combinations, Medisafe is the better answer.
Caregiving for someone else
Medisafe's Medfriends and family profiles let one person watch over another's doses in real time. Dose is single-person software — it tracks your routine on your phone. For coordinating a parent's medication from another city, Medisafe (or a purpose-built caregiving app) fits better.
Clinician-ready PDF reports
Medisafe generates a formatted PDF progress report to hand to a doctor. Dose exports CSV, which is more flexible but less presentable — you'd open it in Numbers or Excel rather than emailing it straight to a clinic.
What Kounts Dose looks like
Questions people actually ask
Is Medisafe still free in 2026?
Partly, and it depends where you live. Medisafe's own terms state that beginning 1 January 2026, continued access in certain countries outside the United States requires an active paid subscription after any applicable free trial, and that users who don't subscribe may have access suspended or limited. In the US a free tier remains, but it is widely reported to cap you at two medications, with custom sounds and extra sharing behind Premium ($4.99/month or $39.99/year). Always check the current App Store listing — this was verified in July 2026.
What's the cheapest way to replace Medisafe Premium?
A one-time purchase, if the features you actually use are reminders, logging and refill tracking. Kounts Dose unlocks everything for $9.99 once — roughly a quarter of one year of Medisafe Premium at $39.99/year, and it never renews. What you give up is the clinical layer: no interaction checks, no Health Records import, no family sharing.
Can I move my medication list from Medisafe to Kounts Dose?
There's no direct Medisafe-to-Dose import, but there's usually a shortcut: if your prescriptions are in Apple Health, Dose can import that medication list read-only from Settings → Apple Health, or from the “+” menu on Today. Otherwise, adding a medicine takes well under a minute in the step-by-step wizard, with offline name autocomplete to speed up spelling.
Does Kounts Dose collect health data like the bigger apps?
No. There is no account and no server to collect it with. Your medicines, schedules and dose history stay on your iPhone, or — if you switch sync on — in your own private iCloud database that we cannot read. Analytics are anonymous feature counters only, never medication names or doses.
Try the calm one.
Free with one medicine, no account, and nothing leaves your iPhone. If it isn't for you, you've lost nothing.
See also: Medisafe alternatives, compared · Medication apps without a subscription · Private medication tracking