Report updated May 20, 2026
Love, Manuela
For home bakers interested in Scandinavian and classic cake recipes who prefer a one-time purchase model over subscription-based cooking apps.
Love, Manuela is a well-regarded food & drink app that is a paid app. With a 4.3/5 rating from 165 reviews, it maintains solid user satisfaction. Users particularly appreciate detailed step-by-step instructions with visual guides ensure consistent results for home bakers, though lack of imperial measurement conversions creates friction for users accustomed to volume-based baking remains a common concern.
What is Love, Manuela?
Love, Manuela is a paid baking recipe app for iOS, featuring over 400 curated recipes with step-by-step photo guides.
Users hire this app for reliable, expert-led baking instructions without the recurring cost or ad-clutter of subscription-based cooking platforms.
Current Momentum
v3.5 · 14mo ago
Zombie- Shipped search enhancements and news section.
- Ships regular recipe library updates.
Active Nemesis
Cookpad Recipes, homemade food
By COOKPAD INC. (CA)
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
Food & DrinkRating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User Mood
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
What Are The Key Features?
Access to over 400 baking recipes with step-by-step photos
Visual instructions for recipes provided as static images
Updates on projects, baking tips, and announcements
Search tool with suggestions to locate specific recipes
How much does it cost?
- One-time purchase at $12.99
The app utilizes a one-time purchase model with no subscriptions, positioning itself as a digital cookbook rather than a service.
Who Built It?
Empowering home bakers with professional-grade, curated recipes through a premium, one-time purchase mobile experience.
Portfolio
1
Apps
Explore the full Passion For Baking AS report
Portfolio breakdown, audience, momentum, and every app published by Passion For Baking AS.
What do users think recently?
High confidence · 53 reviews analyzed · Based on 53 reviews. Signal may be noisy.
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a excited sentiment. Users appreciate detailed step-by-step instructions with visual guides ensure consistent results for home bakers and one-time purchase model provides high value compared to recurring subscription-based recipe apps, but report lack of imperial measurement conversions creates friction for users accustomed to volume-based baking and ingredient availability in specific regions limits the accessibility of the scandinavian-inspired recipes.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
How have ratings & review volume moved?
Rating, review sentiment, and total reviews over time, with release markers showing the post-launch impact.
Vertical markers = app releases. Hover any release for the post-release impact delta.
View the full user-sentiment analysis
Mood gauge, ratings & review-volume history, every praise / complaint / request, and sentiment over time.
What is the competitive landscape for Love, Manuela?
How's The Food & Drink Market?
How does it evolve in the Food & Drink market?
Love, Manuela holds the #2 Paid rank in the US Food & Drink category, though grossing ranks remain volatile. The gap between its high paid-chart rank and lower grossing performance signals a need to better convert one-time buyers into long-term active users.
Rank progression
232 active rankings tracked — 30-day window
Which niche is Love, Manuela in?
Explore the full Baking Guides niche
Every app in this space — 8 tracked, the niche's live rankings, and Marlvel's editorial take on the job-to-be-done.
The rivals identified
Nemeses(1)
This app directly competes for the same home-baking audience by offering a massive, high-volume library of cake-specific recipes that challenges Manuela's curated approach.
Contenders(3)
This app competes for the local food-service audience by providing a catalog-based approach to baked goods and location-based discovery.
It competes for the same home-baking market share by offering specialized, skill-level-based content for specific dessert types.
This app targets the same baking demographic with a focus on offline accessibility and structured recipe categories.
Same space(4)
Shares the dessert-focused audience but prioritizes ingredient-centric content and direct-to-consumer delivery.
Targets the technical side of the baking market, focusing on precision and professional-grade tools for advanced bakers.
Targets the same dessert-loving demographic but focuses on loyalty-driven retail delivery rather than home-baking instruction.
Operates in the same culinary space by blending digital recipe discovery with commercial pastry and cake ordering services.
Compare Love, Manuela against every rival
All rivals in one side-by-side table — identity, store metrics, ratings & sentiment, and strategic intel — plus a head-to-head page for each.
The outtake for Love, Manuela
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Curated expert brand identity differentiates from user-generated content
- One-time purchase model creates clear value against subscription rivals
Critical Frictions
- Lack of imperial measurement conversions in latest release
- Intermittent launch-time crashes reported in reviews
- No printable recipe format for kitchen use
Growth Levers
- Localizing measurement units for US markets to reduce churn
- Adding printable recipe exports to increase kitchen utility
Market Threats
- High-velocity entrants like Eatr closing feature gaps
- Cookidoo's hardware-integrated ecosystem locking in high-end users
What are the next best moves?
Ship imperial measurement toggle because US users report conversion friction → reduce churn
US-based users cite measurement conversion as a top complaint in reviews.
Trade-off: Pause the news section content expansion — measurement utility has higher retention impact.
Audit launch-time stability because intermittent crashes disrupt cooking sessions → protect 4.26 rating
Launch-time crashes are a recurring negative sentiment theme.
Trade-off: Same-quarter capacity available — no major lever displaced.
A counter-intuitive read
The app's reliance on weight-based measurements is a feature for expert bakers, not a bug; the risk is not the measurement system, but the failure to offer a conversion toggle for casuals.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Automated meal planning (available in Mealime)
- Grocery list integration (available in eMeals)
- Hardware-synced guided cooking (available in Cookidoo)
Key Takeaways
Love, Manuela succeeds by offering a premium, ad-free baking experience, but the lack of imperial measurement support limits its reach in the US market, so the PM should prioritize unit conversion tools to unlock broader adoption.
Where Is It Heading?
Stable
The baking app market is shifting toward utility-driven tools that solve the 'what's for dinner' problem, leaving static recipe libraries like Love, Manuela exposed. Future growth depends on bridging the gap between artisanal content and kitchen-utility features like measurement conversion and printing.
Persistent reports of launch-time crashes in the latest version erode the daily active habit and drag down the overall rating.
The one-time purchase model continues to drive high user satisfaction compared to subscription-heavy competitors, sustaining a stable install velocity.