Choosing
What to look for in a hair-tracking app
This page names no competitor and rates none. Every question below is one you can answer yourself from an App Store listing in about two minutes, which is more useful than any ranking someone else wrote.
We looked at whether to write head-to-head comparison pages and decided against it, for a reason worth stating plainly: the facts in this category do not hold still. Apps in it are renamed, delisted, and run several prices for the same subscription simultaneously, so a comparison table would be out of date within weeks and misleading in the meantime. What follows is durable instead — questions rather than verdicts.
The nine questions
1. Can you see any result before you pay?
Check the App Store listing text itself. Some apps in this category state directly on their listing that analysis results require a subscription, which means you are paying before you know whether the thing works on your head, in your lighting. Whether that is acceptable is your call — but it should be a call you make knowingly rather than discover at the paywall.
2. Does it tell you what it could not measure?
This is the sharpest question on the list and almost nobody asks it. An app that returns a full set of numbers for every photo, every time, is not gating on evidence — it is filling in. Ask whether it can return a blank. Then ask what happens if you cover the zone with your hand: an honest system says it cannot see it.
3. How many photos, and from which angles?
A front-facing photo physically cannot see the top-back of your head. If an app scores your crown from a single front photo, it is inferring rather than measuring, and inference dressed as measurement is the core failure mode in this category. Most listings do not state a photo count — the absence is itself informative.
4. Does it need an account before you see anything?
This is a private thing to be doing. An app that requires an email address before it will tell you anything has attached your identity to that fact before delivering any value.
5. What does the App Store privacy label say?
Every listing has one, Apple requires it, and the developer fills it in themselves. Two rows matter here. Look at whether User Content (which is your photos) is listed as Linked to You rather than not linked, and look at whether anything is declared as used for Third-Party Advertising. Both are on the listing page before you install, and both are the developer's own declaration rather than anyone's opinion.
6. Are your photos stored, and where?
Ask what happens to the image after it is scored. Kept on a server indefinitely, kept until you delete your account, or discarded once the result is produced are three very different answers. The privacy policy has to say.
7. Does it sell you something?
Check whether the app or its website links out to products, supplements, clinics or prescriptions. This is not automatically bad — but an app that measures and an app that sells have structurally different incentives about what your number should be, and you should know which one you are using before you believe the number.
8. Does it disclaim being a medical device?
Most listings in this category carry a line saying the app is not a medical device and gives no medical advice. Its absence is informative, as is any listing that claims a clinical grade in one sentence and disclaims being medical in the next.
9. When was it last updated?
Shown on every App Store listing. An app last updated a year or more ago in a fast-moving category is being maintained lightly or not at all, and the scoring behind it has not moved either.
Crown's answers, for the record
Same nine questions, applied to us. If any of these stops being true, this page is wrong and should be corrected.
| Question | Crown |
|---|---|
| Result before paying? | Yes. The first scan is free and returns a full result. |
| Reports what it couldn't measure? | Yes. Any zone below the visibility bar returns a blank with the reason and the angle that would fix it. Metrics missing their required angle go blank too. |
| Photos and angles? | Two: a front hairline shot and a top-down crown shot. The crown is never scored from the front photo. |
| Account required? | No. No account, no email, no login. Anonymous device identity only. |
| Privacy label? | Check it yourself on the listing — that is the point of the question. |
| Photos stored? | No. Held in memory on the device for the scan, sent to one named processor to be scored, discarded. Not kept on Crown's servers. Consent naming the processor is requested before any photo leaves the phone. See the privacy policy. |
| Sells anything? | No products, no supplements, no clinics, no prescriptions, no affiliate or referral revenue. Crown makes money from subscriptions only. |
| Medical disclaimer? | Yes. Not a medical device, no medical advice — stated in the app, the listing, the terms and on every page of this site. |
| Last updated? | Shown on the App Store listing, same as everyone. |
The thing worth optimising for
One test above the rest
If you only run one check, run question 2: can it tell you what it couldn't see?
Everything else on this list is about business model and privacy, which matter. That one is about whether the numbers are real. A system that never says "I don't know" is not being confident — it is not distinguishing between the cases where it knows and the cases where it doesn't, which means you can't either.
And whichever you pick, the app is the smaller half of the problem. A tracking tool can only ever be as good as the photographs you put into it, and the photographs vary more than the hair does. Fix your capture routine first; it improves every app equally.
Common questions
What is the most important thing to check in a hair-scanning app?
Whether it can return a blank. An app that produces a full set of numbers for every photo regardless of what the photo contains is not gating on evidence — it is filling in, and you cannot tell which of its numbers are real.
Can a hair app read my crown from a front-facing photo?
Not honestly. A front-facing photo physically cannot see the top-back of your head, so any crown score derived from one is an inference rather than a measurement.
How do I check what a hair app does with my photos?
Read the App Store privacy label on the listing — specifically whether User Content is listed as Linked to You and whether anything is declared for third-party advertising — and then read the privacy policy for whether photos are stored after scoring.
Does Crown require an account?
No. The first scan is free and needs no account, no email and no login. Crown uses an anonymous device identity only.
Does Crown sell hair products?
No. Crown does not sell, recommend, evaluate or link to any product, supplement, device, clinic or procedure, and takes no affiliate or referral revenue. Its only revenue is the Crown+ subscription.
Keep reading
- How Crown scores a hairlineThe actual score bands, the rule that makes a zone return a blank, and every metric Crown reports.
- What hair density actually meansDensity, calibre and coverage are three different things. A photograph can only estimate one of them.
- Reading your own scan without spirallingThe order to read a result in, why one scan is a point and not a line, and what a number can't settle.
First scan free. No account, no email, no login. Crown+ is $4.99/week or $39.99/year, each with a 3-day free trial.
Crown measures how hair looks in a photograph. It is not a medical device, it gives no medical advice, and nothing on this page is a substitute for a qualified professional. If something about your hair or scalp worries you, talk to one.