FaceApp Review: Is It Free, What Pro Costs and What Happens to Your Photos

FaceApp is a face-editing app for iPhone, iPad and Android that retouches selfies, tries makeup, hairstyles, beards and hair colors on your face, and still does the aging filter that made it famous. Is FaceApp free? Yes: the download is free, and so are many of its filters. FaceApp Pro, a monthly or yearly subscription, unlocks every filter and tool and removes watermarks. FaceApp doesn't publish its prices; on the US App Store, the Pro purchases range from $10 to $100.

What FaceApp is today

If you were online in 2019, you probably remember FaceApp as the app that showed half your friends at 80. That Old filter is still there, now in a folder called Age, and FaceApp also has young filters. But the app has grown up, so to speak. FaceApp now calls itself a "perfect face editor", and most of what it offers is about making a portrait look better without looking edited:

• Impression: a realistic makeover that, in FaceApp's words, brings out your best.
• Retouch and Skin: remove small imperfections, acne and blemishes, smooth wrinkles and even out skin tone.
• Makeup: full makeup looks, contouring and color lenses.
• Hair: new hairstyles and colors, and more volume.
• Beards and mustaches, light effects, and the usual temperature and saturation controls.
• Compare: a before-and-after view at every step.

FaceApp says it has more than 60 photorealistic filters, and it keeps adding folders. The newest, according to its blog, are Emotions (8 facial expressions, from Kiss to Terrified) and Fun, where you can see yourself as a cat or a dog, or with cucumber slices on your eyes. Gender Swap lives in its own Gender folder. And a mode called Multiselect lets you combine several filters from the same group instead of one at a time; FaceApp recommends keeping the intensity low when you do. Good advice: 3 strong filters on one face is how you end up looking like a wax figure.

FaceApp's official tutorial, further down this page, is the quickest way to see the app from the inside. It's FaceApp's own, so expect enthusiasm, but it covers how the subscription works and the main filters in about 6 minutes.

Free vs. FaceApp Pro

This is where most people get confused, so here's what FaceApp's help pages actually say:

My take: try the free version on a few of your own photos first. Since FaceApp lets you preview some Pro filters before paying, you can check whether the ones you'd actually use are behind the paywall before paying. If all you wanted was to see yourself old, it's free, and you're done.

How much FaceApp Pro costs

Here's the part to know before you pay. FaceApp's help page on pricing doesn't give a single number: it says Pro comes in different plans, "for example, monthly and annual", and sends you to the PRO section inside the app to see the price in your currency. Another help page adds that all plans include the same features and only the billing period changes.

The US App Store does list the prices, sort of. Under In-App Purchases there are 10 items, every one of them called "FaceApp PRO", priced at $10, $20, $60 and $100. It doesn't say which is monthly or which is yearly. The PRO section inside the app is the one that counts.

FaceApp says the yearly plan is usually the best value. Per month, sure, as long as you're still using it a few months from now. If you only want Pro for a wedding photo or a new profile picture, a monthly plan is the smaller commitment.

Is FaceApp safe? What happens to your photos

This is one of the most common questions about FaceApp, and FaceApp answers it in some detail on its own help pages:

• Your photos stay on your phone. Edited and unedited ones are stored only on your device.
• Edited photos go to the cloud, briefly. While you edit, the photo is cached on Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services, encrypted with a key that stays on your device. That cache is deleted automatically within 24 to 48 hours after your last edit.
• Unedited photos are never uploaded, and FaceApp says it uses your photos only to provide the editing.
• You can delete them sooner: Settings, then Privacy & Legal, then Delete Cloud Photo Cache.

The company behind it is FaceApp Technology Limited, based in Limassol, Cyprus, and its help pages state that FaceApp has no business ties to Russia. On the App Store, FaceApp declares that the data it may collect (purchases, identifiers, usage and diagnostics) is not linked to your identity. Apple adds, as it does on every app page, that it hasn't verified this information.

My own rule is simpler than any privacy policy: your own selfie is your call. A photo of a friend, a partner or your kids is their call, so ask before you run their face through any editor, this one included.

Who it's for, and who should look elsewhere

FaceApp makes the most sense if you want a profile picture that looks like you after 8 hours of sleep, want to test a hair color before committing, or simply want a laugh with the Age, Gender and Fun folders. It's on your phone, and FaceApp's filters aim for realistic results. A friendly reminder if the photo is for a dating app: at some point, you'll show up with your actual face.

It's the wrong tool if your main goal is editing bodies. FaceApp's filters are designed for faces, and for the rest of the photo it points to general tools like Reshape, Retouch and Paint. It's also not for you if you'd rather edit on a computer: FaceApp is offered only through the App Store and Google Play, with no editor on its website.

Star by Face

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Free celebrity look-alike finder: one face photo, a ranked list of famous look-alikes.

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If the curiosity is "who do I look like?" rather than "how would I look?", Star by Face does exactly that, for free. For old family photos, Palette.fm colorizes black-and-white pictures in the browser. And if the photo ends up in a post or a flyer, the photo editor inside Canva AI saves you a trip between apps. For faces on a phone, though, FaceApp is still the one built for the job.

Written by Miguel Ángel, with help from an LLM to verify facts.