[ Comparison · skin analysis apps ]

Baselit vs Skan: which one should you install?

Short answer: install Skan if you want the bigger, older, broader product. It has been listed since October 2023, it has about 8,390 US App Store ratings at a 4.79 average, and it checks skincare products as well as skin, which Baselit does not do at all. Install Baselit if what you want out of a scan is a routine you understand: five cosmetic axes from one selfie turn into named products in a set order, with a written reason for every step and a coach called Mia you can ask about your own numbers, whether you already have a routine or have no idea where to start. Then the same photo returns the same number each week, so a change reads as your skin rather than your lighting. Baselit went live in July 2026 and has 7 ratings worldwide at a 5.0 average, none in the US store yet. We make it, so weigh everything below accordingly.

Published 26 July 2026App Store data pulled 26 July 20268 min read

Who wrote this, and why that matters

We did, and we make one of the two apps. Saying that in the first screen rather than in a footnote is the only thing that makes a competitor comparison worth reading. So here are the rules we held ourselves to. Every rating count, release date and provider name below was pulled from Apple's public listing data on 26 July 2026, not estimated. Where we could not verify something, the cell says not verified instead of carrying a number we invented. Skan gets its own section that names, flatly, the three things it does better than us. And our own limits get the same amount of room as anything we say about theirs.

What each app is actually built around

Skan is made by Skan Beauty Inc and listed as "Skan - #1 Skincare App". Its own App Store description covers scanning your skin, checking skincare products, finding product matches and building a routine around your skin. That is three jobs in one app: a face scanner, a product checker and a routine builder. It is also the oldest listing of the three apps we compare across this blog, live since 27 October 2023.

Baselit does one of those three jobs and takes it further. One selfie returns five separate cosmetic axes, clarity, evenness, texture, hydration and radiance, plus one composite number from 0 to 100. But the score is the entry point, not the purpose. From those five axes the app assembles a routine: which products, in which order, morning or evening, with a written reason for every step, so you can see why an active is in there and why it sits where it sits. A coach called Mia answers follow-up questions about your numbers rather than about skincare in general, which is the difference between being handed a value and knowing what to do with it. Our own store listing puts it as being for you whether you already have a routine or have no idea where to start, and the second half of that sentence is the one people underestimate.

Underneath all of it, lighting and framing are normalized before scoring and the result is cached against the normalized image, so the same photo returns the same number rather than a new one each time you try. Then you scan again next week. There is no product scanner, no barcode lookup and no ingredient database to search.

So the honest framing is not which app is better. It is: do you want one app that covers the face and the shelf, or do you want a narrow tool that explains a routine for your own skin and then shows you week by week whether it moved anything?

Side by side

Baselit vs Skan · pulled from public App Store data, 26 July 2026
	Baselit	Skan
Store name	Baselit: AI Skin Score & Scan	Skan - #1 Skincare App
Provider	Marco Mori, a one-person build	Skan Beauty Inc
Built around	A cosmetic score across five axes that becomes a routine, plus a weekly re-scan and a history	Skin scanning plus product checking, product matches and routine building
Routine with a reason for every step	Yes: named products, application order, morning or evening, and why each one is there	Builds a routine around your skin per its own store description. Depth of the reasoning not verified by us
Ask questions about your own scores	Yes, through Mia, the coach inside the app	Not verified by us
Works if you are starting from zero	Yes, that is an explicit design goal. No existing routine or ingredient knowledge needed	Not verified by us in detail
Checks skincare products	No. None at all	Yes, per its own store description
On the store since	10 July 2026	27 October 2023
Last update	15 July 2026	15 July 2026
Ratings	7 worldwide, average 5.0 (6 Germany, 1 UK, none in the US yet)	About 8,390 US at 4.79 · about 1,280 UK at 4.65 · 631 Germany at 4.61
Price	Free to install with in-app purchases. USD 4.99 weekly · 12.99 monthly · 59.99 annually. EUR 3.99 · 12.99 · 44.99	Free to install with in-app purchases. Weekly tiers start around 1.99 USD and the annual can go as low as 19.99 USD, so the entry price is below ours
Free trial	No. Blurred score first, then payment to unlock the numbers	Not verified. Check the current listing before you install
Same photo, same number?	Yes, by construction: the normalized image is fingerprinted and the result cached against it	Not verified. We found no stated guarantee either way
Platform	iOS only	iOS
Best for	Getting a routine you understand out of one scan, and seeing week by week whether it moved anything	One app that covers both your face and the products on your shelf, with a large user base behind it

Cells marked "not verified" are things we could not confirm from public data without subscribing and testing inside another company's product. We would rather leave a gap than invent a comparison point, and a competitor's price is exactly the kind of number that is easy to get wrong and expensive for you to trust. Check any price on your own screen before you confirm it. Skan is an independent third-party product with no affiliation to Baselit.

Where Skan wins, flatly

Three things, and none of them is close.

1. Installed base and track record

In the US store, Skan has roughly 8,390 ratings at a 4.79 average, plus about 1,280 in the UK and 631 in Germany. Baselit went live in July 2026 and has 7 ratings worldwide at a 5.0 average, none of them in the US store yet, so that average tells you very little at this stage. If what you want is the app that thousands of people have already put through their own bathrooms, that is Skan.

2. Maturity: a two and a half year head start

Skan has been on the App Store since 27 October 2023. Baselit has been there since 10 July 2026. That gap is not a marketing detail. It is thousands of real faces finding the edge cases, and a roadmap that has already survived contact with them. We are at the start of that process. Both apps last shipped an update on 15 July 2026, so neither is standing still, but only one of them has years of corrections behind it.

3. Scope: it checks products, we do not

Skan's own description covers checking skincare products and finding product matches alongside the skin scan. Baselit has no product checking of any kind. No barcode scan, no ingredient lookup, no shelf database. If the question you keep asking yourself in the aisle is whether a specific product suits you, Skan answers a question we do not answer at all, and a second app you have to install and pay for separately is a genuine cost.

What Baselit does instead

Two things, and we phrase them as what the product does rather than as a verdict over a competitor we could not test end to end.

It turns the scan into a routine you can follow and question. The five axes are the input to a concrete plan: which products, in which order, morning or evening, with a written reason for every step. You do not need to arrive with a routine, and you do not need to know what any of the actives are, which is the case people most often assume a scanner app is not for. If a step does not make sense, Mia, the coach in the app, answers questions about your own values instead of handing out general advice. Everything stays with over-the-counter products, described in cosmetic terms.

It is built around the second scan and the tenth, not the first. Capture is normalized for lighting and framing, the normalized image is fingerprinted, and the result is cached against that fingerprint, so the same photo cannot come back with a different number. The intent is that when your score moves between two weekly scans, the thing that changed is your skin and not the light in your bathroom. Five separate axes then let you see what moved rather than just that something did, which matters when you added exactly one product last month. That method is written out in full in how skin scores work, including a two-minute test you can run against any skin app, ours included, to see how much its number drifts on the same face.

Whether that is more repeatable than Skan we genuinely do not know, because we found no public statement about Skan's behaviour on a repeated photo. What we can say is that it is the property we built for first, ahead of breadth.

Baselit, both sides of the ledger

Baselit strengths

A routine, not just a number: named products, application order, morning or evening, and a written reason for every step
Works from zero. No existing routine and no ingredient knowledge required to get something usable
Mia answers questions about your own values, not about skincare in general
Same photo, same number, so a weekly change reads as your skin rather than your lighting
Five separate axes show what moved, not only that something did
Actives named in full, no "brightening complex"
Fully bilingual in English and German, with localized prices rather than converted dollars

Baselit limits

iOS only. No Android, so for a large share of people the answer is simply no
No free trial. Hard paywall: you scan, the score arrives blurred, and the numbers unlock on payment
A very small rating base. 7 worldwide and none in the US yet, so you would be an early user and it will feel like it
No product checking, no barcode lookup, no ingredient database to search
Hydration is an impression read from visible features in a photo, not a probe reading from a device
No mole checking, no assessment of anything medical, ever
Needs roughly even light between scans. Wildly different lighting still degrades a comparison

On the other side, here is what we could not establish about Skan from public sources, and we would rather list the gaps than fill them in: its current subscription tiers, whether it offers a free trial and on which tier, how its score behaves on a repeated photo, and how deeply it explains the routine it builds. In the storefronts we checked it is listed for iOS only. We know our own product's failures precisely and Skan only from the outside, so the two lists on this page are not symmetric. Read anyone's competitor page with that asymmetry in mind, this one included.

When neither app is the right answer

If you have a mole or a spot that is changing shape or colour, itching, bleeding or growing, no app in this comparison is what you need, and that includes ours. That belongs with a doctor in person. Baselit describes the visible look of skin in a photo for cosmetic purposes. It does not identify anything medical, it does not rule anything out, and it never tells you that something is fine. If you are not sure whether what you are looking at is cosmetic at all, start with a professional rather than with a subscription.

So which one?

Baselit is the right choice in two cases. The first is that you have no idea where to start: you want someone to look at your skin, hand you a routine that fits it, and tell you in plain words why each product is in there and when to use it, with a coach you can ask when a step does not make sense. The second is that you already have a routine and want to know whether it is doing anything, which needs a score that stays put unless your skin moves and five axes that show you what moved. If both of those sound like you, that is exactly the arc the app is built for: start from nothing, then watch it week by week.

The rest, briefly.

You want one app for your face and your shelf: Skan. We do not check products at all.
You want the app most people in this category have already used: Skan, with roughly 8,390 US ratings behind it.
You want to try something free first: not us. We have no free trial. Start elsewhere and come back if the question sticks.
You use Android: neither of these, at least not from the listings we checked.
You are worried about a specific spot: a doctor, not an app.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Baselit and Skan?

Skan is the broader product. Its App Store listing describes scanning your skin, checking skincare products, finding product matches and building a routine around your skin, so it covers both the face and the shelf. Baselit only looks at the face, and goes further on what happens after the scan: one selfie returns five separate cosmetic axes plus a composite score, and those axes become a routine with named products, an application order and a written reason for every step, which a coach called Mia will explain further if you ask about your own numbers. Capture is normalized so the same photo returns the same number, and you re-scan weekly to see what moved. Baselit has no product scanning, no barcode lookup and no ingredient database of its own.

Is Skan better than Baselit?

On three measures that are easy to check, Skan is ahead, and we are not going to argue with them. It has about 8,390 US App Store ratings at a 4.79 average; Baselit went live in July 2026 and has 7 ratings worldwide at a 5.0 average, none of them in the US store yet. Skan has been listed since 27 October 2023, Baselit since 10 July 2026. And Skan checks skincare products as well as skin, which Baselit does not do at all. Baselit is the better fit for a different job: turning one selfie into a routine you actually understand, with a reason for every step and a coach you can ask about your own scores, and a weekly re-scan whose number stays put unless your skin moves.

How many people use Skan compared to Baselit?

Rating counts read on 26 July 2026: Skan has about 8,390 ratings in the US store at a 4.79 average, 1,280 in the UK at 4.65 and 631 in Germany at 4.61. Baselit has been live since July 2026 and has 7 ratings worldwide at a 5.0 average, 6 of them in Germany and 1 in the UK, with none in the US store yet. That is a large difference in track record, and if a big, proven user base is what you are after, Skan is the answer. It does not tell you which app answers your particular question better.

I know nothing about skincare. Is Baselit still for me?

Yes, that is one of the two cases it is built for. You do not need an existing routine and you do not need to know what any of the actives are. The scan returns five axes, and from those Baselit assembles a concrete routine: which products, in which order, morning or evening, with a plain reason for each step, so you are not simply handed a number and left with it. If a step does not make sense, Mia, the coach inside the app, answers questions about your own values instead of giving generic advice. Recommendations stay with over-the-counter products and describe cosmetic care, not treatment.

What does Baselit cost, and is there a free trial?

Baselit is free to install with in-app purchases: 4.99 USD weekly and 59.99 USD annually in the US store, and 3.99, 12.99 and 44.99 euro weekly, monthly and annually in the eurozone. There is no free trial. The scan itself is free, the score appears blurred, and you pay to unlock the numbers. That is a hard paywall and a real disadvantage against anything that lets you look around for longer before deciding. We did not verify Skan's current prices for this page and we would rather say so than print a number we cannot stand behind.

Can Baselit check skincare products the way Skan does?

No. Baselit knows the actives inside the routine it builds for you and the coach can explain why each one is there, but there is no product scanner, no barcode lookup and no searchable database of everything on a shelf. If the question you keep asking is whether a specific product suits you, Skan covers that and we do not. SkinSort covers it in more depth than either of us and has a free web database.

Will Baselit and Skan give me the same score?

No, and neither number is wrong for that reason. There is no shared standard behind consumer skin scores. Each app picks its own axes, its own scale and its own anchor points, so a 62 in one and an 81 in the other can both be internally consistent. Comparing across apps tells you nothing. The only comparison worth making is inside one app, over several weeks, with the capture conditions kept as similar as you can manage.

Can either app check a mole or a changing spot?

No app here is the right answer for that, ours included. A mole or a spot that is changing shape or colour, itching, bleeding or spreading belongs with a doctor in person, not with a phone camera. Baselit describes the visible look of skin in a photo for cosmetic purposes. It does not identify anything medical, and it never tells you that something is fine.

Baselit is a cosmetic skin-analysis app, not medical advice. The score describes the visible look of skin in a photo. It is not a diagnosis, not a health measurement, and no substitute for a doctor or dermatologist. Skan is an independent third-party product of Skan Beauty Inc with no affiliation to Baselit; all figures reflect public App Store listing data read on 26 July 2026 and may change without notice.