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Baselit vs SkinSort: product scanner or skin tracker?

Short answer: these two answer different questions, so pick the question first. SkinSort points the camera at the shelf: photograph a product, read what is in it, decide whether it suits you. For that job it is the better tool by a wide margin, and its web database is free, so you can settle most product questions without paying anyone. Baselit points the camera at your face, and the score is the entry point rather than the point: five cosmetic axes from one selfie turn into a routine with named products, an order, and a written reason for every step, plus 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. We do check products, but always from a photo and always against your own routine, never from a database you can browse. We make Baselit, so read the rest with that in mind.

Published 26 July 2026App Store data pulled 26 July 20267 min read

Who wrote this, and why that matters

We did, and we make one of the two apps. That belongs at the top rather than in a footnote, because a comparison written by a competitor is only worth your time if it names the cases where the other side wins and then does not weasel out of them. Every rating count, release date and provider name below came from Apple's public listing data pulled on 26 July 2026. Where we could not confirm something, the cell says not verified rather than carrying a guess. And the section on where SkinSort wins is the longest section on this page, because that is the honest shape of this particular comparison.

These two apps answer different questions

SkinSort, from SkinSort LLC, is listed as "SkinSort - Skincare Scanner". Its own store description is about scanning your cosmetics: photograph a product to check it, and discover new ones. The centre of gravity is clearly the product, not the face. It grew out of an ingredient database, and that database is still what makes it good.

Baselit starts with your face, not with a bottle. One selfie returns five separate cosmetic axes, clarity, evenness, texture, hydration and radiance, plus a composite number from 0 to 100. The score is where it starts, not where it stops: from those axes the app assembles a routine of over-the-counter products with an application order, morning or evening, and a written reason for every step, so you can see why an active is in there and why it sits where it sits. Mia, the coach in the app, answers follow-up questions about your values rather than about skincare in general. Our own store listing says it is for you whether you already have a routine or have no idea where to start, and the second half of that is the part people underestimate about a scanner app.

Underneath, lighting and framing are normalized before scoring and the result is cached against the normalized image, so the same photo returns the same number instead of a new one each time. You scan again the following week to see what moved.

So the real question is not which app is better. It is which sentence sounds more like you: "I want to know what is actually in this bottle", which is SkinSort, or "I do not know what I should be using, or whether what I use is doing anything", which is us.

Where SkinSort wins, and it is not close

The searchable database: any product, whether or not you own it, whether or not you have a routine. That is the whole answer, and it is a big one.

SkinSort was built around reading products, and after two years on the App Store it does that at a depth we do not attempt. Anything with an ingredient list can be looked up there, independently of what you personally use, and much of it for free in a browser. We have nothing of that kind: no browsable database, no free ingredient research, nothing that works without the app and a routine of your own. We do read barcodes now, but what comes back is a match against your own routine rather than a catalogue entry you can look at on its own terms. If what you want is to read the INCI list of any bottle you walk past, ours is the wrong app, and we would rather you knew that before you paid us.

What Baselit does with products is a narrower thing, and it is worth being exact so nobody buys the wrong expectation. In the paid part of the app you scan the barcode, or photograph the front of the pack, and get a match from 0 to 100 percent against the routine you are actually on, with the reasons printed under it: does this clash with something you already use and does the morning and evening split already settle that, is it suitable during pregnancy, is it simply another version of something already in there, and does it push on the axes you are currently working on or on something else. Only concentrations the manufacturer publishes count towards that number; one that nobody discloses is left as undisclosed rather than guessed, and the full ingredient list sits in the result. A product our own routine already recommends to you reads 100 percent, since the app should not argue with its own plan while you are standing in a shop. Mia still reads a label photo if you would rather ask her in words, and if the label is unreadable she asks for a better photo rather than guessing. Underneath that, the routine builder itself will not recommend a product whose second active would collide with something already in your plan. So the split is not products against no products. It is any product, on its own, which is SkinSort, against this product, against your routine, which is us.

Two more things worth knowing before you install anything. First, SkinSort has a free web database at skinsort.com. You can look products up in a browser, on any device, without installing an app and without paying. For a lot of people that is where the product question ends, and it costs nothing. Second, SkinSort is much further along than we are: about 5,736 US App Store ratings at a 4.74 average, 631 in the UK and 193 in Germany, on a listing live since 24 June 2024. Baselit went live on 10 July 2026 and has 7 ratings worldwide at a 5.0 average, none in the US store yet. SkinSort also shipped its most recent update on 18 July 2026, so it is actively maintained.

And what we do instead

None of that makes the two interchangeable, which is the useful part. SkinSort tells you what is in a bottle; it does not look at your face and hand you a plan. Baselit does exactly that: one scan, five axes, and out of them a routine with named products, an order, a time of day and a reason for each step, plus a coach you can ask about your own values when something does not make sense. You can arrive with no routine and no ingredient knowledge at all and still walk out with something concrete to do, which is the case a product database by itself does not cover. If you want both the shelf and the plan, the two tools sit side by side rather than competing.

Side by side

Baselit vs SkinSort · pulled from public App Store data, 26 July 2026
	Baselit	SkinSort
Store name	Baselit: AI Skin Score & Scan	SkinSort - Skincare Scanner
Provider	Marco Mori, a one-person build	SkinSort LLC
Camera points at	Your face	The product
Built around	A cosmetic score across five axes that becomes a routine, plus a weekly re-scan and a history	Scanning cosmetics and reading what is in them, on top of an ingredient database
Look any product up in a database	No. Nothing to browse and no free ingredient research. A barcode here answers whether a product fits your routine, not what the bottle is	Yes, and it is the core of the product
Check a product against your own routine	Yes: scan the barcode or photograph the front and get a percent match, with clash, slot, pregnancy and repetition spelled out. Mia also reads label photos	Not verified by us
Routine with a reason for every step	Yes: named products, application order, morning or evening, and why each one is there	Not verified by us. Its listing centres on products rather than on a plan for your face
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	Its database assumes you already have a product in your hand to look up
Weekly skin score history	Yes, the whole point of the app	Not verified. Its listing centres on products, not on a weekly face score
Usable without installing	No, iOS app only	Yes, there is a free web database at skinsort.com
On the store since	10 July 2026	24 June 2024
Last update	15 July 2026	18 July 2026
Ratings	7 worldwide, average 5.0 (6 Germany, 1 UK, none in the US yet)	About 5,736 US at 4.74 · 631 UK at 4.66 · 193 Germany at 4.62
Price	Free to install with in-app purchases. A monthly subscription with 7 days free, or a one-time purchase that does not renew. Priced per country, so the amount for your storefront is shown in the App Store before you confirm	Free to install with in-app purchases. Monthly tiers sit around 7.99 to 12.99 USD, no weekly option. The web database is free
Free trial	7 days, on the monthly plan. The one-time purchase has no trial, and until you buy either one the score stays blurred	Not verified. Check the current listing before you install
Best for	Getting a routine you understand out of one scan, and seeing week by week whether it moved anything	Deciding whether a product on the shelf suits you

Cells marked "not verified" are things we could not confirm from public data without subscribing to and testing 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. SkinSort is an independent third-party product with no affiliation to Baselit.

What Baselit is for

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

It turns a scan into a routine you can follow and question. Which products, in which order, morning or evening, with a written reason for each 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 least expect a scanner app to cover. When a step does not make sense, Mia answers about your own numbers rather than in general terms. Everything stays with over-the-counter products, described in cosmetic terms.

It is designed around what happens on 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, what changed is your skin and not the light in your bathroom. Five separate axes then show what moved rather than just that something did, which is the difference between "my skin got better" and "the texture reading moved and nothing else did". If you added exactly one product last month, that distinction is the entire value.

The method, and a two-minute test you can run against any skin app including ours to see how far its number drifts on the same face, is written out in how skin scores work.

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
The paywall is hard. You scan, the score arrives blurred, and the numbers unlock on payment. The free week exists, but you start it by starting a subscription, and it keeps running unless you cancel
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 database to browse. No free ingredient research and nothing usable without the app. The barcode and photo check is always relative to your own routine, so it answers whether a product fits you, not what it is
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 SkinSort from public sources, and we would rather list the gaps than fill them in: its current subscription tiers, whether a free trial exists and on which tier, how much of a weekly face-score history it keeps and how repeatable that score is. In the storefronts we checked its app is iOS only, though the web database works anywhere. We know our own product's failures exactly and SkinSort only from the outside, so the two lists on this page are not symmetric. Read anyone's comparison with that asymmetry in mind, this one included.

Plenty of people should use both

This is an odd thing to write on a page that exists to be found by people comparing us, but it is the accurate answer: one tool reads any product on its own terms, the other reads your face and judges a product through the routine that comes out of it, and the overlap is small. If you only want one, count which question you ask more often. If it is "what is actually in this bottle", that is SkinSort, and the free web database means you can answer it today for nothing. If it is "what should I be using, is it doing anything, and does this new thing fit what I already have", that is what we built, and it works from a standing start as well as from an existing routine.

Who Baselit is the right choice for

Two people, and it is worth naming them rather than only listing who should look elsewhere. The first has no routine and no idea where to begin: they want their skin looked at once, and then a plan that says which products, in which order, when, and why, in plain language, with somewhere to ask when a step does not make sense. The second already has a routine and wants to know whether it is doing anything, which needs a score that stays put unless their skin moves, and five axes that show which part changed. Baselit is built for that arc, from the first scan to the tenth. If neither of those is you, one of the other apps on this page probably fits better, and we would rather you install that one.

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, ours included. 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 unsure whether what you are looking at is cosmetic at all, start with a professional rather than with a subscription.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Baselit and SkinSort?

They answer different questions, which is why comparing them as rivals is slightly misleading. SkinSort is a product scanner: its own App Store description is about scanning your cosmetics, photographing a product to check it, and discovering new ones. It points the camera at the shelf. Baselit points the camera at your face: 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. Then you re-scan weekly to see what moved. Baselit does look at products too, but always in relation to that routine: in the paid part of the app you scan a product barcode or photograph the front of the pack and get a match in percent against your own routine, with the reasons under it, and Mia will still read a label photo for you in her own words. What it does not have is a database you can browse and look any product up in on its own terms, without a routine and without the app.

Which is better for checking whether a product suits me?

It depends which version of that question you are asking, so here are both. If you want to look a product up and read what is in it, SkinSort is clearly better and it is not close: that is the question it was built for, and its free web database at skinsort.com answers it without anyone paying anything. Start there. If the question is narrower, whether a specific product fits the routine you are already on, Baselit answers that directly. In the paid part of the app you scan the barcode, or photograph the front of the pack, and get a match from 0 to 100 percent against your own routine: whether an active clashes with something you already use and whether the morning and evening split already settles it, whether it is suitable during pregnancy, whether it simply repeats something you own, and whether it pushes on the axes you are currently working on. Only concentrations the manufacturer actually publishes count towards that number, and one that nobody discloses is left as undisclosed rather than guessed. Mia still reads a label photo if you would rather ask her in words. What we do not have is a database to browse, so the question of what is in a bottle with no routine attached stays SkinSort territory rather than ours.

Is SkinSort free?

The app is free to install with in-app purchases, with monthly tiers sitting around 7.99 to 12.99 USD and no weekly option. Check the current price on your own screen. What we can point at is the free web database at skinsort.com, which you can use in a browser without installing anything and without paying. For a lot of people that alone answers the product question, and we would rather tell you that than send you to a paid app for a lookup you can do for free.

Can Baselit scan a product or a barcode?

Both, in the paid part of the app. You scan the barcode, or photograph the front of the pack when there is no barcode or it will not read, and you get back a match from 0 to 100 percent against the routine Baselit built for you, with two to four lines saying why: whether an active clashes with a step you already have and whether the morning and evening split already settles it, whether it is suitable during pregnancy, whether it only repeats something you own, and whether it pushes on the axes you are currently working on. The full ingredient list sits in the result. Only concentrations the manufacturer publishes count towards the number, and one that nobody discloses is left as undisclosed rather than guessed. A product Baselit recommends to you itself reads 100 percent, because the app should not argue with its own routine while you are standing in a shop. Behind it is a curated product database indexed by barcode that grows with every scan, plus a live lookup for anything it does not know yet, manufacturer sources ahead of retailers. There is a cap of ten checks a day, and Mia still reads a label photo alongside it. What is still missing next to SkinSort is the browsable side: no free ingredient research in a browser, and no way to look a product up without the app and a routine of your own. Ours answers whether a product fits what you already use, not what the bottle is.

How many people use SkinSort compared to Baselit?

Rating counts read on 26 July 2026: SkinSort has about 5,736 ratings in the US store at a 4.74 average, 631 in the UK at 4.66 and 193 in Germany at 4.62. 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. SkinSort has also been listed since 24 June 2024, against our 10 July 2026, so it has a much longer track record.

When is Baselit the better choice than SkinSort?

When your question is about your face rather than a bottle. Two cases in particular. First, you want a routine rather than a rating: the five axes turn into named products in a set order, morning or evening, with a written reason for each step and a coach called Mia you can ask about your own values, which works whether or not you have ever had a routine before. Second, you want to know whether what you are already doing moved anything, which needs a score that stays put unless your skin moves. Baselit reads five separate axes so you can see what moved, not only that something did.

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.

Should I use both?

Plenty of people should, and if you are only going to use one, think about which question you actually ask more often. One tool reads any product on its own terms, the other reads your face and then judges a product against the routine that comes out of it. The overlap between them is small, which is a strange thing for a comparison page to admit, but it is the accurate answer. If what you mostly want is to look ingredient lists up, start with SkinSort's free web database and skip us entirely for now.

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. SkinSort is an independent third-party product of SkinSort LLC with no affiliation to Baselit; all figures reflect public App Store listing data read on 26 July 2026 and may change without notice.