Everything you need to know about Pantoh — from getting started to advanced recipe management.
No, Pantoh is free for users. We make all of our core features free so that we can build a vibrant and active community where anyone can thrive and make cooking work for themselves, regardless of why and how they cook.
Pantoh is a revolutionary recipe platform designed to make cooking easy and personalized. The word “Pantoh” is a Taiwanese word for the traditional roadside banquet where communities and neighbors get together to celebrate life's biggest events over delicious food — fostering the sense of community we all need in today's world.
With Pantoh, you can expect thoughtful designs and features all geared towards making cooking work for our users, regardless of why they cook. We recognize that some of us may cook because we love food, while others may cook for family or because of dietary restrictions. Pantoh's features are designed to meet you where you are.
Pantoh recognizes that everyone cooks for different reasons and has innovative features designed to make cooking work for our users.
We are big believers in doing what's right. You will find the Report function when you click on the 3 vertical dots on each recipe. We ask that you provide as much information as possible so that we can manage the concern efficiently.
Search starts filtered to your dietary preferences, allergens and avoided ingredients, and says so with Matching your preferences. Tap Show all recipes to see everything, and Apply my preferences to filter again. The filters also let you narrow by diet, allergen group, included or excluded ingredients, difficulty, time and creator type, and choose whether to include recipe customizations.
To change what the filter starts from, update your preferences under Edit profile.
Sometimes the App Store doesn't return a creator's subscription, and the app shows "This subscription isn't available on your App Store right now." Apple doesn't give us a reason. On Android, or in other cases, the app may say "Subscription options aren't available for this creator right now."
Please try again later. If it keeps happening, write to support@pantoh.app.
Dietary Preferences
Users can choose from a list of the most common diets in the US including Gluten-Free, Halal, Heart-Healthy, Ketogenic, Kosher, Low Carb, Pescatarian, Vegan and Vegetarian. This supports multi-choice selections as we recognize users may be cooking for their households. This setting can be updated after registration in the Profile page.
Selections here will help us find the most relevant recipes for you in the For You section of our Discover experience.
Dietary Restrictions
Users can choose a specific allergen or allergen group. For example, if you are allergic to peanuts only, Pantoh will show you recipes without peanuts in the For You section in Discover. You may still find recipes containing peanuts in other sections of Discover.
Let us know if we can add more selections to make cooking easier for you. Contact us at support@pantoh.app.
Yes. Tap Continue as a guest on the sign-in screen to browse Discover, open recipes and read reviews.
Guests can’t create, import or scan recipes, use Cookbook folders or save collections, customize or rate recipes, write notes, earn Pantoh Insider, or connect with a Pantoh Expert. Each of those asks you to create an account. Signing in takes a Google or Apple account.
The Pantoh profile page shows what others in the Pantoh community can see when they visit your profile. As the profile owner, you can edit your icon image, description, dietary preferences and dietary restrictions, and access all of your public recipes and collections.
Edit Profile — In Edit Profile, users can change profile icons, update social media and website links, and change dietary preferences and restrictions.
Yes! Providing your dietary preferences and restrictions at onboarding helps us show you relevant recipes. To change them at any time, go to your profile and choose Edit Profile.
Pantoh makes it easy to find other users that share the same dietary preferences and restrictions. Through Pantoh's dietary badging system, you can easily see the diets or allergens for any public user profile.
You can also Follow the profile or Share the profile with users outside of the Pantoh community.
The Profile page is where users can access general settings, including units of measurement, leaving feedback, accessing Pantoh's Terms of Service and Privacy Policies, and requesting to delete your account.
Go to Settings → Account management → Delete account. You confirm by signing in again with Google or Apple. Deletion is immediate and can’t be undone: your name, email, profile and photo are erased at once.
What's deleted: your collections (people who shared or saved them see a notice), your shopping lists and meal plans, including shared ones (they disappear for everyone), your comments, ratings, notes, saved recipes, followers and who you follow, and your Pantoh Insider status. Notes and guidance between you and a Pantoh Expert are deleted for both of you.
What stays: your recipes remain in Pantoh under the Pantoh account with their current visibility, except subscriber-only recipes, which are removed so no one can see them. Payment and payout records are kept with your name and email removed, as tax law requires.
Deleting your account doesn't cancel a Pantoh Insider or creator subscription you bought in the App Store or Google Play. Cancel it in your store settings first.
For deletion without the app, use the form at pantoh.app/delete. To request a copy of your data, email legal@cooking.social.
Simply click on the user icon above the recipe name. This takes you directly to the author's profile page, where you can follow or share their profile.
Pantoh applies dietary and allergen badges to all recipes so users can make the best decisions about whether a recipe is suitable for them. The badges reflect the Dietary Preferences and Dietary Restrictions that Pantoh maintains in the system.
To access detailed descriptions, click on the i icon on any recipe page.
Every recipe has a Flavor profile set by its author: Sweet, Salty, Sour, Bitter and Spicy, each from 1 to 5, or marked not applicable when a flavor doesn’t belong in the dish. Tap the profile on the recipe page to read what it means.
When you rate a recipe you don’t re-score the meters. For each flavor you say whether it was Too much, Just right or Not enough compared with the profile, or Not applicable. The recipe then shows how the community’s answers compare with the author’s intent.
Pantoh's Personal Sous Chef aggregates ingredient and substitution information for the most common ingredients. We work with registered dietitians to ensure the information is sufficient and accurate.
Click on any ingredient to see its information through the Personal Sous Chef overlay. The Personal Sous Chef button below Ingredients shows the aggregated information for the entire recipe.
Under Made This Recipe? at the bottom of the recipe, tap Rate this recipe. You give an overall rating out of 5, can add up to five photos and a comment, answer the flavor chips (Too much, Just right, Not enough or Not applicable for each flavor) and say whether it was Easier, As expected or Harder than described.
Afterwards you see how your take compares with the community. Ratings, comments and customizations on other cooks’ recipes also count toward Pantoh Insider; see your progress under Profile → Settings → Pantoh Insider.
Cookbook is where you organize all your recipes — ones you create, import or customize, ones you bookmark, and ones shared with you. There are 3 top folders:
Cookbook is the starting point to create any content in Pantoh. Click the Plus icon in the lower right-hand corner to create a recipe manually, import by URL, import by text, or create collections.
My Collections shows all collections you have created, making it super easy to organize your many recipes.
This is where you can find all recipes or collections that have been shared with you on Pantoh.
There are 3 primary ways to add your recipes to Pantoh:
No! While Pantoh makes new and imported recipes public by default, you always have the choice. There are 3 privacy options:
In a private collection shared with you: the recipes its owner wrote, including private ones, for as long as the collection stays shared with you. Drafts aren’t shown until their author finishes them, and subscriber-only recipes still need a subscription. A recipe someone else added opens only if it’s public or was shared with you directly. In a public collection, you see only its public recipes, and subscriber-only ones with a subscription.
Anyone who opens a collection’s link gets the same access. The owner can turn sharing off in the collection’s sharing settings; that stops the link and stops everyone they shared it with from opening it, until it’s turned back on. To take one person off, the owner removes them from the people with access.
It makes the collection and your recipes in it private. Drafts stay drafts. If the collection was paid, its subscriber-only recipes become private too, and subscribers can’t open them.
Its creator made it private. It’s still on your plan, just hidden, and it comes back if they make it public.
Everything is copied. A recipe you can’t open, because its creator made it private, is copied but stays hidden for you. Ask the creator to share it.
Yes, as the author you can always edit your own recipes.
For Public Recipes — Click the 3 vertical dots on the upper right of your recipe and choose Edit. Make your changes and select Make Private to save, then Publish again to make it public.
For Private Recipes — Click the 3 vertical dots and choose Edit. Make your changes and select Save or Publish to make it public.
Yes. Tap Share on the recipe, then Share link or Copy link. Public recipes by Pantoh creators, accounts that have turned on creator tools, have a web page at pantoh.app, so the link opens in any browser with no app and no account. From there your friend can open or install Pantoh. Recipes by other members open in the Pantoh app.
Recipes without a web page open in the Pantoh app. Someone without the app lands on a page to install it, and can then browse as a guest without creating an account.
Private and draft recipes never appear on the web: their links open only in the app, for the people you’ve shared them with. Subscriber-only recipes show a preview on the web: the number of ingredients, a few ingredient names and the first two steps. The rest stays behind the creator’s subscription in the app. From the same menu you can also share a recipe card to your Instagram Story.
Paste the URL of any public recipe page, or share it to Pantoh from your browser or another app through the share sheet. You can also import from pasted text, or use Scan a printed recipe to photograph a cookbook page or a card, several pages at a time.
Social posts are the usual failure. If the recipe is only spoken in the video, there’s nothing to import: copy the caption or the comment that holds the recipe and use Import recipe by text. Pinterest pins need to be opened so you can import the linked page. A few sites block readers; try again later or paste the text. Slow imports keep running in the background and land in Cookbook within a minute or two.
Imports are structured by AI, so check ingredients and allergens before saving. Imported recipes are public by default and follow the publishing rules: your own photo, and the method in your own words.
Click the Customize button at the bottom of any recipe page. Pantoh brings up the customization flow with the source recipe already pre-filled.
We encourage you to use your own images and update Cooking Time, Difficulty and Flavor Balance accordingly. Key areas to customize:
After saving, you'll be asked for the reason for your customization. This helps Pantoh categorize it in Community Customizations so others can find it easily.
Yes! Customized recipes show an on-screen toggle “Toggle to see modifications from source recipe” under Ingredients and Method. Switching it on automatically highlights all changes:
Source Recipes — You will see only the Customizations (x) button below the dietary badges, where X shows how many times the recipe has been customized on Pantoh.
Customized Recipes — You will see two options: Source Recipe (takes you to the original) and Customizations (x) (takes you to the Community Customizations page).
In Community Customizations, use the on-screen filters to quickly group customizations by reason, such as flavor preferences or dietary needs.
Pantoh Insider is free to earn. You earn it two ways, and time from each runs at the same time, not back to back.
Pantoh Insider unlocks no ads, My Notes (Personal Notes), recipe recommendations from your shopping list, Pantoh To Taste (beta) for recipes tuned to your taste, and sharing collections, meal plans and shopping lists with the people you cook with. Your progress, the current rules and your end date are always under Profile → Settings → Pantoh Insider.
Your six-character code is under Settings → Referrals (codes never contain O, I, L, 0 or 1). On Android the code applies automatically when your friend opens your invite link. On iPhone your friend must tap Have a referral code? on the sign-in screen and enter the code before signing in, so share the code, not just the link.
You can create up to 20 named personal invites to see who joined with which. A referral that doesn’t qualify shows Doesn’t count.
Pantoh shows ads on recipe pages and once in the Discover feed. They’re chosen from the recipes on screen, not from your profile. Pantoh Insider removes them: the No ads perk switches them off for as long as your Pantoh Insider lasts. There’s no separate ad-free purchase.
Everyone on a shared shopping list can add items, check them off, change an item’s quantity (tap ⋮ → Edit quantity) and remove items, including ones someone else added. Anyone can also tap Clear to remove checked items. Only the owner can invite people (up to 10) and arrange the order of the list; everyone sees the same order.
A list shared with you shows up as a button under the add bar, named after the person who shared it, like Sam’s list. Tap it before you add anything, or your items go on My list, which only you see. Shared lists don’t update live: pull down to refresh.
On a list a Pantoh Expert shares with you, you can add items and check off anything, but you can change or remove only the items you added.
Yes. Type anything into the add bar, like toilet paper or tilapia or monkfish, and it’s saved the way you typed it. Items Pantoh doesn’t recognize as groceries go under Other. To change an item’s wording, remove it and add it again.
Sharing lasts as long as the owner’s Pantoh Insider. If yours ends, the people you shared a shopping list or meal plan with lose access until you earn Pantoh Insider again, when it comes back on its own. The app shows Sharing is paused in the meantime.
For a collection, the people already in it keep their access; you just can’t invite anyone new until Pantoh Insider is back. Collaborators on a private collection can open every recipe in it, including private ones. On a public one they see what everyone sees. Shared lists don’t update live: pull down to refresh.
Pantoh Expert lets a dietitian or nutritionist you already work with guide you inside Pantoh. In the app it lives under Profile → Settings → Pantoh Expert. Professionals: see pantoh.app/expert and the section below.
Guidance from your dietitian or nutritionist, right where you cook. A nutrition professional can guide your recipes line by line, leave you notes, share recipes and collections with you, and plan meals in your own meal plan when you allow it. Only you and your Expert see what’s shared.
It’s free. Pantoh is free on iOS and Android, and you need no subscription to receive guidance. Find the page under Profile → Settings → Pantoh Expert → What is Pantoh Expert?
Your Expert gives you either an 8-character code or a link. With a code: open Profile → Settings → Pantoh Expert, enter it under Invite code and tap Connect. With a link: tap it, check it says “{name} invited you to connect”, then Review and connect.
Either way you first see “Connecting with a Pantoh Expert”, which lists exactly what you’re sharing. Nothing is shared until you tap Connect. A code works once and for 14 days. If it says the code has already been used, was withdrawn or has expired, ask your Expert for a new one.
Not at the moment: one Expert at a time. If you open a second invite you’ll see “You’re already connected with a Pantoh Expert. End that connection before connecting with someone new.” End the current connection first (see below), then connect with the new one.
Look for the Pantoh Expert checkmark beside an ingredient, a step number or a section heading: that line carries guidance for you. Tap the mark to open the Personal Sous Chef sheet on that line. Under From your Expert you’ll see each note with your Expert’s name, the line it’s about, a label if they added one (Swap, Portion, Avoid, Add or Remove) and their sentence.
Tap Helpful or Not helpful to tell them how it landed. The Expert Guidance button is your Expert’s tool for writing guidance; you won’t need it.
Standing Notes are the few things your Expert wants you to keep in mind on every recipe, like “No eggs. Keep portions small.” They appear on every recipe you open, under the Standing Notes button at the bottom of the recipe, headed “From your Pantoh Expert”. When your Expert changes them you get a “Standing Notes updated” notification, and the button shows New until you open it.
Two places. On a recipe, the On this recipe row has Expert Notes: that’s the back-and-forth about this recipe only. For everything at once, open Cookbook → Expert Notes, which opens “Notes with {name}”: every note between you across all recipes, newest first, with a New header above anything you haven’t read.
You can write to your Expert from either place. A note goes on a public recipe, your own, or your Expert’s.
The small dot means there are notes on this recipe. “1 new”, “2 new” and so on means notes from your Expert you haven’t read yet. Opening Expert Notes on the recipe clears that recipe’s count. Opening Cookbook → Expert Notes marks everything on screen as read, so the counts disappear from all your recipes at once. That’s expected: you’ve just seen them all in one place.
It’s a row of the recipes your Expert has done something on for you: guidance written for you, or a note they sent you about that recipe, newest first. Only recipes you can open appear, and anything from an Expert you’re no longer connected to drops off. Show more opens a grid of those recipes.
Guidance your Expert wrote for all their clients doesn’t appear here; you’ll find it on the recipe itself.
That’s on purpose. Pantoh sends one notification per batch of unread notes in a conversation; later notes update that notification instead of buzzing again, until you’ve seen them. Then the next note notifies you again.
The notification is deliberately plain, “New note — There’s a new note on {recipe name}”, and never shows your Expert’s name, because anyone near your phone can read a lock screen. You can turn these off under Settings → Notifications → Pantoh Expert.
Only if you allow it. Your Expert sends a “Meal planning request”, and you’ll see “Allow {name} to plan meals with you?” with exactly what that means: they can see your whole meal plan, including past weeks and meals others added, and add meals to it; they can change or remove only the meals they add; and they won’t see who else shares your plan. Tap Allow or Not now.
You can turn it off any time in Settings → Pantoh Expert under Meal plan. Meals they added stay. Shopping lists aren’t part of this yet.
You see the full list before you connect, under “Connecting with a Pantoh Expert”. In short:
If the wording ever changes, you’re asked to review it again before anything new is shared.
Open Profile → Settings → Pantoh Expert and tap End connection. Either of you can end it. Nothing new is shared either way, and they no longer see your diets and allergies unless your profile is public. Nothing is deleted: they keep your notes together and your ratings of their guidance. To remove everything, delete your Pantoh account.
Blocking your Expert also ends the connection, and unblocking doesn’t bring it back. Reconnecting takes a new invite.
Yes. You can browse Pantoh as a guest, but connecting with an Expert needs an account: sign in with Google or Apple. Either works for clients. If you open an invite link as a guest, you’ll be asked to create an account first.
No, and no. Everywhere you write to your Expert, Pantoh reminds you: “Pantoh isn’t HIPAA compliant yet. Please be careful what you share here.” Please don’t share medical records or other sensitive health details in Pantoh.
Under every piece of guidance you’ll also see “Shared by your Expert. Pantoh doesn’t give medical or dietary advice.” Guidance comes from your Expert, not from Pantoh, and Pantoh doesn’t review it. For medical decisions, talk to your doctor or care team.
Email support@pantoh.app. Tell us whether you’re the client or the Expert, and the recipe name if it’s about one recipe. Please don’t include health details in the email.
The short version. Trial details and the full feature tour are at pantoh.app/expert.
Registered Dietitians and Nutritionists. Start a free 30-day trial yourself at studio.pantoh.app/sign-up. New to Pantoh? Use Google, and Studio creates your account. Already use Pantoh with Apple? Continue with Apple. There’s no meeting and no approval to wait for.
Everyone starts as a Nutritionist, so your badge shows the Nutritionist label. If you’re a Registered Dietitian, email support@pantoh.app to ask for the RD badge: Pantoh verifies your credential before it appears. RD verification has an expiry, and you’ll get reminders before it lapses.
30 days, and you don’t need a card. During the trial you can have up to 5 clients. Every client you connect counts toward the 5, even if the connection later ends, and so do open invites.
We remind you before your trial ends. Your clients, notes and guidance are kept. To keep using Pantoh Expert, contact support@pantoh.app.
Yes. On studio.pantoh.app/sign-up, choose Continue with Apple and use the Apple account you sign in with in the Pantoh app. Studio can’t create a new account with Apple: if you don’t have a Pantoh account yet, create one in the Pantoh app with Apple first, or start your trial with Google.
Registered Dietitian (licensed, verified by Pantoh) and Nutritionist. Clients see your badge on your profile and on your guidance: a licensed Expert’s seal reads “Licensed · Registered Dietitian”; a Nutritionist’s reads “Nutritionist”. Both badges get exactly the same tools. Experts have public profiles.
In Profile → Settings → Pantoh Expert, tap Invite a client, enter who it’s for (they’ll see their first name on the invite) and Create code. Then Copy code or Share: the share message carries a tap-to-connect link plus the code, and tells them the invite works for 14 days.
Your client sees “{name} invited you to connect”, then the full disclosure of what they’re sharing. Nothing is shared until they tap Connect. One code, one client, once. You can Withdraw an open invite.
Everything you write collects in Your guidance library.
Your own recipes (including your subscriber-only ones) and public recipes. Not another creator’s private, draft or subscriber-only recipe. The app says “You can only add guidance to a public recipe or one of your own.” A draft of your own must be finished first. If a recipe of yours is private, you’re asked to share it with the client when you save.
In a private collection: your own recipes in it, including private ones, while it stays shared. Your drafts stay hidden until you finish them, and your subscriber-only recipes still need a subscription. The collection is live: recipes you add or remove, and your edits, reach your clients, and deleting it removes it for them. In a public one, they see only its public recipes, and subscriber-only ones with a subscription.
Anyone who opens the collection’s link can open the same recipes, so share the link only with people you mean to. Turning sharing off in the collection’s sharing settings stops the link and also stops your clients opening it, until you turn it back on. To take one person off, remove them from the people with access.
Pantoh Studio is the Expert workspace on the web at studio.pantoh.app: a desktop view of your clients, an inbox, and guidance for several clients at once. It uses Google sign-in; use the Google account you use in the Pantoh app. If you joined Pantoh with Apple, email support@pantoh.app and we’ll add Studio to that account. Planning meals with a client is done in Studio. Your other Expert tools also work in the Pantoh app.
On Your clients in the Pantoh app, a client who sent the last note in your thread is tagged “Waiting for your reply”, so you can see at a glance who’s waiting on you. Open their card to read and answer.
Yes. Clients can use Google or Apple, and so can you: Pantoh Studio accepts both. A client using Apple connects, reads guidance and writes notes exactly like anyone else.
Not yet, and we tell clients so before they connect. Keep conversations to food and cooking and don’t share protected health information in Pantoh. Every Expert screen carries the line “You’re responsible for the advice you share. Pantoh doesn’t review it.” Notifications never show your name or your client’s on a lock screen.
In the app, go to Profile → Start Creating and follow the steps. Becoming a creator is free. You share revenue with Pantoh only when subscribers pay you. When you become a creator, you accept the Pantoh Creator Agreement.
You choose a monthly and an annual price from the price points Apple offers, shown in the app when you set up your subscription. A new subscription plan goes through Apple's review, which can take several days. The app shows the plan's status while you wait.
Your subscriptions are sold in the United States, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Prices in the UK and EU include VAT, so you earn less per sale there. See Why do I earn less on UK and EU sales?
Payouts go through Stripe. Connect your Stripe account once from the app, through a secure web page, and your payouts go to that account.
US dollars. If a sale is in another currency, we convert it at the exchange rate Apple or Google applied when they paid us, with no markup.
Your own original recipes. Open the recipe and tap Make subscriber-only, and it becomes Subscribers only. Imported recipes and customizations of other recipes can't be subscriber-only.
Apple or Google keeps its share of each sale first. Pantoh's fee is 15% of what's left, or 10% for Premium creators, and you keep the rest. You don't pay Stripe's fees. Any fees your own bank charges to receive a payout are yours.
In the UK and EU, prices include VAT. Apple or Google takes the VAT out before the store's share and Pantoh's fee are worked out. So a sale there earns you less than a sale at the same price in the US, where tax is added on top.
You're paid after Apple or Google has paid us for the sale, which can take up to about 75 days.
Yes. We pay out once your balance reaches US$25. Smaller amounts carry over to the next payout.
If you qualify, Stripe sends you a 1099. Please confirm your tax details in your Stripe dashboard: go to Settings → Creator tools → Payouts and tap Open Stripe.
We don't provide tax support. You're responsible for reporting your earnings and paying any tax on them.
Your subscriber-only recipes are removed so no one can see them. Your other recipes follow the account-deletion rules in the Profile section. Deleting your account doesn't cancel subscriptions you bought yourself; cancel those in your App Store or Google Play settings.
After your account is erased, we keep a record of which version of the Creator Agreement you accepted and when, without your name or contact details, for 2 years, so we can resolve any question about payments we made to you.
Go to Settings → Creator tools → Price tiers and tap Stop selling. New subscriptions stop right away. Your current subscribers keep access until the end of what they've paid for.
We cancel Android renewals. iPhone subscriptions keep renewing until the subscriber cancels in Settings › Subscriptions, and we'll let them know how.
You can't turn sales back on yourself, but you can ask Pantoh to turn them back on later.
Go to Settings → Creator tools → Price tiers, tap Ask to sell again, then Send request. You can send one request a day.
Your subscriptions go back on sale at your current prices, in the same countries as before. Turning sales back on takes a little time on our side, and we'll let you know when it's done with a notification: Your sales are back on.
If you don't see Ask to sell again, email support@pantoh.app.
No. Going private doesn't cancel your subscribers' subscriptions, and it doesn't stop new ones. Your subscribers keep reading your subscriber-only recipes and keep being billed until they cancel.
To stop new subscriptions, use Stop selling.