Home Comparisons vs Umax
SkinLately vs Umax
The short answer
They are not competitors so much as two answers to different questions. Umax scores how you look and is listed as an 18+ Lifestyle app. SkinLately tracks whether your skincare routine is changing anything, measured only against your own Day 1. If a score for your looks is what you want, Umax is the better product; we do not do that at all.
Side by side
| SkinLately | Umax | |
|---|---|---|
| What the number means | Your own skin today versus your own Day 1 | A score for how you look |
| What it reads | Hydration, texture, calmness, clarity, under-eyes | Attractiveness ratings — a different product category |
| Comparison with other people | None anywhere in the product | Rating is inherently comparative |
| Cadence | Daily, one scan, streak-based | Rate, then optional routine tracking |
| Store category | Health & Fitness (planned) | Lifestyle |
| Age rating | Not yet rated — targeting 16+ self-attestation | 18+ |
| Price | $2.99/wk or $29.99/yr, 3-day trial | Weekly $3.99–$9.99 · monthly $9.99–$24.99 · one-off unlocks (multiple price points shown) |
| Free browser tools | Two, no account, no upload | No |
| Available now | No — not released | Yes |
What Umax got right
The fastest, most legible first-run experience of anything in this category, and the reason a paid weekly price point works at all for face scanning.
It is worth being specific about the debt: Umax demonstrated that people will pay a weekly subscription to point a camera at their own face and get a number back. That is the single hardest assumption in our business model, and we did not have to test it. Our pricing starts from a weekly tier because of what that app proved, not despite it.
Where we deliberately went the other way
- The reference point. A rating needs a population to rank you against. Ours needs your own history. That one decision removes leaderboards, percentiles and friend comparison from the product permanently, because there is nothing for them to attach to.
- The second visit. A rating is complete when you have read it. A habit tracker is worthless until the second reading. Everything else about the two products follows from that.
- The vocabulary. We do not use attractiveness language anywhere, in the product or in marketing. Not as a positioning trick — the words shape what people do with the number.
We are not going to run down the looksmaxxing category to sell against it. Psychologists have raised public concerns about rating apps and young users, and that criticism is not ours to relitigate or to weaponise. What we can say is what we build: no rating, no ranking, no percentile, and copy that never uses the word attractive.
Frequently asked
Are they the same kind of app?
No. They share one gesture — take a selfie, get a number — and nothing else. Umax is listed as Lifestyle, rated 18+, and its number is about how you look. Ours is a habit tracker whose number is only ever compared with your own previous number.
Which is cheaper?
Depends entirely on how long you keep it. Umax's listing showed weekly tiers from $3.99 to $9.99 and monthly from $9.99 to $24.99 on 2026-08-15. Ours is $2.99 a week or $29.99 a year. On a yearly basis ours is cheaper; for two weeks of curiosity, theirs is.
Does Umax track progress?
Its App Store description mentions daily routines and progress pictures, so yes to some degree. The design centre of gravity is still the rating — that is what the listing leads with and what the product is known for.
Why not just build the rating feature too?
Because it is a different product with a different effect on the person using it, and psychologists have publicly raised concerns about that category and young users. We are not in a position to adjudicate that research, but "do not build a thing that ranks how people look" is a decision we can make without needing to.