Is Alta Free? Alta vs Acloset Compared (2026)

These two get compared constantly because they are the two best-known wardrobe apps you can use without paying anything. They are not really competing on the same axis, though, and the free-versus-free framing hides what each one actually costs you.

We make a competing app, so treat our own product as a footnote here rather than the answer. This comparison is about Alta and Acloset.

Is Alta Free?

Yes, Alta is free to use. Its App Store listing shows the app as Free with no in-app purchases listed, and altadaily.com says "Alta is free to use." Alta also runs as a web app at altadaily.com. Acloset is different: free for up to 100 items, with paid plans from $3.99 a month on the US App Store.

Checked on the Alta website and App Store listing, 19 October 2026.

The Short Answer

Pick Alta if you want AI styling at zero cost with no ads or item cap listed, and you can read its brand shopping suggestions with a critical eye. Pick Acloset if the social feed and preloved marketplace are the point, and you either stay under 100 items or will pay to lift that cap.

Side by Side

Where Alta Wins

Alta is the more capable styling product. It generates daily outfits, event outfits and packing lists, includes virtual try-on on an avatar, and was named a TIME Best Invention of 2025. There are no in-app purchases listed to upsell you into and no advertising mentioned, which makes the day-to-day experience cleaner than Acloset's.

The catch is that Alta does not say how it earns money, and it shows shopping recommendations from brands. That does not make the styling advice worthless, but a wardrobe app's most valuable function is arguably getting more use out of what is already in your closet, so judge the shopping suggestions accordingly.

Where Acloset Wins

Acloset's social layer has no equivalent in Alta. An outfit feed, followers, and trending looks turn getting dressed into something communal, and for a lot of people that is the feature that makes them keep opening the app. The preloved marketplace is a real addition too, since it gives unworn items somewhere to go.

The cost is the free tier. One hundred items is low for anyone with a full wardrobe, the App Store listing lists advertising, and in our view the outfit suggestions are the weakest part of the product. You are paying with attention until you pay with money.

The Honest Tie-Breaker

If you will actually use a social feed, take Acloset and plan to pay, because the free tier will frustrate you. If you want an app that dresses you and you are indifferent to community features, take Alta, because free with no ads and no cap is a genuinely strong offer and the styling is better.

Neither app advertises data export or self-hosting, so in both cases you are building an inventory of everything you own inside a service you do not control. That matters more than it sounds, and we wrote about why in what your wardrobe data reveals.

Where We Fit

For completeness: Wardrowbe is $10/mo on the cloud tier or free if you self-host it, and the thing it does that neither of these does is let you keep the data and choose the AI backend. It has no social feed at all, so if that is what you came for, Acloset is the better pick and we would rather say so.

Fuller comparisons: Wardrowbe vs Alta, Wardrowbe vs Acloset, and the full field in the best wardrobe apps of 2026.