Prepbook vs. Copy Me That
Copy Me That is a free clipper for saving recipes in bulk. Prepbook is a cookbook for the ones you actually cook.
Copy Me That does one thing very well: you find a recipe anywhere on the web, press the button, and it is saved.
Prepbook is built for what happens next. A recipe is a living thing: it picks up swaps, corrections and notes every time you cook it, until it reads the way you actually make it. So Prepbook treats it as a document you keep writing rather than a page you filed away, and assumes you will be reading it on a phone in one hand with a pan going in the other.
Which one suits you comes down to what you want the app to hold. Copy Me That is at its best while you are collecting. Prepbook is at its best when the recipe is the thing itself, the one you keep cooking.
Side by side
| Feature | Prepbook | Copy Me That |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, installable as an app on any desktop | Web, iOS, Android |
| What you pay | Free up to 30 recipes, then one subscription that covers every device | Free with ads, with a paid tier that removes them |
| Ads | None | On the free tier |
| Writing a recipe | A free-form document with headings, notes, photos, tables, whatever the recipe needs | Structured fields, with your edits kept beside the original |
| Cooking history | Tap “Made this” each time you cook it, and every try lands in the recipe's log with your notes | A notes field |
| Version history | Every earlier version of a recipe is kept, so you can always look back | Not supported |
| Import from a web page | Paste the link, or share to Prepbook from your phone | A one-click browser button |
| Import from a video | YouTube, TikTok and Instagram | Not supported |
| Import from a photo | Photograph a cookbook page or a handwritten card | Not supported |
| Scaling | Scale to any amount, with the numbers rewritten in place, including the ones buried mid-sentence | Adjust the servings |
| Cooking mode | Step-by-step view with the ingredients kept in reach, a screen lock and timers | A recipe page |
| Search | Associative search: “something with lentils for a cold night” finds the stew | Keyword and category search |
| Sharing a single recipe | Every recipe gets a link that opens in any browser, no app or account needed | A link to your saved copy |
| Languages | Interface in 20 languages, recipes in any language | English-first |
| Connect an AI assistant | Connect Claude or ChatGPT and ask what is in your cookbook | Not supported |
Cooking > collecting
A year of one-click saving leaves most people with a few thousand recipes and maybe forty they have actually made. That is what a frictionless clipper is for, and Copy Me That is very good at it.
A collection that size stops being browsable, though. Prepbook assumes a smaller, deliberate cookbook: the recipes that survived the first cook, written the way you make them now, and easy to find when you want them. Ask it for something with lentils for a cold night and the stew comes back, whatever you called it.
Living document > filing a copy
Once a recipe is clipped, what you mostly have is a tidy copy of someone else's page.
In Prepbook a recipe is a rich text document. Headings, lists, images, tables and notes go wherever the recipe needs them, and there is not a single field to fill in. Write it however it comes out, or paste it from anywhere, and Prepbook works out the rest on its own: which lines are ingredients, how much of each, and which step uses what.
That is what makes the cooking parts work. Scaling rewrites every amount in place rather than leaving you to do the arithmetic, tapping an ingredient inside a step shows how much of it goes in, and cooking mode walks you through one step at a time with the ingredients still in reach, timers running and the screen awake.
Every time you make it
Tap Made this when you cook something and that try goes into the recipe's log with the date and whatever you want to say about it: what you swapped, what went wrong, who asked for seconds.
Over a few months the log becomes the recipe's history, and the recipe itself settles into the version you actually make. And when you rewrite it, nothing is lost. Version history keeps every earlier version, so you can always look back at how it read before you halved the sugar.
Sharing what you cook
Prepbook gives every recipe a public link. Your sister opens it on whatever phone she has, reads it, scales it to four people, and never installs anything. If she does have Prepbook, one tap saves it to her own cookbook.
No ads sit on top of it, on your side or hers.
When Copy Me That suits you better
If what you want is to save everything you come across and pay nothing, Copy Me That is built for that. Prepbook is built for the recipes you come back to.
Moving your recipes over from Copy Me That
- Start with the ones you have actually cooked. Moving is a good moment to leave the pile behind.
- Paste their original links into Prepbook one at a time. The import rebuilds each one properly, with photos.
- For recipes you wrote or edited yourself, export them from Copy Me That and import the file, or paste the text into a new Prepbook recipe.
Common questions
Is there a free version of Prepbook?
Yes, up to 30 recipes, with no ads and no time limit.
Can Prepbook save a recipe from a video?
Yes. Paste a YouTube, TikTok or Instagram link and Prepbook turns it into a recipe you can read, scale and cook from, with the ingredients and the steps laid out properly. It will do the same with a photograph of a page from a cookbook.
Does Prepbook work offline?
Yes. Install it on your phone, tablet or desktop and your cookbook is there without a connection, cooking mode included. Anything you change syncs the next time you are online.
Can I get my recipes back out of Prepbook?
Always. You can export your whole collection as PDF, Markdown, HTML or plain text at any time.