- Core makeup try-on, face retouch, and body editing tools are free to use, not gated behind a paywall
- 4.7-star rating on the Apple App Store (152,000+ ratings) and 4.1 on Google Play, per Perfect Corp's own published figures
- Broad feature set in one app: virtual makeup, hairstyle/hair color try-on, AI clothes changer, and text-to-image and image-to-video generation
- Over 1 billion downloads since 2014, plus retail partnerships (Ulta, QVC) that put its try-on engine inside other brands' apps
- Perfect Corp doesn't publish a fixed Premium price on its own site — cost is set by App Store/Google Play region and current promotions
- Generative features (text-to-image, image-to-video, AI Agent tasks) are limited or credit-gated for free users
- Breadth over depth: it's a beauty-and-selfie tool first, not a substitute for layer-based photo editing
- App Store privacy disclosure lists device identifiers, coarse location, and usage data collected for analytics and advertising
- Trying on makeup, hairstyles, or outfits virtually before a purchase or salon visit
- Quick face/body retouching on a phone without exporting to a separate editor
- Beauty brands and retailers evaluating Perfect Corp's try-on technology
- Users who want one app instead of five single-purpose beauty filters
- You need precise, layer-based editing — Lightroom or Photoshop still cover that ground
- You want a one-time purchase rather than a subscription model
- You're wary of apps that collect device and usage data for ad personalization
- You only need one narrow feature (e.g., background removal) — a single-purpose app may be lighter
Pricing
Hundreds of makeup looks and virtual try-ons, face retouch and reshaping, body editor, hairstyle try-on, and basic photo editing tools; ad-supported.
Ad-free editing, exclusive makeup palettes and styles, unlimited access to AI Agent, text-to-image, and image-to-video generation, plus priority processing.
What it is and who makes it
YouCam Makeup is a mobile app built by Perfect Corp, a Taiwan-founded company that has spent more than a decade building AI and augmented-reality tools for the beauty industry. Alice Chang founded Perfect Corp in 2015; YouCam Makeup itself launched in 2014 and has since passed 1 billion downloads on iOS and Android combined, according to Perfect Corp's own figures cited on its investor site.
Perfect Corp's business isn't just this one consumer app. The same virtual try-on engine behind YouCam Makeup licenses out to retailers and cosmetics brands — the company has run partnerships with Ulta, QVC, Elizabeth Arden, and others to put "try before you buy" makeup previews inside their own shopping experiences. YouCam Makeup is the consumer-facing showcase for that underlying AR/AI technology, alongside sibling apps YouCam Perfect (general photo editing), YouCam Enhance (restoration and upscaling), and YouCam Video.
What it actually does
The feature list is wide. At the core is virtual makeup try-on: lipstick, eyeshadow, blush, foundation, and eyeliner applied in real time through the camera or to an uploaded selfie, with hundreds of preset "looks" alongside individual product filters. Around that sit face-retouching tools (skin smoothing, wrinkle and blemish removal, teeth whitening, an "AI Facelift" one-tap anti-aging effect) and face-reshaping sliders for jawline, nose, and lips.
Beyond the face, YouCam Makeup covers hairstyle try-on (60-plus preset cuts, plus a hair-transfer tool that works from a reference photo or text prompt), a body editor for waist, leg length, and proportions, and an AI clothes changer that swaps outfits in a photo. The newer additions lean generative: a text-to-image tool built on third-party models (Perfect Corp's site names Nano Banana Pro, Seedream, Imagen 4, and GPT-based models among them), image-to-image restyling, and an image-to-video animator for turning a still photo into a short clip.
An "AI Agent" chat interface sits on top of most of this, letting you describe an edit in plain language rather than digging through menus — Perfect Corp positions it as a beauty assistant that can also recommend products and answer style questions.
Reception
Perfect Corp publishes 4.7 stars on the Apple App Store, based on more than 152,000 ratings, and 4.1 stars on Google Play. Those numbers, plus the billion-plus download count, suggest the app has broad mainstream traction rather than a niche following — consistent with its retail-partnership business model, which depends on wide consumer reach. YouCam Makeup has also picked up trade recognition over the years, including a CES BeautyTech honor and a CEW Best Beauty App award in 2018, and a spot on Time's "100 Best Inventions" list in 2020.
Pricing and what each tier gets you
The free tier is unusually generous for this category: Perfect Corp's own FAQ states that free users get "hundreds of realistic makeup looks," real-time try-ons, face-shaping, and skin-smoothing tools "without ever being forced to subscribe." Ads run throughout the free experience, and the generative features — text-to-image, image-to-video, and the AI Agent's more advanced tasks — carry usage limits or sit behind Premium.
Premium removes ads, unlocks exclusive palettes and styles, and gives unlimited access to the AI generation tools. Perfect Corp does not publish a flat subscription price on its marketing site; it tells users to check the current App Store or Google Play listing, since price varies by region and by whatever promotion is running. That's a deliberate design choice common across freemium beauty apps, but it means anyone comparing costs across platforms should check pricing at the point of purchase rather than trust a number quoted elsewhere. A free trial is offered on annual plans, again subject to regional availability.
How it compares
Against Facetune, the comparison is breadth versus focus: Facetune is built specifically around portrait retouching and has a reputation for more precise, editor-grade adjustment tools, while YouCam Makeup spreads its effort across makeup, hair, body, and outfit try-on as well as retouching. Against Lightroom, there's no real overlap — Lightroom is a general photo editor with color grading, exposure control, and RAW support, none of which YouCam Makeup attempts. Against Remini, which focuses heavily on AI upscaling and restoration of old or low-quality photos, YouCam Makeup's strength is the live try-on layer rather than image repair.
The practical pattern for most people is layered use: YouCam Makeup for the beauty-specific tasks it's built for, and a dedicated editor for anything that needs finer control.
Who should skip it
Anyone doing professional-grade photo retouching for client work will hit the ceiling of a consumer beauty app quickly — there's no layer system, no selective color grading, and no RAW file support. Users uncomfortable with an app that collects device identifiers, coarse location, and usage data for advertising (as disclosed in its own App Store privacy label) should also weigh that against the free tier's convenience. And if the only thing you want is one narrow feature, like background removal or object erasing, a single-purpose app will likely be lighter and faster than opening a beauty-focused app to do it.
The bottom line
YouCam Makeup earns its download numbers by doing a specific job well: letting people try on makeup, hairstyles, and outfits before committing, on top of solid free retouching tools. It's not trying to be Lightroom, and the pricing structure — no published flat rate, region-dependent promotions — requires a quick check in the App Store before subscribing. For anyone whose editing needs are beauty-and-selfie shaped rather than professional-photography shaped, it's a reasonable free download with an optional paid tier worth evaluating on its current in-app price, not a number quoted online.
