Respira
Best pollen and hay fever apps in Australia
We make one of these, so read this with that in mind. This is not a ranking with Respira at the top. It is what each app is genuinely best at, taken from its Australian App Store listing and its own website on 2026-10-20, including the places where another app is the better answer, and in Australia that is most of the big cities.
The short answer
- Melbourne and Victoria: Melbourne Pollen Count. Counts from the state's pollen network, alerts for the thunderstorm asthma forecast, and more than 10,000 ratings.
- Canberra, Sydney and Perth: the local apps from the same team (Canberra Pollen Count, Sydney Pollen Count & Forecast, Perth Pollen Count), each fed by a real pollen trap in that city.
- Tasmania, and bushfire smoke anywhere: AirRater.
- Just the Victorian thunderstorm asthma forecast: the Thunderstorm Asthma app, or VicEmergency itself.
- Air quality first: IQAir AirVisual.
- One app for anywhere in Australia, and abroad: Respira. Grass and cypress pine from the Google Pollen API for any place in the country, a symptom diary, and the same app in 34 other countries. It uses a forecast model, not local traps, and has no Australian ratings yet.
The apps
The four city apps and AirRater are all made by AirHealth Pty Ltd, founded in 2022 as a spin-out of the University of Melbourne and the University of Tasmania.
Melbourne Pollen Count
AirHealth Pty Ltd · Victoria · best for: Melbourne and the rest of Victoria
Pollen forecasts for Victorians built from real-world counts across the state's monitoring network, symptom tracking, an alert when grass pollen is high, and alerts for Victoria's epidemic thunderstorm asthma forecast. The state's automated pollen counters sit in Parkville (Melbourne), Geelong, Hamilton, Ballarat, Bendigo, Wodonga and Churchill, and the Victorian Department of Health points people to this app for their readings. Grass pollen is counted from 1 October to 31 December.
Free, with an optional subscription (A$4.99 a month or A$29.99 a year). 4.7 from 10,424 ratings in the Australian App Store. Sources: App Store listing, Victorian Department of Health, Melbourne Pollen: counting season.
Canberra Pollen Count
AirHealth Pty Ltd · ACT · best for: Canberra
Forecasts from grass to trees, alerts on high pollen days and a hay fever symptom tracker. The data comes from the Australian National University's sampler, which its website says is the only pollen station operating in Canberra; the count and a grass forecast run from spring into January.
Free, with an optional subscription (A$4.99 a month or A$29.99 a year). 4.6 from 955 ratings in the Australian App Store. Sources: App Store listing, Canberra Pollen: stations.
Sydney Pollen Count & Forecast
AirHealth Pty Ltd · New South Wales · best for: Sydney
Forecasts for grass, trees, mould and more, air quality from EPA monitoring sites, and alerts for high pollen and poor air. The pollen trap is on the roof of Campbelltown Hospital, with data from Western Sydney University; the daily count runs from September to December.
Free, with an optional subscription (A$4.99 a month or A$29.99 a year). 4.6 from 366 ratings in the Australian App Store. Sources: App Store listing, Sydney Pollen: about.
Perth Pollen Count
AirHealth Pty Ltd · Western Australia · best for: Perth
Forecasts from an automated pollen counting station at Curtin University, with Edith Cowan University collaborating, plus live air quality, a symptom tracker and grass pollen alerts. Before 2022, pollen had last been monitored in Perth in 1995.
Free, with an optional subscription (A$4.99 a month or A$29.99 a year). 4.5 from 131 ratings in the Australian App Store. Sources: App Store listing, Perth Pollen: about.
AirRater
AirHealth Pty Ltd · Australia-wide (air quality); pollen where it has monitors · best for: Tasmania, and bushfire smoke anywhere
Real-time and forecast air quality and pollen across Australia, including bushfire smoke, with symptom tracking to find your own triggers. Its pollen comes from monitors in Tasmania (Sandy Bay and Launceston), the ACT and Campbelltown in New South Wales; PM2.5 comes from state and territory networks, with CSIRO modelling where a station is more than 20 km away.
Free, with an optional subscription (A$4.99 a month or A$29.99 a year). 4.4 from 780 ratings in the Australian App Store. Sources: App Store listing, AirRater: pollen, AirRater: data sources.
Thunderstorm Asthma
Bryce Cameron (independent developer) · Victoria · best for: The thunderstorm asthma forecast on its own
Victoria's official epidemic thunderstorm asthma risk from VicEmergency, for today and the next two days, by forecast district, with a map and widgets. It shows no pollen counts, and the forecast runs from 1 October to 31 December. iPhone only.
Free. No ratings yet in the Australian App Store. Sources: App Store listing.
IQAir AirVisual
IQAir AG · Worldwide · best for: Air quality
Global air quality first, with tree, weed and grass pollen counts and a 3-day forecast as a secondary feature. On IQAir's website, Melbourne's pollen levels are credited to wetter.com, a forecast model rather than local traps.
Free. 4.8 from 5,819 ratings in the Australian App Store. Sources: App Store listing, IQAir: Melbourne.
Airmine Pollen
Airmine AS · Australia, excluding Tasmania · best for: A long forecast
15-day pollen risk forecasts and risk maps, with air quality and mould, from Airmine's own models (satellite observations, weather forecasts and machine learning). Its Melbourne page lists acacia, cypress, eucalyptus and grass.
Free, with an optional subscription (A$9.99 a month or A$29.99 a year). 3.0 from 4 ratings in the Australian App Store. Sources: App Store listing, Airmine: Melbourne.
Respira
Pablo Fernández Jiménez · Anywhere in Australia, and 34 other countries · best for: one app wherever you are
Respira reports grass and cypress pine (Callitris) for any place in Australia, from the Google Pollen API, updated daily, with the coming days, a map of 20 Australian cities and air quality for the same place. When there is no reading for a species, it says so instead of showing a zero. It keeps a symptom and medication diary; alerts at your own threshold, a trip planner and a PDF report for your GP are in Respira Pro. It does not offer a thunderstorm asthma forecast, and Google's forecast is a model, not a count from a local trap.
Free with ads, with an optional Pro subscription (A$4.99 a month, A$29.99 a year, or A$39.99 once). No ratings in Australia yet. When the pollen season runs in Australia.
Thunderstorm asthma
Epidemic thunderstorm asthma happens when there is a lot of grass pollen in the air and a particular kind of thunderstorm arrives, and many people develop asthma symptoms in a short time (Better Health Channel). On 21 November 2016, Melbourne had the world's largest recorded event: it contributed to 10 deaths (Victorian Department of Health).
Victoria publishes an official epidemic thunderstorm asthma risk forecast every day from 1 October to 31 December, three days ahead, on VicEmergency. Melbourne Pollen Count and the Thunderstorm Asthma app pass it on; Respira does not. If you have asthma, follow the advice of your doctor and your asthma action plan.
Where Respira is not the right answer
If you live in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney or Perth, the local app reads a pollen trap in your city. Respira's Australian data is Google's forecast model: useful anywhere, but not a count.
If thunderstorm asthma is your worry, use the Victorian forecast, through VicEmergency or one of the apps above. Respira does not carry it.
And if a large local user base is what makes you trust an app, Respira does not have one in Australia: it added the country in September 2026 and has no Australian ratings yet.
Try Respira
Pollen apps in the United States · Pollen seasons in Australia
Respira is an informational tool. It does not replace diagnosis or advice from a medical professional. Details of other apps are taken from their Australian App Store listings and websites on 2026-10-20 and may have changed since.