Free habit tracker apps for iPhone, and what free costs you

There are plenty of free habit trackers on the App Store and they are not all the same kind of free. Some are genuinely free with a paid tier that unlocks things you may never need. Some are free for three habits and then stop. Some are free because they run ads between your morning check-ins. And some are free because your data is the product, which in a category that touches sleep, exercise and mood is worth being specific about.

The way to tell them apart is to look at the constraint rather than the price. What does the free tier cap, and would you hit that cap in month two? A ten habit cap is fine for most people forever. A three habit cap is a trial with a nicer name. A cap on history length is the worst kind, because you only discover it after you have accumulated the history.

Ads deserve a separate note. An ad in a habit tracker arrives at the exact moment you are trying to do something small and quick, which is the moment most likely to make you close the app and not come back. It is a bad fit for the product even when it is a fair trade.

This guide compares the current free tiers on caps, ads, export and data handling, and names which ones are worth using indefinitely.

Outline

Status: outline. The introduction above is finished copy. Everything below is the section plan for the full draft, targeted at about 1 800 words.

1. Four kinds of free. Freemium, trial-shaped, ad-supported and data-funded.
2. Reading the cap. Habits, history, themes and export, and which cap you will actually hit.
3. Ads in a habit tracker. Why the placement fights the product.
4. What free tiers usually paywall. Sync, widgets, statistics and export, ranked by how much you will miss them.
5. Checking data handling. The privacy label, the network calls, and what to do when they disagree.
6. The free tiers worth keeping. Four, with the exact limit of each.