Beeminder is one of the cleverest commitment devices ever built. You draw a bright red line, feed it data, and pay when you cross it. If you're looking for Beeminder alternatives, something about that stopped working for you. Maybe it's the typing, the graphs or the climbing pledges. Maybe your real goal was never a number.

Whatever the reason, it should pick your next app, so that's how this list is sorted. These are eight apps like Beeminder, grouped by what you want to change: the proof, the graph or the money itself. We also cover when to stay, and how to leave without a last charge.

We build Commity, the first app below, so factor that in. Every fact about the other apps comes from their own sites, help pages or store listings, which we read in October 2026. We didn't sign up and test each one, and prices change, so check before you pay.

Pick by your reason

If you run or ride and want Strava to feed your goal, you may not want to leave at all. Here's when Beeminder is still the right call.

Pick the app that fixes your reason for leaving, not the one with the longest feature list.

Beeminder alternatives at a glance

App Who checks you Lost money goes to Cost to use
Beeminder Your own numbers, or a connected app Beeminder. 50% can go to charity on the $81 plan Free for a limited number of goals. Paid plans from $8/month
Commity Your phone's GPS After a comeback wins back 51% or 66%. Free plan: Commity. Premium: a charity you pick Free. Premium is $4.99/month
Forfeit GPS, Apple Health, Screen Time, photo or timelapse Forfeit, for now Subscription, $10.99/month on its site
StickK You report. A referee is optional An anti-charity (StickK keeps 50%) or StickK Free
TaskRatchet You check off your own tasks Its docs don't say Free. You pay only for a miss
Pledgd AI checks a photo you text in Pledgd $15/month after a 14-day trial
Focusmate A live partner on video No money at risk 3 sessions a week free. Then $8 to $12/month
Habitica You tick your own boxes No money at risk Free. Optional $4.99/month
Exist Nobody. It only tracks No money at risk $6.99/month after a 30-day trial

Keep the stakes, change the proof

Beeminder is only as strict as the data it gets. Connected apps are hard to fool, because most of them treat the source as the truth. Anything you type in yourself runs on trust. Beeminder's own answer to whether you could lie about your data is: "So you could, but you're not going to. Right?" That's fair, until the tired version of you is the one holding the phone.

1. Commity: your goal is a place

A graph can count what you report. It can't tell whether you got out the door, and for a lot of goals that's the whole problem. You pin your gym, the library or your studio, set your daily minutes and put $5 to $100 on it. When you arrive you tap "I'm here," and a live GPS check has to confirm you're inside before a single minute counts. There's no data to enter and no slope to tune.

The bigger difference is what happens after a miss. Beeminder raises your next pledge, up to any cap you've set. Commity charges your stake, then gives you 30 days to start a 5-day comeback. Finish it and you win back 51% on the free plan, or 66% with Premium. With Premium, the part you don't win back goes to a charity you pick. On the free plan, we keep it.

The catch: It only works for goals at a place. Commity checks a place, not a route, so outdoor runs and weight goals are out. It needs location access, on most phones set to "always," plus a card and a stake on every commitment. GPS isn't perfect either. If you think a day was recorded wrong, email info@thecommity.com and we'll review it in good faith.

Cost: Free to use. Premium is $4.99 a month.

2. Forfeit: you're tired of typing numbers

Forfeit is the closest thing here to an all-purpose replacement. You set a task, a deadline and a stake, and the proof depends on the goal: GPS, Apple Health, Screen Time, or a live photo or timelapse checked by AI or a person. It runs on iPhone, Android, Mac and the web, and it has 4.8 stars from 370 ratings on the App Store as of October 2026.

It also overlaps with us more than any other app on this list. Its gym habit needs your GPS inside a geofence for 30 straight minutes, so place-based proof isn't unique to Commity. If something goes wrong you can appeal, and its site says a real person reviews every appeal within 12 hours. You choose how strict appeals are before a goal starts.

The catch: You pay a subscription on top of your stakes. Its FAQ also says forfeited money is "retained by Forfeit" for now, so the company keeps what you lose, as Beeminder does. It says it's building an option to send that money to friends or your own savings.

Cost: Free to download. Its site says the subscription is $10.99 a month in the US, and the App Store lists plans from $7.99 to $12.99.

Forfeit or Commity? Pick Forfeit if you want one app for your wake-ups, screen time, steps and workouts. Pick Commity if your goal is a place, you don't want a monthly fee just to be held to it, and you want a set way to win part of a lost stake back.

Keep the stakes, lose the graph

Rates, slopes and safety buffers are powerful, and they're a lot to think about for one goal. Some people never wanted a road to stay on. They wanted a simple deal: do this, or pay.

3. StickK: you want one plain contract

StickK is the original online commitment contract. You write down a goal, an end date and a reporting schedule, and you can add a stake and a referee if you want them. There's no graph to read. You can even sign a contract with no money at all, which on Beeminder takes the $81 a month plan.

The catch: You report your own results, so you're back to trusting yourself unless a referee steps in. A missed report counts as a failure, and its Terms say it keeps 50% of the money on anti-charity contracts. The iPhone app sits at 2.6 out of 5 from 26 ratings as of October 2026. We go through all of it in our StickK comparison.

Cost: Free to use. You only pay if you fail a contract with money on it.

4. TaskRatchet: your goals are one-off tasks

Beeminder is built for things you repeat. If your problem is "send the invoice by Friday," a rate is the wrong shape. TaskRatchet is a to-do list where every task gets a deadline and a stake. Check it off in time and you owe nothing. Miss the deadline and you're charged what you set.

The catch: It runs on the honor system. You check off your own tasks, and we found nothing that verifies the work. It runs in a browser, and its site mentions mobile apps as coming soon. Its docs don't say where charged money goes.

Cost: Free to use. You pay only when you miss a deadline.

5. Pledgd: you never open the app

Graphs only help if you look at them. Pledgd has no app and no dashboard. You set your goal by text, reply to daily check-ins with a photo or screenshot, and AI checks that it's real and recent. The penalties will look familiar: $5, $10, $30, $90, $270, with a cap you can set.

The catch: It's the most expensive of the eight, and of forfeited money its FAQ says simply, "We keep it." Photo proof also suits some goals better than others.

Cost: $15 a month after a 14-day free trial, plus any penalties.

Drop the money

Stakes work by making a skip hurt. If that has stopped motivating you and started making you avoid the app, there are other kinds of pressure. None of these three will charge you for a miss.

6. Focusmate: you work better with someone there

Focusmate pairs you with another person on a live video call for 25, 50 or 75 minutes. You each say what you're going to do, work on your own task, and check in at the end. Someone expecting you is a surprisingly strong reason to sit down and start.

The catch: It works best for things you can do on camera, and it only covers the session itself. It won't get you to the gym, and it won't notice if you stop booking.

Cost: Three sessions a week are free. Unlimited is $8 a month billed yearly, or $12 billed monthly.

7. Habitica: you're done risking money

Habitica turns your to-do list into a role-playing game. Finish tasks and you earn gold and levels. Miss your daily tasks and your character loses health. On a boss quest your misses hurt your whole party, so the pressure comes from friends instead of your card.

The catch: You tick your own boxes, and a beaten avatar is easier to shrug off than a charge on your statement.

Cost: The core game is free. An optional subscription is $4.99 a month.

8. Exist: you only stayed for the data

Some people keep Beeminder for the tracking and put up with the fines. Exist is the tracking without them. It pulls in data from Apple Health, Garmin, Oura, Strava, Todoist, GitHub and more, lets you log your own habits and mood, and emails you a weekly summary of what seems connected.

The catch: It shows you what happened and leaves the rest to you. If you joined Beeminder because knowing wasn't enough, this won't solve that.

Cost: $6.99 a month or $62.90 a year, with a 30-day free trial.

Where Beeminder is still the better fit

Beeminder is still very good at what it was built for. Stay if one of these sounds like you:

How to leave Beeminder without a last charge

Beeminder won't let you quit on a whim, and that's on purpose. This is the clean way out, taken from its help pages.

  1. Turn off your scripts first. Until your account is deleted, Beeminder warns you could still charge yourself through IFTTT or the API.
  2. Schedule the archive on each goal. On the goal's page, open the Stop/Pause tab under the graph and press Schedule Archive. That starts a 7-day countdown. A goal less than seven days old can simply be deleted, unless you're in No-Excuses Mode.
  3. Keep every goal on track for those 7 days. The goal is still live and can still derail. If it does, it freezes, and archiving it right away means paying the fee. Use the week to start your new app, so there's no gap.
  4. Don't press the uncle button to get out early. It derails the goal, the charge goes through right away, and it's non-refundable.
  5. If a charge is coming, answer the email. After a derailment you get an email asking if it was legit, and the charge goes through 24 hours later. Reply within about 18 hours if something genuinely went wrong. In No-Excuses Mode, it always counts unless the fault was a Beeminder bug or an autodata failure.
  6. Close the account if you want it gone. If you have active goals and your account is more than a week old, email support@beeminder.com. Beeminder archives your goals and removes your subscription while it waits for you to confirm.

Other apps you'll see on lists like this

We left these out on purpose:

Quick answers

What is the best Beeminder alternative?

It depends on why you're leaving. For goals at a place, like the gym or the library, we think Commity is the best fit, because GPS proves you went and a comeback lets you win money back after a miss. For the widest range of goals with proof, look at Forfeit. For one simple contract, look at StickK.

Is there a Beeminder alternative that works with Strava?

Beeminder itself is still the strongest option here, with a direct Strava integration. Exist connects to Strava too, but it has no stakes. Forfeit reads Apple Health, which many fitness apps sync to, so it may work if your activities reach Apple Health, though we haven't tested that. Commity doesn't read Strava. It checks a place, not a route.

Is there a free alternative to Beeminder?

Yes. StickK and TaskRatchet are free to use, and you only pay if you fail. Commity is free too, with a stake you choose and an optional $4.99 a month Premium plan. Habitica's core game is free and puts no money at risk. Beeminder also has a free plan with a limited number of goals.

Does Beeminder keep your money?

Yes. Its FAQ says collecting the fees is its business model. The one exception is a 50% charity option on its most expensive plan, Beemium, at $81 a month.

Can you use Beeminder without money?

Mostly no. A new goal can start at a $0 pledge for a short trial, which ends after 7 days or the first derailment. After that, pledge-free goals need the $81 a month Beemium plan.

How do you quit a Beeminder goal?

Schedule an archive from the Stop/Pause tab under the graph. That starts a 7-day countdown, and the goal can still derail until it ends, so keep it on track. A goal less than seven days old can be deleted right away, unless you're in No-Excuses Mode.

The short version

The right Beeminder alternative is the one that fixes your reason for leaving. If the problem is typing, you want better proof. If it's the graph, you want a simpler deal. If it's the money, you want a different kind of pressure.

And if the problem is that you keep not going, a better graph was never going to fix that. Pin the place, put money on it, and let your phone be the proof.