What makes a good goal tracking app

Five things separate a goal tracker from a checkbox with ambition. Griply loses three of them.

A real, measurable goal is whether the app stores a start value, a target value, and a deadline, or just a checkbox. Without a number and a date, progress collapses into activity. Griply and Strides have one; the other eight do not.

What you pay once the free tier runs out is the price of the cheapest paid plan that lifts the free limits. TickTick is the cheapest month to month, and Griply is the cheapest by the year.

Cross-platform availability is whether the app is where you are when you need to log. Griply has no Android app; Habitica, Coach.me, TickTick, Todoist and Notion all ship it.

What the free tier gets you is how much survives without paying. Habitica wins this outright: every core feature is free, where Griply's free plan stops at 2 goals and 2 habits.

Time from install to your first entry is how long it takes before you have logged anything at all, and Griply does not win it. Todoist and Way of Life are faster because they never ask you to define a goal, and Notion is slowest.

How we chose these apps

On 17 July 2026 we read every rating on this page from the US App Store, and every price from the vendor's own pricing page or store listing. The shortlist came from counting how often each app appeared across the six most-cited "best goal tracking apps" roundups of 2026: every app named by at least half of them made the list, and we evaluated all ten against the five criteria above. Griply is named by none of the six; it is on this page because we publish it. Streaks was added in the 11 August update, and its rating and price were checked then.

We kept the eight apps with no measurable goal instead of dropping them silently, so the page can show which ones track outcomes and which only track activity. ClickUp cleared the frequency bar and was cut anyway: it is seat-priced, and its Goals are organisational OKRs rather than personal ones.

The best goal tracking apps in 2026

Griply

Best for: People whose daily habits and tasks should move a measurable goal with a deadline.

Griply is a goal-first planner where the chain runs Life Area → Vision → Goal → Subgoal → Task/Habit, so every task and habit has a parent goal above it. A habit is a task with a schedule, so it inherits that same goal link.

Strengths:

• Every task and habit traces to a goal, a life area and a vision

• Goals carry a start value, target value and deadline, charted against progress

• Goal Roadmap lays goals and subgoals out over time

Limitations:

• Free plan is 2 goals and 2 habits, meaningful only as a trial

• No Android app yet; you can join the Android waitlist at griply.app/download

• Two-way calendar sync and event editing are premium, and both are in beta

• Goal Roadmap and Insights are premium; logging progress is manual

Pricing: Free (2 goals, 2 habits); Premium $4.99/month or $29.99/year; Lifetime $119.99 one-time Platforms: iOS, Web, Mac, Windows Rating: 4.6 on the App Store (US storefront, 190 ratings, July 2026)

See the goal planner and habit tracker.

Habitica

Best for: People who need game mechanics and a party holding them accountable.

Habitica turns habits, dailies and to-dos into a retro RPG. You earn XP, level a character, and join a party that fights bosses together. It is open source, and volunteers have localised it across more than 75 languages.

Strengths:

• Fully free, with paid tiers covering cosmetic perks and support

• A missed Daily damages every party member's avatar, so accountability is real

• Open source, with volunteer localisation across 75+ languages

Limitations:

• No measurable goal: to-dos take a due date, but no start value or target

• Streak and notification bugs dominate the recent 1 to 3 star reviews

• Avatar death costs a level, all gold and equipment

Pricing: Free (all core features); Premium $4.99/month or $47.99/year Platforms: iOS, Android, Web Rating: 4.2 on the App Store (US storefront, 2,890 ratings, July 2026)

Strides

Best for: Apple users who want flexible numeric goal tracking with a pace line rather than a streak.

Strides is a quantified-self dashboard for goals and habits in one place. It is the only app here besides Griply with a real, measurable goal: a baseline, a final target, a start date and an end date. Its colour-coded pace line recalculates the rate you need per day instead of breaking a streak when you miss.

Strengths:

• A real, measurable goal: baseline, target, start date, end date

• Four tracker types rather than one binary format

• 150+ templates shorten the time to a first goal

Limitations:

• Apple-only, with no Android and no web

• Free tier stops at three trackers

• Target and Average trackers need numbers typed by hand

• Reviewers report cross-device sync failures

Pricing: Free (3 trackers); Strides Plus $4.99/month or $39.99/year; Lifetime $79.99 one-time Platforms: iOS, macOS Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 19,055 ratings, July 2026)

GoalsOnTrack

Best for: People who want a dedicated SMART goal workspace on the web and will pay for it up front.

GoalsOnTrack is one of the few products here built for goals first rather than tasks first. It has a SMART goal form, multi-level subgoals, goal templates, a vision board and time tracking. It is web-first, so it is not tied to one mobile OS.

Strengths:

• Purpose-built for goals: a SMART goal form with multi-level subgoals

• Vision board and time tracking are included rather than bolted on

• Web-first, so it works from any desktop browser

Limitations:

• No measurable goal: the SMART goal form has no start or target value

• No free tier at all, and payment is required at signup

• The iOS app was last updated in April 2022

• Its App Store description still says "achieve your success in 2022!"

• Reviewers cite recurring bugs and sync failures

Pricing: No free tier; $9.99/month or $68/year; Teams from $40/month Platforms: Web, iOS Rating: 2.1 on the App Store (US storefront, 7 ratings, July 2026)

Way of Life

Best for: People who want the simplest possible yes/no habit tracking, where a deliberate rest day does not break the chain.

Way of Life is a three-state habit tracker: Yes, No, or Skip. The Skip state is the point, since a planned rest day is recorded as a decision instead of a failure. Each habit carries a journal and trend charts that run over weeks, months or years.

Strengths:

• Skip records a deliberate rest day without breaking the chain

• Per-habit journal notes sit alongside long-run trend charts

• Very low time from install to a first entry

Limitations:

• No measurable goal: tracking is binary, with no start value, target or deadline

• Cross-device sync does not work, and the developer confirms it

• A major rewrite is underway, with sync and iPad still pending

• No iPad app, no web and no Windows

Pricing: Free with a Premium unlock; Way of Life publishes no pricing page, and Apple's US storefront lists Premium in-app purchases at $4.99, $14.99 and $29.99 with no billing periods disclosed Platforms: iOS, Android, macOS Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 5,200 ratings, July 2026)

Streaks

Best for: Apple users who want the most polished daily streak tracker, with habits ticked off automatically from Apple Health.

Streaks is a streak-based habit tracker built for Apple devices, and it is one of the most polished apps on this list. You track up to 24 daily tasks, build consecutive-day streaks, and let Apple Health complete some of them for you. The craft shows in every screen, from the icon set to the Watch complications.

Strengths:

• Automatic tracking for health habits through Apple Health, plus Apple Watch complications and widgets

• A deeply polished, fast interface that is a pleasure to use daily

• One-time price with no subscription

Limitations:

• No measurable goal: streaks count consecutive days, with no start value, target or deadline

• Apple-only, with no Android and no web

• Capped at 24 tasks

• Reviewers report that Apple Health-linked tasks can miscount multiple daily instances

Pricing: No free tier; $5.99 one-time Platforms: iOS, macOS Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 27,000 ratings, August 2026)

Coach.me

Best for: People who want free habit tracking with the option to hire a human coach on top of it.

Coach.me is a free habit tracker with a coaching marketplace attached. You track habits, set weekly frequency targets, and get high-fives from a community following the same habit. If you want more than that, you can hire a coach through the same account.

Strengths:

• Free unlimited habit tracking on iPhone, Android and the web

• A built-in community accountability layer with high-fives and shared progress

• An optional human-coaching marketplace no other app here has

Limitations:

• No measurable goal: weekly frequency targets, but no start value or deadline

• The weakest rating on this shortlist, from the smallest rating count

• Some reviewers report timezone changes disrupting their streaks

Pricing: Free (unlimited habit tracking); Habit Coaching $25/week or $87/month; Leadership Coaching $150/month Platforms: iOS, Android, Web Rating: 3.5 on the App Store (US storefront, 171 ratings, July 2026)

TickTick

Best for: People who want a task manager with a native calendar and a built-in Pomodoro timer.

TickTick is a task manager with a habit module attached. Its embedded calendar is native rather than a sync from somewhere else, the feature that people who have tested a lot of task apps single out. Development is active, with a release in July 2026.

Strengths:

• A built-in Pomodoro timer with focus stats

• The native embedded calendar is the strongest here

• The strongest App Store rating on this shortlist, from 44,000 ratings

Limitations:

• Habits carry a frequency target, but nothing rolls up to a goal with a deadline

• Habits cannot be placed on the calendar, unlike tasks

• The free calendar is list-view only, and the free plan caps at 5 habits

• Subscription fees can change at the end of any billing cycle, at TickTick's discretion

Pricing: Free (5 habits, list-view calendar); Premium $3.99/month or $35.99/year Platforms: iOS, Android, Web, macOS, Windows Rating: 4.9 on the App Store (US storefront, 44,000 ratings, July 2026)

Todoist

Best for: People who want the fastest task capture and the broadest platform coverage.

Todoist is a minimalist task manager built around capture speed. Its natural-language input reads a date out of a sentence as you type it, and it runs on more platforms than anything else on this list. If your problem is that tasks never get written down, this is the shortest path from thought to list.

Strengths:

• Natural-language Quick Add reads a date out of a sentence as you type

• 80+ integrations, so most tools can create a task

• The broadest platform coverage here, and the fastest time to a first task

Limitations:

• No measurable goal with a start value, target or deadline

• Karma counts tasks completed rather than progress toward an outcome

• Subtasks disappear in every view except the original project view

• Capterra reviewers cite thin collaboration and paywalled essentials

Pricing: Free (5 personal projects); Pro $7/month or $60/year; Business $10/user/month or $96/user/year Platforms: iOS, Android, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 127,000 ratings, July 2026)

Notion

Best for: People who want to build a fully custom goal system and will maintain it.

Notion is a block canvas with relational databases underneath. For goal tracking that means you can model goals, subgoals, habits and reviews exactly how you want them, with one dataset feeding many views. The template ecosystem is large enough that starting from a blank page is optional.

Strengths:

• Relational databases with subtasks, dependencies and custom properties

• Native charts in five types, one on the free plan

• A very large template ecosystem, so you rarely start from nothing

Limitations:

• No built-in goal or habit tracking; both need manual setup or a template

• The charts aggregate a database rather than measure progress toward a target

• Capterra reviewers cite slow loading on heavy databases

• The setup loop is real: hours spent configuring instead of tracking

Pricing: Free (unlimited pages for individuals); Plus $12/member/month or $10/member/month billed annually; Business $20/member/month billed annually Platforms: iOS, Android, Web, macOS, Windows Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 89,000 ratings, July 2026)

How to choose

Start with what you failed at last time, because that is what the next app has to survive.

• If you stop opening the app out of boredom, pick Habitica. Game mechanics are a real intervention when you need the loop to be fun, and it costs nothing to find out.

• If your goals are numbers and you live on Apple devices, pick Strides. Its pace line recalculates what you need per day instead of shaming you for a broken chain.

• If tasks never make it out of your head, pick Todoist. It has no goal layer and does not pretend to, but nothing beats it for getting a thought into a list on the nearest device.

• If your tasks and habits get done but the goal never moves, pick Griply. Every habit and task has a parent goal, and every goal has a start value, a target and a deadline.

• If what you actually want is a coach, pick Coach.me. No app here replaces a human, and Coach.me is the one that sells you an actual one.

This page is for people who have goals written down and want an app that holds them to a number and a date. Griply is the one on this list where the habit you do today is connected to the goal you set in January.

Start for free Still deciding? Join our community and ask the founders why we built Griply. We're there every day.