On a budget? The table lists each app's free plan; GoalsOnTrack and Streaks have none. To see which free plan goes furthest for a goal, read our answer on free goal tracker apps.

What makes a good goal setting app

Seven of the eleven apps track activity, such as check marks, streaks or points, with no target to measure it against. Three things decide whether an app can track progress toward a goal.

A goal you can measure. A goal you can track has a number you start from, a number you want, and a date to reach it by. Without that you can prove you showed up but never that you got closer, which is why measurable goals work better. Griply, GoalsOnTrack and ClickUp store a start value, a target and a deadline, and Strides stores a target and a date. The other seven have no built-in goal with a target and a date.

Habits and tasks that connect to the goal. If your daily tasks and habits cannot be linked to a goal, you can finish a full week of tasks and still not know whether you got closer. Griply and GoalsOnTrack let you link both habits and tasks to a goal, and in both a finished task can count toward the goal's number. In Griply a completed habit can too, while a GoalsOnTrack habit does not. ClickUp counts tasks and whole lists toward a goal but has no habits, Strides stores the goal but has nothing to link to it, and TickTick and Todoist hold the work with no goal to link it to.

Visual progress you can watch move. If you cannot see the number change, you stop updating it. A chart shows how far you have come and whether you will reach the target in time; a checkbox only shows that you did something today. Griply charts every update as a point against a line running to your deadline, so you see at a glance whether you are ahead or behind. Strides draws a similar pace line and also gives you the daily amount you need after a missed week, which Griply does not. GoalsOnTrack and ClickUp show a percentage; the rest count days, check marks or points, or chart activity with no target.

How we tested and chose these apps

We started from the six most-cited "best goal tracking apps" roundups of 2026 and kept every app named by more than one of them. Then, in August 2026, we downloaded and used all eleven ourselves. In each one we tried to set up a goal with a number and a deadline, added the habits and tasks meant to get us there, and logged progress over several days. We checked whether the goal had a target and a date, whether the daily work linked to it, and how the app showed progress. On 11 August and again on 9 October 2026, we checked every price, platform and rating against the vendor's own site and the US App Store; where neither shows a plan in full, we used independent reviews. Where an app cannot do something, we say so. All prices are in US dollars and can differ per country.

We kept the seven apps without a measurable goal on the list, so you can see which apps track progress toward a goal and which only track activity. Two apps named often enough to qualify were cut anyway: Trello, because its goal tracking is a board you build yourself and Notion already covers that job better, and Weekdone, because it is team OKR software with no personal plan.

The best goal setting apps in 2026

Griply

Best for: People who need a sense of progression: goals they can measure, and a chart that shows whether their daily work is getting them closer.

Griply is a goal planner built around seeing your progress. Each goal has a chart where the pace you need is a line running to your deadline and every update you log is a point, so you can tell at a glance whether you are on track. Your goals, habits, projects and tasks live in one place, and the Today screen shows which goal each of today's linked tasks serves. Griply suits someone who is very big picture but lacks the tool to stay organised.

Strengths:

• Each Griply goal gets a chart with a pace line and a point per update

• Goals, habits, projects and tasks live in one place

• The Today screen shows which goal each linked task serves

• Finishing a linked task can update the goal's progress on its own

• A completed habit can add to a goal's number, or the goal can track how consistently you keep its habits

Limitations:

• Griply's free plan stops at 2 goals and 2 habits

• No native iPad app; on an iPad you use the web app

• Subgoals, the Timeline and Insights need Premium

Pricing: Free (2 goals, 2 habits, 5 projects, unlimited tasks); Premium $5.99/month or $49.99/year; Lifetime $149.99 one-time
Platforms: iOS, Android, Web, Mac, Windows
Rating: 4.7 on the App Store (US storefront, 207 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick Griply if you want to see whether your goals are on pace, with the habits and tasks behind them in the same place. Skip it if you only want to get tasks down fast, where Todoist or Things 3 serve you better.

See the goal planner and habit tracker.

GoalsOnTrack

Best for: People who want SMART goals with deep subgoals on the web, and do not mind paying before they try it.

GoalsOnTrack is one of the few apps on this list built for goals rather than tasks. You fill in a goal using the SMART framework, break it into as many as five levels of subgoals, and link tasks and supporting habits to it; when a goal tracks by subgoals, progress rolls up through every level.

Strengths:

• GoalsOnTrack goals hold a starting value, a target and dates

• Subgoals nest five levels deep and roll progress up

• Progress comes from tasks, subgoals, values you give tasks, or by hand

• Goals sort into categories you define yourself

Limitations:

• A GoalsOnTrack habit links to a goal but does not count toward its progress

• The iOS app was last updated in April 2022

• No free tier or trial; payment is taken at signup

• The site claims an Android app, but it is not on Google Play

Pricing: No free tier; $68/year on the web, or $9.99/month or $67.99/year through the iOS app; Teams from $40/month
Platforms: Web, iOS
Rating: 2.5 on the App Store (US storefront, 8 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick GoalsOnTrack if you want the most complete goal structure of these eleven apps after Griply, with starting and target values and five levels of subgoals, and you work mainly on the web. Skip it if you need a mobile app that is kept up to date, because the iOS app has not changed since April 2022.

ClickUp

Best for: People who want to track personal goals inside the software they already use for work.

ClickUp is a work platform for tasks, docs and projects, and goals are one feature inside it. A ClickUp goal has a due date and one or more targets. A number target stores a start value, a target value and a unit. A task target is linked to tasks or whole lists, and finishing them raises the goal's percentage.

Strengths:

• A ClickUp number target stores a start value, a target value and a unit

• Tasks, subtasks and whole lists can count toward a ClickUp target automatically

• A task linked to a ClickUp goal shows a badge naming that goal

Limitations:

• ClickUp has no habit tracker: no streaks and no daily check-ins

• The free plan allows Goals 100 uses in total, and the count never resets

• Grouping goals into folders needs the Business plan

• Plans are priced per seat and built around teams

Pricing: Free Forever (Goals limited to 100 uses); Unlimited $10/user/month or $7/user/month billed yearly; Business $19/user/month or $12/user/month billed yearly
Platforms: Web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, Apple Watch
Rating: 4.7 on the App Store (US storefront, 9,863 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick ClickUp if your work already lives there: its goals track numbers and your tasks can count toward them, so there is little reason to add a second app. Skip it if you want habits, or if you would rather not pay a per-seat team price to track your own goals.

Strides

Best for: People tracking numbers they log themselves, who want to know the pace they need.

Strides is a tracking dashboard with four tracker types, built first for Apple devices and now also on Android. Its Target tracker holds a value to reach and a date to reach it by, and a colour-coded pace line shows whether you are on track; after a missed week, the daily amount you need goes up and no streak resets.

Strengths:

• Strides Target trackers hold a value to reach and a date

• A daily figure shows how much you still need to hit the target's date

• Four tracker types, from yes-or-no habits to targets

• Runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Vision Pro and Android

Limitations:

• Strides cannot link a habit tracker to a target; each tracker stands alone

• No custom groups for trackers; tags only filter the list

• No web app

• The free plan stops at three trackers

Pricing: Free (3 trackers); Strides Plus $4.99/month or $39.99/year; a Lifetime plan is also sold as a one-time purchase
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision, Android
Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 19,213 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick Strides if you log numbers yourself: after a missed week, its pace line shows how much you need each day to catch up. Skip it if you want tasks or habits to count toward the goal, because Strides cannot link anything to a target.

TickTick

Best for: People who want tasks and habits in one app with a built-in calendar.

TickTick is a task manager with a habit module attached. Its calendar is built in, so you do not need to sync one from another app. Tasks nest up to five levels deep, and habits are a separate module you switch on.

Strengths:

• TickTick's calendar is built in rather than synced from elsewhere

• Tasks nest up to five levels deep, counting the parent

• A Pomodoro timer with focus statistics is built in

• Runs on eight platforms, including Linux and Vision Pro

Limitations:

• TickTick has no goal feature: a habit has a daily amount but no total

• Nothing links a task to a habit or an outcome

• You cannot drag a habit to another day, so one repetition cannot move

• The free plan stops at 5 habits and 9 lists

Pricing: Free (5 habits, 9 lists); Premium $4.99/month or $49.99/year
Platforms: iOS, Android, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, Apple Watch, Apple Vision
Rating: 4.9 on the App Store (US storefront, 46,288 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick TickTick if you want an excellent task manager with a built-in calendar and a full habit tracker. Skip it if you want to track a goal with a target, because TickTick has no goal feature and nothing adds up to a total.

Todoist

Best for: People whose real problem is that tasks never get written down at all.

Todoist is a task manager built around capture speed. Its natural-language input reads a date out of a sentence as you type it, and it separates the day you plan to work on something from the day it is due.

Strengths:

• Todoist reads a date out of a sentence as you type it

• The day you work on a task is kept apart from its deadline

• Runs on eight platforms, including Linux and Wear OS

• Projects, sections and subtasks nest several levels deep

Limitations:

• Todoist retired its web-only Goals beta in July 2026, deleting users' goals

• Nothing holds a start value or a target to measure against

• Karma points reward tasks finished, not progress toward a goal

• The free plan stops at five projects and one week of history

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, Apple Watch, Wear OS
Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 129,584 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick Todoist if you want the fastest way to get a thought out of your head and onto a list, on almost any device. Skip it if you want a goal tracker: it retired the Goals beta that briefly made it one.

Notion

Best for: People who want to design their own goal system and are willing to maintain it.

Notion is a page editor with databases underneath. For goal tracking that means you can model goals, subgoals, habits and reviews however you like, and show the same data in many views. A large template library means you rarely start from a blank page.

Strengths:

• Notion's databases, relations and rollups are free for one person

• A number field can display as a progress bar toward a target

• Rollups carry sums and averages from one database into another

• A large template library is aimed at personal goals

Limitations:

• Notion has no built-in goal: every goal is a database row you design

• No chart can show progress toward a target value

• Charts cannot plot a rollup, the field that totals work from another database

• Rollups cannot be nested, so tasks cannot add up through a subgoal to a goal

Pricing: Free for individuals (one chart); Plus $12/member/month or $120/member/year; Business $24/member/month or $240/member/year
Platforms: iOS, Android, Web, macOS, Windows
Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 90,335 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick Notion if you enjoy building your own goal system and will keep it running, because it can model any system you can describe. Skip it if you want to start tracking this week, because its charts cannot measure toward a target and the upkeep is yours.

If the upkeep is why you are looking around, see our answer for people leaving Notion.

Habitica

Best for: People who get bored of habit apps and want tracking to feel like a game.

Habitica turns habits, dailies (tasks that repeat on a schedule) and to-dos into a retro role-playing game. You earn experience, level a character, and join a party that fights bosses together, and during a boss quest a missed daily damages everyone taking part.

Strengths:

• Habitica's entire task system is free; Premium adds extras

• A missed daily in a boss quest hurts everyone on the quest

• Open source, with its full server code published

• Repeat options are unusually flexible

Limitations:

• Habitica has no goal you can measure anywhere in the product

• No in-app progress chart, only a community web tool and data export

• Losing all health costs a level, all your gold and a piece of equipment

Pricing: Free (all core features); Premium $4.99/month or $47.99/year
Platforms: iOS, Android, Web
Rating: 4.3 on the App Store (US storefront, 3,481 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick Habitica if you usually quit habit apps out of boredom; all of its tracking is free. Skip it if you need to measure progress toward a goal, because it has no measurable goal and no in-app progress chart.

Way of Life

Best for: People who want the simplest possible daily yes or no, where a rest day does not break the chain.

Way of Life is a habit tracker where you mark each day Yes, No or Skip, and the Skip records a deliberate rest day so it does not count against you. Each habit keeps a journal and trend charts running over weeks, months or years.

Strengths:

• Way of Life can mark a day off without it counting against you

• Journal notes sit beside long-run trend charts

• Exports to CSV and backs up to your own cloud

• Themes and backup are free, not locked behind Premium

Limitations:

• Way of Life has no goals and no tasks, only habits

• The Android app is an older version with far fewer features

• No iPad app, no web and no Windows

• The developer said in March 2026 that sync is being rebuilt

Pricing: Free (3 habits); Premium $4.99/month, or a one-time unlock at $29.99
Platforms: iPhone, Mac, Apple Vision, Android
Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 5,270 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick Way of Life if you want one question a day per habit, with a rest day that counts as a decision and not a failure. Skip it if you use an iPad, if you are on Android, where the app is older, or if you want any of it to add up to a goal.

Streaks

Best for: Apple users who want their habits ticked off automatically from health data, for one payment.

Streaks is an Apple-only habit tracker built around an unbroken chain of completions. You can track up to 24 habits (Streaks calls them tasks), and a habit linked to Apple Health ticks itself off once Health records the number you set.

Strengths:

• Streaks reads Apple Health and ticks a habit off by itself

• One payment of $5.99, with nothing recurring

• One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Watch, Mac and Vision Pro

• A habit can get one day's grace before its chain breaks

Limitations:

• A Streaks habit has no end date, so it never finishes

• Habits repeat by day, week or month, never toward a final total

• Tops out at 24 habits in total

• Apple only, with no Android or web app

Pricing: $5.99 one-time, with no subscription and no in-app purchases
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, Apple Vision
Rating: 4.8 on the App Store (US storefront, 27,349 ratings, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick Streaks if you want a single $5.99 payment and habits that tick themselves off from your health data. Skip it if you want a goal tracker, because nothing in it carries an end date and nothing ever finishes.

Coach.me

Best for: People who want a real human coach, not just another tracker.

Coach.me is a free habit tracker with a coaching marketplace attached. You track habits, set how many times a week you intend to do them, and get encouragement from people tracking the same habit. You can also hire a coach through the same account.

Strengths:

• Coach.me tracks unlimited habits free on iPhone, Android and web

• Coach.me is the only one of these eleven apps that sells a human coach

• You can aim for a number of times a week, not only daily

• Last updated in April 2026, with active coaches listed

Limitations:

• Coach.me has no separate goal: the habit itself is the goal

• Its streaks only count consecutive days, ignoring weekly targets

• Its own help pages say you cannot rename or reset a habit

• Coach.me's 3.5 App Store rating is the second lowest of these eleven apps

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, October 2026)

Bottom line: Pick Coach.me for the coach: the tracker is free, so the coach is the only thing you pay for. Skip it if you want a measurable goal, because in Coach.me the habit itself is the goal.

How to choose

Most goal setting apps fall into four types: goals and tasks in one system, standalone goal trackers, habit apps and Notion templates. Pick the type that fixes what went wrong last time.

• If you want goals, habits and tasks in one system, pick Griply. Each goal shows on a chart whether you are on pace, and the habits and tasks behind it sit in the same place.

• If you want a standalone goal tracker for numbers you log yourself, pick Strides. It shows the pace you need and never asks you to keep a to-do list.

• If you want a habit app where turning up is the goal, pick Streaks on Apple devices or Habitica on Android or the web. Neither tracks a goal with a number, so they suit you when the habit itself is what you are after.

• If you would rather build your own system from a Notion template, pick Notion. It will model anything you design, as long as you are happy to keep it running.

• If you already run your work in ClickUp, keep your goals there. Its goals track numbers that your tasks can count toward, as long as you do not need habits.

• If what you want is a person rather than an app, pick Coach.me. It is the only app on this list that sells time with a human coach.

Why most goals are abandoned by March

People usually blame motivation. The more common cause is that the goal and the daily work live in different places, so nothing you do on a Tuesday shows up as progress on the goal you set in January.

Three gaps cause this, and most of the eleven apps leave at least one open.

The goal has no number. If a goal is a sentence rather than a value with a date on it, there is nothing to be behind on. Seeing that you are behind is what makes people act, and a goal with no number can never show you that. Seven of the eleven apps here have no built-in goal you can measure, so their users never get that signal.

The work is not linked to the goal. A task list records what you did and a habit chain records that you turned up. Neither tells you whether the number moved, and work that is not linked to a goal is the first thing you drop in a busy week. TickTick and Todoist are both good at storing tasks but have no goal to link them to, which is why people who use them well still end a quarter unsure whether anything changed.

The goal has no bigger reason above it. A goal in a flat list beside nine others is easy to drop, because nothing reminds you why it matters. Most goal apps leave this gap open. Putting the goal under a life area with a written vision gives you that reason in a bad week.

Griply lets you close all three, with a life area and a written vision above each goal. GoalsOnTrack and ClickUp close the first two; their nearest answer to the third is grouping goals into categories or folders, and ClickUp's folders need the Business plan. The other eight leave at least one of the first two gaps wide open, which is fine as long as you know which one.

This page is for people who know what they want and need an app that keeps them on track. Griply is the one that shows you on a chart whether today's work brings you closer to the goal you set in January.

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