FAQ
Not sure yet? Read this.
Every reason people give for not starting, answered straight. Including the ones where the honest answer is "then this isn't for you".
Is this for me?
The questions people ask themselves before they ever open the app.
You don't have a discipline problem, you have a structure problem. Every February gym dropout was motivated in January. What they lacked was a deadline that mattered, a plan small enough to actually do, and something that noticed when they slipped. That's the entire product.
Because every one of them let you quit quietly. Miss a day, nobody notices, the streak resets, you delete the app. Pledger is built the other way round: you plan the week, you review what actually happened, the coach remembers all of it, and the things you keep pushing get pointed out instead of disappearing. It's not another tracker you'll abandon. It's the thing that makes abandoning harder.
Then you're exactly who this is for. Disciplined people don't need Pledger. This is built for the person who knows what to do and doesn't do it. You don't need more discipline, you need better structure around the discipline you already have.
An app alone won't. The combination of a real deadline, a plan small enough to start today, a coach that checks in without being asked and a review that shows you what really happened is what closes the gap between knowing and doing. That gap is the reason self-improvement apps have a graveyard of unused installs. Pledger is built specifically to not be one of them.
Pledger isn't a treatment for anything, and it won't pretend to be. What it does is remove the parts that usually break: a blank page, a plan that's too big, a deadline nobody's watching. You get one small next step, a weekly plan you can actually see, and a coach that remembers where you left off. A lot of people who've never managed a routine find that structure easier than a to-do list. Try the free version for a week and judge it on that.
Honestly, maybe not. If you set a goal, follow through and finish, you don't need Pledger. The test is simple: have you restarted the same goal more than twice this year? If no, keep doing what you're doing. If yes, organised isn't the problem. Following through is, and that's what this is for.
Day one, you'll have a plan small enough to do today instead of a vague goal. After one week, your first weekly review shows you what you planned against what actually happened, which is usually the first honest look most people get. After about a month, your patterns start showing: what you avoid, when you drift, what works. The app doesn't do the work for you. It makes the work harder to skip.
When you start, you write a short statement of who you're becoming and what you're committing to. That's your pledge. It's the thing the coach holds you to, and the thing you come back to on the weeks you want to quit. Everything else, the plans, the reviews, the patterns, exists to keep that promise.
Does it actually work?
What it does, how the coach knows you, and what happens when you slip.
One loop: plan the week, do it, review what happened, adjust, repeat. Underneath that sits a coach that remembers every plan, review and journal entry you've written, and shows you your patterns, the good and the bad. Accountability circles are there if you want them. That's it. No feed, no gamified zoo, nothing to scroll.
ChatGPT forgets you the moment you close the tab. Pledger's coach knows your goals, your last review, your sleep if you've connected it, the thing you keep avoiding, and tells you the specific next move for your actual life, then holds you to it. Ask ChatGPT to make you follow through. It can't. That's the difference.
Those store what you want to do. Pledger runs the loop that makes you do it. A list doesn't notice when a task has been pushed four weeks in a row. A tracker doesn't ask why you stopped. Pledger does both, and then changes next week's plan based on the answer.
It reads everything you put in Pledger: your goals, your weekly plans, what got done and what got moved, your reviews, your journal, your check-ins. It remembers between conversations. So instead of generic advice it can say things like "this is the third week that task has slipped, what's really going on?" The longer you use it, the sharper it gets.
You can change how it talks in Settings: the tone, how long its replies are, how much it jokes. And it's an AI, so sometimes it'll be wrong. Treat it as a sharp thinking partner, not an oracle. You decide. It is not medical or mental-health advice and never claims to be.
Only as much as you ask it to. You choose which reminders you get, you can set quiet hours, and you can mute the lot. Pledger was built to be kinder, not louder. When you miss something it says "tough week, fresh start", not "you failed again".
Nothing dramatic. Your weekly review asks what got in the way, the plan for next week gets smaller or different, and you carry on. There's no streak shame and no pile-on. The review is the whole point: the weeks you miss teach you more about your patterns than the weeks you nail.
No. Most days it's a two-minute check-in. The one thing worth protecting is the weekly review, because that's where the plan gets fixed. Everything else is there when you need it, not a daily chore.
Yes. The weekly plan, the daily view, the journal, the reviews and the focus timer all work on their own. The coach is there when you want a second opinion or a kick, not a toll gate.
The accountability part
Who sees what, and what's optional. Short version: everything is.
Then don't turn those on. The social side is opt-in and warm: you choose exactly who finds out, and missing a commitment reads as "tough week, fresh start", never a pile-on. Money stakes are entirely optional and Pro-only. At its core, Pledger is a coach and a plan. The accountability features are there when you want the extra bite, not a requirement to use the app.
Nobody, by default. There's no public profile and no feed. Your journal is yours alone. If you join a circle, you pick per circle what that circle can see, and it's only the people you invited. Everything else stays private.
A small private group of people you choose, who can see the progress you decide to share with them. You can run challenges together and back up a task with a photo. It's invite-only, it's optional, and you can leave any time.
Only inside your own circle, between the people in it, and only on what you've chosen to share. Nothing is public and strangers never see you.
Money stakes are optional, Pro-only, and available only on the website to adults 18+. You choose $1–$250 for a specific commitment and authorize a charge to your saved card if you miss it. Forfeited money goes to Pledger, not charity. A demo mode runs without a real charge. If a charge was a mistake, you can appeal; upheld appeals are refunded. See the Money Stakes page for the full flow.
The money part
What's free, what Pro costs, and how the trial really works.
Yes, forever, up to 3 active goals, fully planned, plus journaling, streaks, the focus timer, weekly review and accountability circles. No card required for the free plan. Pro removes the limits: unlimited goals, the unlimited AI coach, monthly, quarterly and yearly reviews, patterns, photo proof, voice coach, WHOOP body signals, Brain Vault and real money stakes.
Pick Pro on the yearly plan and the first 7 days are free. It needs a payment card and turns into a paid subscription unless you cancel before the 7 days end. Cancel during the trial and you're not charged a cent. We email you before it ends so it never catches you out.
So the trial is a real decision, not a tab you forget about. People who put a card down actually use the week, and that's the only way to find out if Pledger works for you. You can cancel in one tap, we remind you before the trial ends, and if you cancel in time you pay nothing.
$9.99 a month, or $79.99 a year (about $6.67 a month, a 33% saving). It is a lot for an app, and that's part of the point. A $5 app is one you forget you're paying for. This one you show up for, because you committed to it. A human accountability coach runs $200+ a month. Pledger Pro is a tenth of that, and it never sleeps.
If you're not sure, go yearly: it's the plan with the free week, so you can try everything and cancel if it's not for you. If you stay, it's a third cheaper than paying monthly. Monthly is there if you'd rather keep it loose.
Yes, in one tap from Settings. You keep Pro until the period you've already paid for ends, then your account moves back to Free. Nothing you've created is ever deleted, and you can export it all as Markdown whenever you like.
If you're in the EU or UK, you can cancel your first paid subscription within 14 days of the first charge for a full refund, as long as you haven't made substantial use of Pro in that time. Beyond that, you can cancel any time and keep Pro until the end of what you've paid for. If a charge looks wrong, contact support and we'll look into it.
Nothing you wrote. Your account moves to Free, so the Pro features switch off, but every goal, plan, review and journal entry stays exactly where it was. Come back a year later and it's all still there.
Pledger is built to take less time than the chaos it replaces: a scattered notes app, three habit trackers, a planner you stopped opening. Most days it's a two-minute check-in and a nudge from the coach. The time it asks for is far less than the time you lose re-planning the same goal for the fourth time.
Privacy and trust
What happens to what you write, and who's behind this.
Yes. We don't sell your data, we don't use your content to train third-party AI models, and you can see exactly who we share data with on our Subprocessors page. Full detail in our Privacy Policy.
No. Your journal and your chats with the coach are yours. The coach uses them to give you better answers, and that's the only thing they're used for.
The coach runs on Claude, made by Anthropic, and the spoken voice uses OpenAI. Your content is sent to them only to produce your answer. We don't use it to train AI models, and both are listed on our Subprocessors page so there are no surprises.
Yes. Settings has a Delete account button. It removes your account and your data from our systems. No emails asking you to reconsider, no hoops.
Yes. You can export everything as Markdown, plain files that open anywhere, whenever you like. It's your work, not ours.
No. The coach is for goals and follow-through. It is not a doctor, a therapist or a substitute for either, and it says so. If what you're carrying is heavier than a missed goal, please get support from a professional.
A small independent team, not a big company. We use it ourselves every week. If you write to support you get a reply from a person, usually within 24 hours.
16 or over.
Will it fit my life?
Devices, syncing, wearables, languages and setup.
In any browser, on your phone or your computer, today. The iPhone app is on its way to the App Store, with Android after that. One account works everywhere.
Yes. Same account, same coach, same week. Plan on your laptop, tick it off on your phone. Changes show up within seconds.
No. If you have a WHOOP you can connect it on Pro and the coach will factor in your sleep and recovery. Without one, everything works exactly the same.
The app is in English for now.
Not yet. In practice it doesn't matter much: setting up your first goal takes about 90 seconds, and the coach builds the plan with you. Most people find that starting clean is part of what makes it stick.
About 90 seconds for your first goal and plan. Your first week has a short guide built in, so you're never staring at an empty screen wondering what to do.
Write to support from the app or at usepledger.com/support. A person replies, usually within 24 hours.
Still on the fence?
One question. Have you restarted the same goal more than twice this year?
If no, you don't need Pledger. If yes, the problem was never the goal. Give it one honest week.
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