Sobriety counters without a subscription

Six things to check on any listing, including this one.

Why this page exists

"Free" is the most overloaded word in this category. A sobriety counter is a few lines of arithmetic over one date, so almost all of them could be free — and many are not, in ways that only show up on day four. These are the checks that settle it in under a minute, and they work on any app, ours included.

1. Read the In-App Purchases list on the App Store listing

It is on the product page, under the screenshots, and it is the authoritative statement of what money changes hands. A subscription carries a period — "per month", "per year". A one-time purchase carries none. Marketing copy that says "no subscription" while this list shows a yearly item is simply wrong, and the list wins.

2. Ask what stops working

The question is not "is there a free version" but "which part of the counting is free". If the day count, or the widget showing it, is in the purchase list, you are buying the core function. Decide whether that is fine — often it is — but know that is the deal.

3. Check the privacy label, not the website

Every listing has one, and Apple requires the developer to declare it. A day counter needs no server, no account and no analytics to do its job, so "Data Not Collected" is attainable in this category. An app that makes you sign up before showing you a number has chosen to collect something it does not need.

4. Look for a feed

Community features are the main reason these apps need accounts, and the main reason they need subscriptions. They help some people a great deal. If you do not want one, an app built around one will keep asking.

5. Decide how you want to be spoken to on a bad day

Install it and look at what it does on a reset. Some apps treat a relapse as a lost streak and say so loudly. Others keep the record and move on. This is not a feature list item and it is the thing you will remember.

6. Check the refund path before you pay

Refunds go through Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com, not through the developer. Worth asking: if you are refunded, is your data deleted or kept?

How Kern answers its own checklist

Kern is a sobriety counter for iPhone with a Lock Screen widget. It shows one number — the days — on the Lock Screen, in a home-screen widget, and in a plain app. No account, no ads, no subscription, and no data collected.

• Free — one count, every widget, milestones and their reminders, personal best across a reset, starting over with the real date, renaming what you count, and the optional money-not-spent line
• The one-time purchase — keeping more than one count at the same time. One payment, no trial, nothing that renews
• Privacy label — "Data Not Collected", including when you buy; Apple handles the payment and we never see it
• No feed, no sign-up, no streak guilt
• On a reset — you log the day it happened, your best is kept, and nothing is said about it
• If refunded — extra counts become read-only and stay yours to remove; nothing is deleted

Where Kern is the wrong choice

It has no community, no coaching, no craving tools, no charts and no advice. It is iPhone-only, with no iPad layout of its own and no Apple Watch app. If you want a programme, Alcohol Change UK's Try Dry and the NHS's Drink Free Days are free, and the free national quitlines beat any app for stopping smoking. If you want other people in it with you, pick something with a feed — this is not that.

More answers

Tracking Dry January on an iPhone · A sobriety counter on the Lock Screen · Counting days since you quit smoking