An accountability partner who can’t quietly ghost you
Almost everyone has tried this. You agree with a friend that you’ll both do the thing, you text about it for four days, and then one of you goes quiet — not out of malice, just because nothing happens when you don’t. Most study partnerships and gym pacts die exactly there, in the silence of week two.
What kills them is that the arrangement has no surface. There is nothing that shows the day went by unmarked. A pact is that surface: one small commitment, marked kept or missed, visible to the person who agreed to it.
The study partner
The pact: two hours of study a day until the exam.
The reward: exam done → the meal you’ve been putting off.
A visible daily mark is what stops the quiet part. Neither of you has to check in on the other or send the slightly awkward “did you do it?” message — the marks are simply there, or they aren’t.
The training partner
The pact: gym three times a week, or ten thousand steps a day.
The reward: whoever loses the month buys dinner.
Pacts run daily, on weekdays, on set days, or a few times a week — so “three sessions” is a real setting rather than a daily promise you will break by Wednesday. You each keep your own streak, and in a pair you also build the run of days you both kept it.
Why it survives when a group chat doesn’t
- The mark is the whole interaction. About thirty seconds a day: swipe through today’s pacts, kept or missed.
- Someone else can mark you. Mostly you mark yourself — that is the normal path — but your partner can mark a day for you, vouch for one, or veto a claim you didn’t earn. Anything marked has a window (12 hours by default) in which the person marked can correct it.
- It never scolds. One slipped day a month is forgiven automatically on the free tier. There is no shame framing anywhere in the app, because the app you delete after a bad week is worth nothing.
- Encouragement is one tap. Preset cheers — 🙌 👏 💪 — and short affirmations, so the good day gets a response too.
You can start before you have a partner
Solo works from day one: the app tracks the streak, reminds you, and celebrates the milestone. Invite the person later, when you know which habit you actually want held to. Two people is free forever, so the person you invite never has to pay to hold you to anything.
Get Pacts — free See how it works
Other shapes a pact takes
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Couples
Evening walks, gym days, and the phone off at dinner — three shapes for two people who live together.
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Families
Reading before bed, chores without nagging, and one shared board for up to eight people.
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Long-distance friends and family
Same habit, different cities — the pacts that survive a time zone.
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Quitting something
A quit pact never asks how it went. A clean day is a day with nothing on it.
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All thirteen →
The full scenario library, including the solo on-ramp and the whole-household board.