← All the ways people use Pacts

A habit tracker for families

The fridge star chart, grown up · 4-minute read

The star chart on the fridge works, and everybody knows why: the child can see the row of stars, and so can everyone else. What it doesn’t do is survive a house move, a busy fortnight, or a parent who lives somewhere else. A pact is the same mechanic with the paper problem removed — one small thing a day, marked, visible to the people who care.

Reading before bed

The pact: twenty minutes of reading before bed, with your eight-year-old.
The reward: a five-day streak → they choose Saturday’s pizza.

Children are unusually good at this, because the scoreboard is the fun part. You can attach a real-world reward to a pact — a treat you two agreed on, for one person or the whole circle — and when it’s earned, everyone sees the trophy. It is honour-system: the app tracks and celebrates it; you deliver the pizza.

A routine that isn’t yours

The pact: a young child’s daily routine — reading time, screen off, bedtime. You mark it.
The reward: none needed. The streak is the reward.

A habit kept for someone who can’t track it themselves tends to outlast one kept for yourself. You hold the phone; the routine gets the record.

Chores, without the nagging

The pact: each person’s one thing, in one circle — up to eight people.
The reward: the whole house keeps the week → takeaway on Friday.

Nobody has to want the same habit. They just have to be on the same board. A pact can also be one anyone can do — the bins, the dishwasher — so one person ticking it off counts for the circle. Adding, editing or pausing a pact applies instantly, by any member; removing a pact or a member is admin-only, so nobody gets dropped from the family board on a whim.

Watching from another city

The pact: a parent’s morning walk. They mark it themselves.
The reward: the phone call is the reward.

Check-ins are visible to everyone in the circle, wherever they are — there is no location involved at all. You see the day go by from somewhere else. If it doesn’t, you have a reason to ring. See keeping a habit across cities for the friends-and-siblings version of this.

When nobody has spare attention

The pact: a phone-free first hour with the baby.
The reward: none. Surviving the week is plenty.

New parents don’t need a challenge. They need one thing that stays true. A missed day is never scolded, one slip a month is forgiven automatically, and a pact can be paused outright when life happens — the streak waits.

Private, by default

A circle is invite-only: you join with a code, a link or a QR, and an admin approves the request. Names, photos and check-ins are visible only inside the circle, enforced by database rules rather than by the app. There is no public feed, no strangers and no ads. Pacts is rated for ages 16 and up, so a family circle is the grown-ups holding the phone — a young child’s routine is marked by the parent, as above.

What it costs

Free covers two people, three pacts and two circles. A whole household needs Pacts Pro — up to eight people and unlimited pacts — and one member’s Pro covers everything the circle shares, so only one person in the house ever subscribes.

Get Pacts — free   See how it works

Other shapes a pact takes