What 25 Fitness, Mindfulness, Sleep, Nutrition and Wearable Apps Charge, Which Plan a Free Trial Turns Into, and Where the Cancel Button Actually Lives
Credit: Daily Vitality
Most of us start a wellness app the same way. A burst of motivation, a tap on "Start free trial," and a small, satisfying feeling that the new routine has officially begun. The price looks modest, the trial looks generous, and the fine print is a problem for future you.
Future you tends to find out three things at once. The trial may have rolled into a full year, not a month. The reminder you expected may never have been promised. And the cancel button may not be in the app at all, because you paid through your phone's app store. None of this is hidden, exactly. It is simply spread across pricing pages, help-center articles and terms of service that almost nobody reads side by side.
So we read them side by side. This audit captures the published terms of 25 paid wellness apps on September 29, 2026, across workouts, cycling and running, mindfulness, sleep, nutrition tracking and wearable memberships. For each one we recorded the price, the trial, the plan the trial becomes, any reminder promise, the cancellation route, the refund window and any hardware tie-in. Then we did the math that turns an annual price into something more useful: what one session costs at the pace you actually use it.
The number on the sign-up screen is only one of the prices an app can charge you. There is the trial price (usually zero), the price the trial converts to, and, for many apps, a different price depending on where you pay. Those three numbers can be surprisingly far apart.
Peloton's App One tier is the clearest example in this audit. On Peloton's own website it costs $12.99 a month or $129 a year. As an in-app purchase on the US App Store listing for Peloton, the same tier is $15.99 a month or $159 a year, roughly 23% more in both cases. The workouts are identical. The billing channel is what changed.
Peloton's prices also move over time. The company raised its app and hardware prices in October 2025, a shift covered in our look at Peloton's new treadmills against a walking pad and a gym.
Down Dog says the quiet part out loud. Its FAQ explains that the web price "is usually the best price because there are no Apple/Google commission fees," and that the in-app price will usually be higher. It is a gentle reminder that the easiest place to subscribe is not always the cheapest one.
A handful of apps make the first question, "what does this cost?", harder to answer than it should be. Sleep Cycle's website publishes no price and its terms point subscribers to the app or their account page. Cal AI's site advertises a three-day free trial but no price, while its App Store listing shows a string of "Unlimited" purchases from $2.99 to $29.99 with no plan length attached. Down Dog's web price sits behind a login. Calm, Happier Meditation, RISE and Lose It! publish an annual price but no standard monthly one on their websites, and Lose It! notes that it "adjusts prices based on various factors like seasonal promotions and how often you use the app."
There is nothing wrong with a promotion. But when a price varies by person and channel, the only reliable number is the one on your own renewal receipt, which is why the checklist later in this piece starts there.
The table below records what each company published on September 29, 2026. Prices are US dollars from the company's own website unless marked. "Web cancel steps" counts the numbered steps in the company's published cancellation article for subscriptions bought directly from the company; anything bought through Apple or Google is cancelled in that store instead.
Les Mills+ publishes its annual prices on the web ($179.88 for Premium, $179.99 in the App Store) but its monthly web price did not render, so the App Store monthly figure is shown. Google's own blog lists Google Health Premium at $99 a year, while the App Store still sells it under its old Fitbit Premium name at $79.99. Glo's homepage advertises "$18/month" against the $30 in its support center, a gap the company does not explain.
For the wearables, the membership is only part of the bill. Our three-year cost comparison of the major trackers adds the hardware to the math.
Apple's web version of its US Health & Fitness chart carries no date and no top-grossing list, so we captured it on September 29, 2026 and took the nine paid-subscription apps in its top 25: Strava, Ladder, MyFitnessPal, AllTrails, Cronometer, RISE, Oura, Fitbod and Cal AI. We filled the remaining 16 places from widely used paid apps, capping each category at eight. Alo Moves was on our list until we found it had relaunched as the free ALO Wellness Club in December 2025, so Glo took its place.
A seven-day trial feels low-stakes. Whether it actually is depends on what happens on day eight. In this audit, six apps convert a trial straight into an annual charge: Calm, AllTrails, RISE, Happier Meditation, Lose It! and WHOOP. For these, forgetting to cancel does not cost you one month. It costs you a year, often with no refund.
Calm is candid about it. Its help center states that "all new in-app free trials default to an annual subscription," and explains that anyone who wants a monthly plan in the app has to let the trial lapse first. The Calm help article on monthly plans is worth a read before starting a trial, not after.
WHOOP's version has an extra twist. Its terms of use say that at the end of the free trial, membership "will automatically roll into a paid Peak annual Membership." Peak is $239 a year, one tier above the $199 WHOOP One plan. Cancelling the trial also means returning the device, and WHOOP's help center and terms give two different return windows (7 days and 14 days), with a $110 restocking fee if the hardware is not sent back.
Seven apps let you pick monthly or annual before the trial starts, and the trial converts to whatever you picked: Peloton, Strava, Fitbod, MyFitnessPal, Headspace, Runna and Les Mills+. Three convert to monthly only (Zwift, Google Health Premium and, according to its help center, Sweat). Ladder takes no card and simply stops at the end of the trial until you choose a plan, and Down Dog's FAQ describes the same approach, though its terms read as if a trial could convert. The other seven do not say which plan a trial becomes, or offer no trial at all.
Sweat's help center says trials "roll over to a monthly subscription," while its sign-up page lets new members choose monthly or annual. When a company's own pages disagree, the plan shown on your confirmation screen or receipt is the one that counts.
Only seven of the 25 apps promise to warn you before money moves. Peloton's checkout page says, in large type, "Get a reminder 7 days before your trial ends." Strava's sign-up timeline shows a reminder two days before its 30-day trial ends. AllTrails sends one on day five of a seven-day trial. Oura and Google Health Premium commit to showing the fees before charging. RISE promises reminder emails, though two of its help articles disagree about which sign-ups receive them.
Fitbod stands out for a different reason. Its terms and conditions promise a reminder "No less than thirty (30) days and no more than sixty (60) days before your Subscription term ends." It is the only annual-renewal reminder we found in the entire set. Almost every other promise covers the end of a trial, not the anniversary of an annual plan, which is when the bigger charge arrives.
Happier Meditation (the app formerly called Ten Percent Happier) is refreshingly direct in the other direction. Section 4.5 of its terms of service reads: "At the end of the trial, Happier Meditation will not send you a notice that your free trial has ended and that payment for your Subscription is due." The trial must be cancelled before midnight Eastern time on its last day.
Ladder's terms authorize charges "WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU, UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW." In practice Ladder's trial collects no card, so the clause matters most once you are already a paying member and your plan renews.
For the remaining 16 apps, we found no reminder promise in the pricing pages, help centers or terms. That does not mean no email ever arrives. It means no company has committed to sending one.
The annual discount is real, but it only helps if you are still using the app when the year ends. The simplest test is the break-even month: divide the annual price by the monthly price. The answer is the number of months of monthly billing that cost the same as one prepaid year. If you would likely stop before that month, monthly is the cheaper bet. If you would keep going past it, annual wins.
Across the 17 apps that publish both prices, the break-even ranges from 4.0 months to 11.7 months, with a median of 6.7.
Down Dog, Sleep Cycle and Cal AI are left out because they publish no annual price we could verify on their own sites.
The pattern is gentle but useful. MyFitnessPal's annual plan pays for itself after just four months of monthly billing, so the annual plan makes sense even for fairly short commitments. Oura sits at the opposite end: at 11.7 months, monthly billing costs almost as much as a full year, which makes the annual plan a small saving rather than a big one. Zwift, Garmin Connect+, Peloton App One and Google Health Premium all land around 10.
Cost per session tells a different story. At three workouts a week, most workout apps land well under a dollar a session, and Glo, the most expensive annual plan in the set at $245, comes to about $1.57. For comparison, our sister piece The Gym Contract Audit walks through what a club membership adds in joining, freeze and exit fees before the first class.
Wearable memberships are the odd ones out, because a ring or strap is worn every day rather than opened for a session. Spread across 365 days, Oura and Garmin Connect+ at $69.99 come to about 19 cents a day, and WHOOP One at $199, hardware included, to about 55 cents.
These are scenarios, not usage data. The cost-per-session figures assume the annual plan and a steady number of sessions every week for a year. Real use rises and falls, and the most useful number is the one built from your own week.
Every app in this audit is sold online, which puts it under the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act. Under 15 U.S.C. 8403, a seller using a negative option (a subscription that continues unless you act) must clearly disclose all material terms before taking billing information, get express informed consent before charging, and provide "simple mechanisms for a consumer to stop recurring charges." The law has been in place since December 2010.
Many people have heard that federal "click to cancel" became law. It was adopted, but it never took effect. The FTC voted to amend its Negative Option Rule in November 2024, and on July 8, 2025, days before the compliance date, the Eighth Circuit's opinion in Custom Communications v. FTC vacated the rule on procedural grounds, finding the agency had skipped a required preliminary regulatory analysis. The court did not rule on click-to-cancel itself.
In February 2026 the FTC formally restored the older rule text. On March 13, 2026 it published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register to start over, with comments due in April. As of our September 29 capture, no proposed rule has followed.
Enforcement has continued in the meantime. In June 2026 the FTC announced that a court had temporarily halted an enterprise it describes as running "deceptive subscription schemes," including fitness and nutrition apps, according to the FTC's press release. Those are allegations in a pending case, and none of the 25 apps in this audit is involved.
California's Automatic Renewal Law, amended by AB 2863 for contracts entered into or extended from July 1, 2025, is the most detailed. Under Business and Professions Code section 17602, a free trial lasting more than 31 days requires a notice 3 to 21 days before it ends, annual plans need a notice 15 to 45 days before renewal, and businesses must send an annual reminder describing the charges and how to cancel. A subscription accepted online must be cancellable online "at will," and any save offer has to sit next to a "click to cancel" link. Price changes need 7 to 30 days' notice.
New York's rule is similar in shape. General Business Law 527-a requires a notice 3 to 21 days before a trial of more than a month converts, a notice 15 to 45 days before an annual plan renews, and a cancellation method "as easy to use as the mechanism that the consumer used to provide consent."
Colorado focuses on renewals. Its automatic renewal statute, C.R.S. 6-1-732 requires a notice 25 to 40 days before the first automatic renewal and each one after, with a single yearly notice for shorter terms. We found no Colorado requirement for a notice before a trial converts.
Here is the detail that ties the law back to the audit table. California and New York only require a pre-expiry trial notice when the trial runs longer than about a month. Almost every trial in this audit is 3 to 30 days long. The ones that run past a month are Google Health Premium's three-month offer, Apple Fitness+'s three months with an eligible device, and Sleep Cycle's advertised 60-day trial. For everything else, a reminder before the trial ends is something a company chooses to offer, which is why the seven apps that promise one are worth knowing.
Apple's documented notices are about price increases. Its developer guidance on subscription pricing says subscribers are notified by email and push notification before a higher price takes effect, and larger increases need the subscriber's consent. We found no Apple page saying it emails US users before an ordinary trial ends or an annual plan renews.
Google has gone further on paper. In an April 2020 Android Developers Blog post it said it emails users "a reminder before their free trial or intro price ends" and before 3-month, 6-month and annual renewals. Its current help pages do not restate that or give a day count, so it is best treated as a helpful extra rather than a guarantee.
This is less a to-do list than a set of questions that tend to make the next renewal a decision instead of a surprise. Each one maps to a column in the audit table.
The FTC's consumer guidance suggests keeping a copy of any cancellation request, along with notes about conversations, and following up in writing to the billing-dispute address if a charge appears anyway. A screenshot of the confirmation screen does the same job for an in-app cancellation.
If the app is one you love and use, none of this is a reason to cancel. It is simply a way to make sure the price you are paying is one you chose. The FTC's advice on free trials and auto-renewals covers disputes in more detail.
All prices and terms were captured on September 29, 2026 from each company's own pricing pages, help-center articles and terms of service, and cross-checked against the US App Store listing where one exists. Where a company's pages disagreed with each other, we report both versions rather than choosing one.
Break-even month is the annual price divided by the monthly price. Cost per session is the annual price divided by sessions per week times 52, shown at one, two, three and five sessions a week. Cancellation step counts are the numbered steps in each company's published article for direct (web) purchases; they are not timed or tested flows.
This audit does not assess whether any app works, and it includes no usage or retention figures. It reports each company's terms against published rules and draws no legal conclusion about any company.
We use the same capture-and-compute approach in other cost pieces, including Anti-Inflammatory Meal Delivery Compared, which prices meal kits per serving.
Prices change often, and your own receipt is always the final word.
About the Author
Ryan May is a digital publishing leader with more than 25 years of experience turning complex information into clear, useful editorial work. At Daily Vitality, he focuses on evidence-led reporting about nutrition, fitness, healthy aging, and long-term wellbeing, informed by his own interests in cooking, yoga, cycling, and sustainable healthy habits.
No. Several companies in this audit, including Cal AI, RISE, Runna, Lose It! and Happier Meditation, state outright that deleting the app or even the account does not stop billing. The subscription has to be cancelled in the store or on the website where it was bought.
If you subscribed through Apple or Google, the app company does not control the billing. The cancel option lives in your phone's subscription settings, which takes four steps on an iPhone and about four on Android.
Only sometimes. Seven of the 25 apps promise a reminder of some kind, including Peloton (seven days before), Strava (two days before) and AllTrails (day five of seven). Happier Meditation's terms say it will not send one.
No. The FTC's 2024 rule was vacated by a federal appeals court in July 2025 before it took effect, and the agency restarted the rulemaking in March 2026. The older ROSCA law, which requires clear terms, consent and a simple way to stop charges, still applies to online subscriptions.
Per month, yes, but only if you keep using the app. The break-even month in this audit runs from 4.0 (MyFitnessPal Premium) to 11.7 (Oura). If you expect to stop before that month, paying monthly costs less overall.
It depends on the company and the channel. Eight apps publish a refund window, from Cronometer's seven-day cooling-off period to Lose It!'s 35 days. Anything billed through Apple has to be requested from Apple, and Google generally refunds only within 48 hours.
Some companies price in-app purchases higher than their website. Peloton App One is $12.99 a month on Peloton's site and $15.99 through the App Store. Down Dog's FAQ notes that its web price is usually lowest because there are no app-store commission fees.
Yes, in every case here. Oura's ring is sold separately, WHOOP includes its hardware in the annual fee, Google Health Premium needs a Fitbit or Pixel Watch, and Garmin Connect+ needs a compatible Garmin device.
WHOOP requires the trial device to be returned. Its help center gives 7 days and its terms give 14, and a $110 restocking fee applies if the hardware is not returned. Without cancelling, the trial rolls into a Peak annual membership.
