Productive - Habit Tracker Reviews

by ConeyQ

Productive bills itself as a free app with optional in-app purchases, but that’s a complete misrepresentation. Productive is almost unusable without a subscription. It’s a complete money grab. Literally every time you navigate away from it or change screens, it directs you to pay for a subscription.

The subscription page that pops up every five seconds is set up in a misleading way that indicates a “free trial” (that auto-subscribes you for a full year’s price) is the only option to continue using Productive for free. You can X out of the subscription page in the top left corner without agreeing to the trial, but people who aren’t tech literate won’t realize that.

I downloaded Productive because my mother wanted to use it but couldn’t get it to work. As soon as I saw the subscription page, I asked my mother if she’d known she could skip it without starting a trial, and she told me no, she’d hit the obvious yellow button that said “free trial” instead. I helped her cancel her subscription and delete Productive . There are much more functional free productivity apps out there that run on ads without tricking people into thinking they need a recurring subscription to use them.

by Jartin Mcfartin

I’ve been using Productive for about a year and half now and I’ve had many problems. Nothing just works how its supposed to. My completed tasks aren’t being synced across my devices, so if I click completed on my Apple Watch or iPhone, my iPad won’t reflect it, and vice versa. Sometimes it will sync one completion here or there but its very unreliable. I can mark every task completed on my iPad and hours later my iPhone has only realized I’ve completed one or two tasks. My devices haven’t even synced some completions from a month ago. This defeats the purpose of having it on separate devices if they won’t sync properly... as well as the whole idea of tracking habits.

On to the next problem: the sometimes working Apple Watch app. Probably 50% of the time the Apple Watch app is non-responsive or just crashes when you open it. I’ve had days where I can’t open Productive on the Apple Watch. Yes... everything is updated and my settings are set to sync across devices... things just don’t work. I can’t believe I’ve paid for two years of service that works this poorly.

EDIT: Now even a year later it still is not syncing anything between my devices. In fact, I don’t even see an iCloud option in the settings anymore. I think they gave up on the syncing.

by Hja91

I liked the idea and aesthetic of Productive. Unfortunately the paywall and its limitations makes it not worth downloading. The help section states that you can add notes onto completed tasks from previous days but you actually can’t. It would make sense that if you clicked on a task then clicked the notes section, you could edit notes but instead it says “swipe left on a task to add notes.” You can’t swipe anything on completed tasks from previous days. I accidentally deleted a completed task from yesterday and had no way of reinstating it. You can only have a limited number of tasks without paying. The to do list function is pretty similar to Wunderlist but with stats on how often you stick to your habits, which I don’t really care about enough to pay for. Every other click on Productive leads to a pop up to in app purchases which is really annoying. I’d rather sit through a 30 second ad twice a day than pay for this or continue to use it and deal with the constant pop ups. Maybe I’d pay a onetime nominal fee to use this but not a monthly charge.

by Imperialmeasures

I like how Productive is set up and what you can do with it. It is really good for keeping track of the things that I need to do. However, it is clear to me that Productive really isn’t free. In the free version, you can set 5 habits, which doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I need to keep track of on a daily basis. maybe of all i wanted to do was remind myself to go to the gym every day, it would be usable, but then you could just use one of the free apps that comes on the iphone. I understand that the developers want to make money, but the subscription pricing model is a big turn-off for be and i assume based on other reviews many other people. The price is really not that expensive, but personally i would rather have ads than have to pay $30 a year for an app that really does not do anything particularly interesting or unique. It’s nice to have, but for me, it’s not worth having to pay a per year price indefinitely when i could do exactly the same things, mind you less conveniently, with a free service like google calendar. So maybe if Productive had a one time payment or ads i would use it, but currently, i am not prepared to spend 30 dollars a year so that i can be reminded to go to the gym.

by MystikQT

The entire app is set up to be some silly competition with yourself. I just need something to keep track of the things I want to try and hit in a day — I’m not trying to guilt trip myself because my “streak is broken.” There doesn’t seem to be a way to turn this off, which is absurd. So it’s a great interface and user-friendly that way, but if you’re not interested in feeling bad about yourself every day when it brow-beats you for not completing your “habits,” I’d look elsewhere.

ETA: I was feeling pretty cranky when I tapped this review out, but as my year subscription comes to an end, I still won’t be renewing. I appreciate the response that some things can be turned off, but respectfully — most of them can’t be. And the edits that are offered often don’t work. Trying to update days that you’d like existing habits to appear on your list is hit or miss (usually miss — it doesn’t stick. I end up having to delete habits entirely and enter them anew to make any changes at all). The orientation of Productive is toward creating new daily habits and competing with yourself. If that’s your thing, do it up. But if the developers want this to be for a wider audience, then group all of those notifications into a “challenge” interface, and give the rest of us an option to turn it off. I’d love this to be a task-tracker without the game aspect, but it isn’t.

by -Gatherer

I’m a premium user of Productive, and overall it’s nice looking and moderately functional. My biggest complaint is that it’s almost useless for data tracking.

I meditate pretty much every day, but I consider doing it at least five days a week a success. So I went ahead and set the goal for five days a week. I meditated five days in a row, and suddenly I’ve lost the option to track it anymore for that week. Say I meditate every day for a week, I can’t track that under the five days setting. Meaning if I want to go back in time to see what days I usually miss, notice any patterns in the data—I’m out of luck. If I set it to the every day setting, and I miss a day, I lose my streak in the habit.

Either I set it to five days, and I can’t keep accurate data records, or I set it to a week and I lose the motivation of maintaining a streak. It’s a really big flaw in Productive and it would be nice to have it fixed. At least an option to allow a user to go over the set number of days would be nice, even if it wasn’t the default setting.

by Satanscrush

Productive IS helpful, as I have started many challenges, and keeping up with them! However, what is really annoying about Productive is that if you don’t mark at the end of the day that you have completed the challenge for that day—it automatically starts you over again and says that you failed the challenge. It feels terrible—especially when you are actually doing the challenge and have been for a full week! Please change this. It’s incredible frustrating to keep having to pledge over and over again, especially when I know I haven’t broken the pledge! Perhaps make a notification when you open Productive that says “I noticed that you didn’t check in last night, how is the challenge going?” And then gives you the option to say “still going strong” or “I slipped, let’s start over”. I’ve been on the intermittent fasting challenge for almost a week now and in my app it says 0 because I forgot to swipe the challenge last night. It’s just very frustrating. Please fix this. Not everyone is going to have Productive chained to their hip, we have lives.

by Thadangazone

I’ve been using Productive (with premium features) for years because I haven’t found another app that is as good as this one for tracking habits. That being said I’ve looked long and hard for an alternative. My issues with Productive are 1) in that it has below average integration across devices. I have an iPad and it doesn’t load all of the habits from the phone into the tablet. It will load some but not all. It also takes forever (if it will do it at all) to sync with me marking a habit on one device. Example. I marked a habit complete around midday on the phone and the iPad app never registered it so it still showed up as incomplete in the iPad. And 2) if you’re relying on it for an accurate “perfect streak” count look elsewhere or track with a red X on a calendar. You can have a million perfect days in a row and Productive arbitrarily decides to not track some days in the streak. Which is weird because the counter for “days complete” is accurate but the streak counter is completely random. Again. Best I’ve found and does a lot of things right. But I’ve also been looking for an alternative for a while.

by ImNotHereToArgueBut

I’ve had Productive for years and have used it on and off, it helps me get on track and I recommend it.
I really like Productive for keeping track of all the daily things I want to get done, and especially things I’d like to do only once a week or month, like calling my grandmother and taking the time to plan my month out at the beginning of each month.
I can check them off and then won’t be reminded again until the next week or month.
It’s easy enough to use.
I just have one rather large problem with it. It can be really discouraging the way it only gives you credit for “perfect days.” I just started the habit of drinking 8 glasses of water each day, I’ve achieved 5 glasses, 7 glasses etc, but in my stats, it’s like I drank no water at all. It’s really dissatisfying.
A big motivation for me is feeling accomplished when I can see what I’ve done.
Productive would be perfect if it notified me “you’ve completed 50% of your morning habits today! Keep it up!” Or if I could see I’ve almost reached my 8 full glasses of water almost every day this week.
With how I use Productive , it’s almost impossible to achieve a perfect day, but it’d be nice to see that I keep up with over 70% of my daily habits each week. Or I do 100% of my nighttime habits.
That’s something I would change, along with how sensitive the buttons are, I’m always accidentally swiping habits left or right when I’m just scrolling through them. It’s annoying.

by Gggghfjtfugvbnk

Edit: Updating back to 5 stars because the UX has been improved, I’m sure many people enjoy the fancy UI but there is now an option to have a no frills. I have had some issues with habit data not saving properly for the current day, though, when checking habits off sometimes

Old review:
I agree with some other reviews I’ve seen: this was an update for the sake of updating. It has “fixed” things that were not broken to begin with. The UI used to be minimal and easy to use day to day, but now forces its paradigm of time-of-day habits. Sure, I have some habits for the evening, but a lot of anyone’s habits aren’t strictly for one time of day. It is more difficult now to just get Productive to show me what I want—a simple list of my habits for the day. All day habits are now all the way to the left, Productive has unneeded animations for what it is (essentially just a simple to do list style app), and the bottom bar UI now centers on adding a new habit, which is one of the actions I’ve used the least. This is making me regret subscribing to this. Maybe I can find a different app that is just simple and elegant, and doesn’t get in my way.

by IamSHPOON

Wow whoever created Productive deserves a high five. Productive is exactly what I needed my entire life. I always can get distracted so this was perfect. Any app can get a five star rating from a satisfied costumer but, there’s always one flaw. Productive is amazing but my one complaint is the limit. You are only allowed a certain amount of habits and that makes sense but it’s too low for me. I only had like 5 things on my list but then it said I reached the limit? It makes sense to me that if you want unlimited habits you have to pay for premium but if you guys are going to set a limit on habits don’t make it 5. If you could change it to like maybe 10 that would be amazing 😉. I get it if you don’t have premium on Productive you won’t make 💰 but can you just boost up the habit limit that would be phenomenal! I love Productive so much and I’m not talking bad about the creator. Thank you so much to who ever made Productive!
Thank you!
- very satisfied customer (except for the limit part)

by Cephvar

It’s pretty intuitive at first, but when you get deeper into customization, you run into oddities and bugs. For example, it seems to be pretty aggressive about resetting streaks when you make edits to habits (understandable, but the rules around this could be more clear). You edit a habit name, and it reorders it. Sometimes things don’t get saved. Sometimes they get reordered at seemingly unpredictable times.

And worse, I’ve only just fully set up a bunch of habits, and all of a sudden my Today shows up blank, rendering Productive useless because I can’t actually see or complete the habits I spent so much time setting up. It worked well when it was working, but I am less than a month into using this app and now it’s broken.

Update: Rebooting my iOS device seemed to fix the issue so I just raised my original rating to 4. I also had noticed another app having issues (Alarmy wasn’t showing an alarm going off), so I’m tentatively chalking at least the major issue above to an iOS problem and not a this app one. Will report back if other issues persist or not.

by 17374850483761919384649

I especially appreciate Productive, since the calendar it has tracks when you do things and when you don’t do things. This gives you a satisfying cross-off of the days of the week you do the things you planned, making you feel compelled to keep up the task instead of putting it off another day. That being said, all of the features (in the free version at least) besides reminders can be done using a regular calendar, which would give you an even more satisfying cross-off since it is being done physically. However, I would still recommend Productive, for people who are still struggling with procrastination, since it isn’t the laziness but rather the will, and personally the will has kept me going with Productive. The only downside is that I think the not free version is quite a bit expensive, especially for a mere habit tracking app, and especially considering that all of the features it has and offers in the paid version could be done with other apps that are free (like apps that come with an iPhone). Nevertheless, this is still an amazing app and it has helped me with habit tracking.

by Riddled1103

I have paranoid schizophrenia, and having a stable routine along with medication and therapy is essential to my recovery. This is hands down the best app for creating and maintaining a daily self care routine. Being schizophrenic it is hard to stick with a routine. I am always forgetting what I need to be doing. Not anymore with Productive. I use Productive to remind me of the things I need to do each day. For projects I use Things 3, for one time reminders I use the standard reminders app, and for appointments I use the basic calendar. I keep these four apps in a folder called Daily. If I see a number over the folder, I know that something needs to be done.

What I like most about Productive is nothing has a time that is set in stone. There are three periods: morning, afternoon, and evening. This gives me needed flexibility, in case I am having a bad day. Also these periods keep me from becoming overwhelmed by looking at a whole days worth of tasks. (Although you can look at the full day if you need to). There is also a satisfying sound when you swipe a task complete. Productive has worked wonders in my day to day life living with schizophrenia. If you don’t have a serious mental illness Productive will still be extremely handy. If you do have a serious mental illness it is a necessity.

by CheekySweetie

I'm 16 and I got Productive to keep track of chores and other daily habits I often forget. It's exactly what I needed. I'm not trying to schedule my day down to the minute or even the hour. And I needed an app flexible enough that as long as I complete my habit that day, it doesn't break my streak, but still keeping certain habits to certain times of day.
I like that you can schedule an individual habit for multiple times a day instead of having to create the same habit 3 times, each time scheduling a different time. I also enjoy how customizable it is, how you can choose the icon, color and order of the habits. My favorite thing about Productive is the general scheduling. There are 3 times to schedule a habit to; morning, afternoon and evening. And you can choose between which times each of these apply. Even if I miss a habit during its schedules time, it isn't counted as missed until the day is over, which keeps my motivation for the streaks up. It's the perfect level of simplicity for me.
My only complaint is that I have to pay a subscription for more habits! I don't really care about whatever else comes with premium. I love Productive and it's exactly what I need but I can't pay a subscription. If it was a one-time fee for premium forever then I could do that. Even if it was $20 as long as it was just once. Otherwise, Productive is just about perfect for me.

by L Corder

I’ve only had this a day, but it’s doing exactly what I want it to — which is to help me stay on task with a fairly regimented routine. I’m a mother of two children not yet in school, and my older son is enjoying having a schedule to follow. So far, so good.

UPDATE:
After one week, I’m still really liking Productive. The interface is appealing and easy to use once you figure out where all the features are. The notification flags are great for keeping me on task. My days have gone much more smoothly and my kids are getting really great at knowing what to expect during the day for the past week. We have far fewer struggles and see much better behavior from them. I’m Type B when it comes to schedules — even though I thrive with one, I have a hard time staying on task by myself. I’ve done yoga every morning for a week! I’ve even had enough time to go to the gym. By myself. With two kids at home with their dad. Seriously! So glad I found Productive.

by Anyabells

When I see a new and interesting app I can’t help myself- I download and try it. Every few weeks I find myself trying a new “productivity” app, whether it be a to-do or habit tracking or what have you. But this is Productive I always find myself coming back to ever since I first downloaded it about six years ago. No other app has been as easy to set up, enjoyable to use, or useful. And every time I come back to it there are more features! Useful features, too, not ones that make things more difficult or overwhelming: they integrate smoothly into what is already there. The only reason I ever stop using Productive is because I am so bad at sticking to a routine. But when I put forward the effort, this is the only app I have found that actively encourages me. Just the idea of using it is enough to help me recommit :) And I have never regretted buying the full version, which is not the case with so many other apps. Give it a try and you’ll understand why the ratings are so consistently good.

by Sarah B29

I love Productive for tracking habits. The premium version is well worth the price, especially if you consider the cost per month of the annual option. I’ve been trying to start a bullet journal, but have struggled with motivating myself to go through and physically set up the format myself to track each habit, with Productive it does all the work for me and has a nice design. I wish there was a little bit more flexibility with scheduling monthly habits, like if you could pick an exact day of the month when something needs to be done, or the number of times per month you’d want to do something, similar to the layout when setting weekly goals. Another feature I’d like to see is the ability to “overachieve” on a goal. Like if I set my gym goal as a minimum of 3 times a week, it would be nice to be able to mark it done if I go a fourth time in order to track progress and help reevaluate goals later on. I’d especially like it if this was a feature able to be turned on or off depending on each habit. Overall this is a great and easy to use app that helps me stay motivated and this app.

by K-Bernard

Hey all,
After thinking for a little bit of time of when I would start my habits and good motivation to do it, it was not until Productive that I really started doing much. I see Productive as a rehabilitations skill builder in habits in a way that moves my inspiration to want to do habits a lot simpler. I find myself adding goals every day and it’s consistently interesting to see how much I want to accomplish vs how much I would accomplish. It’s peaceful to know I use this as a guide and I realized it also clears my mind to write it all down. Didn’t realized how much in a day there is to do, but how much you can do within a given time (I.e thirty minutes blocks can get so much done. Anyway I won’t over express myself here. But I think all should give this a try, I found an objective benefit to using it and I do have a subjective view on it since I used it. But if you want to move forward with organization with your habits and decrease Brian focus on your habits and build more accountability for yourself, I recommend Productive!

Thanks all,
All the best!

by Katierae5

I don't often take time to write reviews, but I am sincerely enjoying this help! It has been so helpful and easy to use. I love how easy to customize this, and if you miss or skip a goal for whatever reason its not degrading. Rather it encourages you to keep going, and do what you can to succeed with whatever size goal/task/daily chore/project/new habit you recorded. I have tried other apps similar before and have been very disappointed, and then ended up losing interest and feeling more defeated by not getting something done. If you are a personality where you need to record your tasks or enjoy the satisfaction of crossing something else off from your day this is for you! I will admit that in the free version I only had the ability to record 2 goals/habits, which was not close to what I was hoping for. The company offered a timed promotion that Im not sure if it was only over the holiday or just as a new user I got a chance to upgrade too. However, I decided to give it a shot as it was only $12 for the full year which was easily affordable and I am really loving the fact I did. I highly recommend!

by MomWApps

Wanted to use the FREE 7 day trial to play around in Productive to see if it was the right fit. I ran into limited functions within the first five minutes. To use what felt like basic functions I was prompted to upgrade. I thought I was upgrading what I would be billed after the FREE to trial. That if I didn’t like what I experienced in the first 7 days, I could cancel. That’s what a FREE trial is. I wasn’t happy with the limited functions so I unlocked more. (What I needed to do was so basic. Set a reminder twice a day for one thing I needed to remember to do daily.) I was showing my teenager the functions and he laughed and said he couldn’t believe I paid for it. I was showing him because if he liked what he saw in the TRIAL on my phone, I was going to get it for him too. I decided in the same day I downloaded it, it wasn’t for me. It was too complicated, not intuitive enough. I went to cancel the trial and I was already billed for a full year! I stopped my subscription but it won’t end until JULY 3, 2020! My FREE trial started July 3, 2019. AND ON THE SAME DAY I’M BILLED FOR A FULL YEAR. No refund. It really makes me mad. It’s not right. Beware of the “free trial.”

by Kathrynelise.art

I appreciate the ability to schedule todos or habits on specific days of the week but balanced had the ability to actually set the frequency of a habit for seasonal and yearly tasks. this app doesn't seem to do that. I thought it did once actually but it looks like it doesn't now either way.
For me, i use this mainly to keep track of household chores. I like not setting a specific day but rather a frequency. I know i need to clean bedsheets once a week... other things once a month. Other things once a season and others like spring cleaning, once a year.
So this doesn't work for me anymore and balanced is gone. Fortunately i can just download it still from the backup so I'm just going to continue using that instead.
Also i like that theres functionality for the apple watch but i find that its a lot more useful to have a complication for these kinds if apps. Just a simple complication that tells me whats at the top of the list for today. Something like that.
So yeah bring back seasonal and yearly frequencies and make a complication. :)

by Katherinesings

Organizational aids and visual tools are imperative to progress for my day. **I have already bought the Premium option.
But, if there was anything that make the all-amazing app the ALL-IN-ONE for me it would be to be able to drag and drop tasks onto a daily schedule (dare I say like Time Finder app). It allows you to set up a full schedule, see at a glance where you are on a time line with your tasks- copy and repeat days to minimize fuss.... AND linking that to one’s calendar, including that content with all of your appointments?? That would be the biggest stress reliever for me EVER! Moving times that the task was completed, even just for that day, and being able to look back at the pattern of when certain tasks were better able to be executed than other times of the day. It would serve as a visual aid in my time management, instead of sort of feeling like I’m living aimlessly from one random chime to the next.
Please consider. :)

by ChelsBug88

UPDATE:: Still using Productive daily to track my habits, I know I’m going to do things like walk my dog, drink water, brush teeth, but it is easy to check it off my “did today” list and the little push to keep up with things like tidying my bedroom or dishes is pretty motivating!! So 2-weeks later I’m still on a roll! Yay!

First day of downloading:: “I just downloaded Productive and got it started today, but so far it’s easy enough. The layout of using Productive is kind of confusing, I thought I could add things for specific dates, but that’s okay that I can’t. I’ve started adding simple things like drinking water, walking the dog, etc... it does already feel good when I can mark things “done”. I just know personally I get bored easily with apps I have to use daily but since this doesn’t require writing things down or jotting anything in Productive I might actually have a reason to want to keep using it!! 🙂”