Free and Low-Cost Recovery Apps: An Independent Comparison

Recovery apps are the cheapest support available. Most cost nothing to download, and a handful are genuinely free to use for as long as you want them. The complication is that “free” means at least four different things in the app stores, and most lists of the best sobriety apps are written by someone who gets paid when you download one.

This page compares eleven apps on what they actually cost, who owns them, and whether any published research supports them. We earn no commission on any app listed here. Where we have a connection to one, we say so at the point we mention it. You can read how we vet programs and review what appears on this site.

In This Article:

• Free and low-cost recovery apps compared
• Recovery apps by what you need them for
• What free actually means in a recovery app
• Do recovery apps actually work?
• What these apps do with your recovery data
• Recovery apps you can get through Medicaid, insurance, or a treatment program
• How to check an app yourself before you download it
• What we left out, and why
• When an app is not enough
• Frequently asked questions

Free and low-cost recovery apps compared

Eleven apps are compared below on four things: what the app is best at, what you get without paying, what unlocking the rest costs, and who owns it. Ownership matters because it tells you what the app is for. A tracker built by a treatment provider chain and a tracker built by a nonprofit are free for different reasons.

Prices and privacy labels were checked against Apple App Store and Google Play listings on 5 August 2026, and Sunnyside was reconfirmed on 11 August 2026. App pricing changes without notice, so treat these as a starting point and confirm in the store before you subscribe to anything.

Recovery apps by what you need them for

There is no best recovery app, because these tools do five different jobs. Counting days is not the same job as finding a meeting tonight, and neither is the same as structured therapy delivered under a prescription. Work out which job you need done, then pick from that group.

Counting days

Streaks, milestones, money saved.

Privacy first

Nothing leaves your phone.

People and meetings

Live events and peer support.

Drinking less

Moderation and reduction goals.

Prescribed apps

FDA cleared, clinician involved.

Through coverage

What a payer may cover.

Counting days and tracking milestones

This is the most crowded category and the easiest to get free. All four options below give you a working day counter without paying.

• I Am Sober – The most complete free tier of the group. Community boards, daily pledges, and a money saved calculator are all included. Tracking more than one habit at a time requires the paid Plus tier, which is the main reason people upgrade.
• Sober Time – Built around one thing, a counter accurate to the second that can sit on your home screen. The free version carries ads.
• Nomo – The simplest of the four. Clocks and badges, not much else, which some people prefer.
• Sober – Daily motivational messages you can filter by how you are feeling, plus a counter and a forum. Developed with a licensed chemical dependency counselor. See the disclosure immediately below.

Disclosure. Sober is published by Red Penguin LLC, trading as Sober.com, which is a sibling site of rehabs.org under the same ownership. It is on this page because it meets the same criteria as everything else here, and applying those criteria honestly means telling you the following.

The app is free to download and supported by advertising, with a Premium tier listed at $5.99 and an annual option at $39.99. A Premium plan arrived in November 2025, and in January 2026 features that had previously been free were moved behind it without advance notice. Users said so publicly and the developers acknowledged that they handled the change badly. The app also stopped working without a connection for a period, which was addressed by an offline mode in May 2026. Its App Store privacy label states that identifiers may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies, which is the same thing we tell you to check for on every other app below.

We earn nothing from your download. If another app on this page suits you better, use that one.

If privacy is your main concern

Sober Tracker is the only app here that requires no account and sends nothing to a server. Your streak, journal entries, and savings data stay on the device. It was built by one developer who wanted a tracker that did not ask him to join a community, and it does streaks, badges, a mood journal, and a coping toolkit without asking for an email address.

No mainstream comparison of sobriety apps includes it, which is a reasonable illustration of how these lists get built. An app with no affiliate program and no marketing budget does not appear on pages that run on commission.

Connecting with other people

• NewForm – Free with no ads and no premium tier, run by the nonprofit The Phoenix. It carries more than a thousand online and local sober events every week, including groups hosted by SMART Recovery, Mental Health America, and She Recovers. Every group has a named contact, which matters for accountability in a way that anonymous forums do not. If you want one recommendation from this page, this is the one with the least attached to it.
• WEconnect – The app and its daily online meetings are free, led by certified peer support specialists, with specialty meetings for women, LGBTQIA+ members, families, and harm reduction. Unlimited one-to-one peer support is the paid part, and this is the one to check your insurance for first: WEconnect states that qualifying insurance unlocks that support, and in some cases gift card incentives, at no cost to you. Without coverage it has been reported at around $40 a month.

For finding twelve step and mutual aid meetings specifically, the official organizations run their own free finders and they are better maintained than any third party app. We also have background on what is in the AA Big Book and on Cocaine Anonymous.

Pairing sobriety with mental health

Nobu is free with no paid tier, and it blends sobriety tracking with mood tracking, guided meditation, yoga, and sleep content. The quality of that material is good.

It is worth knowing why it costs nothing. Nobu was built by Advanced Recovery Systems, which operates treatment facilities, and some features only function for people who are already ARS patients. That does not make the free content less useful. It does mean the app exists partly to introduce you to a treatment provider, and you should know that before you start entering how you feel each day.

Cutting back rather than quitting

Not everyone is aiming at abstinence, and reducing use is a legitimate goal with real evidence behind it. Two apps are built for it, and neither has a free tier.

• Reframe – Structured around reducing alcohol use, with daily tasks, a craving toolkit, and live virtual meetings. It has no free tier beyond a seven day trial. Reviewers have repeatedly flagged unclear subscription charges and limited information about coach credentials before you pick one, so read the terms closely.
• Sunnyside – Focused on moderation and drink tracking rather than quitting. There is no permanently free tier. A 15 day trial covers every feature, after which the basic plan runs about $99 a year and the version that adds a human coach runs about $298 a year.

If reduction is your goal, it is worth reading about harm reduction services as well. Cutting back is a recognized public health approach, not a lesser version of treatment.

Apps that need a prescription

reSET and reSET-O are prescription digital therapeutics, which means the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized them as medical devices rather than letting them ship as ordinary consumer apps. reSET received De Novo authorization in September 2017 and was the first software-only therapeutic the FDA cleared. reSET-O followed in December 2018 and is designed for opioid use disorder, used alongside buprenorphine. Both deliver a self-guided 12 week course of cognitive behavioral therapy rather than a tracker.

They are the only apps on this page that had to clear a regulatory evidence bar, which is exactly why they are worth knowing about when another app tells you it is clinically proven. They are also a useful lesson in how unstable this category is. Pear Therapeutics, which developed both, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2023 and stopped filling prescriptions. The apps sat dormant until PursueCare, a virtual addiction treatment company, acquired them in December 2023 and began offering them to patients again in 2024.

You cannot download either one. Access runs through a clinician, either PursueCare directly or one of its partnering clinics, so ask a prescriber rather than searching the app store. Worth knowing before you ask: some clinicians have been skeptical of the strength of the evidence behind these apps, and reimbursement for prescription digital therapeutics has been inconsistent across payers. Confirm what it will cost you before starting. The clinical treatment that surrounds them is a separate question, covered in our guide to treatment options.

What free actually means in a recovery app

Every app on this page is described somewhere as free. Only some of them are free in the way you would assume. Before you download anything, work out which of these four things the listing means, because the answer determines whether the app still works for you in week three.

1. Free forever, with the core features included. The app works indefinitely without payment and the useful parts are not held back. NewForm and Nobu currently fit this.
2. Free trial, then a paywall. You get a set number of days, then the app stops. Reframe gives you seven and Sunnyside gives you fifteen. This is not a free app, it is a paid app with a sample.
3. Free, but the part you need is locked. The counter is free and the thing you actually came for is not. I Am Sober’s single habit limit is a mild version. Some apps put craving support behind the wall, which is a harder version.
4. Free because something else pays. Usually ads, sometimes tracking identifiers sold on, sometimes a treatment provider hoping you become a patient. Sober Time and Sober are ad supported. Nobu is provider supported. An app can sit in this category and the one above it at the same time, which is what happened to Sober in 2026.

None of these four is disqualifying. An ad supported app that works costs you less than a subscription you cannot afford to keep. What matters is knowing which arrangement you are entering, and the fourth category is the one worth a closer look.

Do recovery apps actually work?

Some do. Most have never been tested. Researchers who have reviewed this category have been consistently blunt about it, and the gap between what these apps claim and what has been demonstrated is wide enough that it should change how you choose one.

A 2025 content analysis of publicly available opioid-related smartphone apps, published in Addiction Science and Clinical Practice, found that only three substance use apps have demonstrated effectiveness in large scale efficacy trials: one for smoking cessation, one for alcohol recovery, and one as an addition to treatment for opioid use disorder. An umbrella review in Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Digital Health in 2024 pooled the available research and found no statistically significant effect on substance use outcomes overall, and concluded that most of these apps do not include any component of an evidence based approach.

A systematic search of the Apple and Google app stores by Tofighi and colleagues, published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth in 2019, reviewed 904 apps and assessed 74 in detail. Average quality on the validated Mobile App Rating Scale was 2.82 out of 5. Few of the apps integrated any recognized intervention such as cognitive behavioral therapy or medication for opioid use disorder, and the authors noted that a concerning number of apps actively promoted harmful drinking and substance use.

The useful conclusion is not that apps are worthless. Reviewers have identified three mechanisms that do have promising evidence: recovery support services, cognitive behavioral therapy, and contingency management, which is a structured rewards approach. An app built on one of those is a better bet than an app built on streaks and motivational quotes. Contingency management in particular is regarded as the strongest available treatment for stimulant use disorder, and as the next section explains, the way most people reach it is through a health plan rather than an app store.

Note on currency: the Mayo Clinic Proceedings umbrella review is from April 2024 and the JMIR search reports 2018 data. Both are more than two years old. A freshness pass should look for a more recent systematic review before this page is next updated.

What these apps do with your recovery data

The fact that you are seeking help for substance use is among the most sensitive information about you that exists. It affects employment, custody, insurance, and immigration. Some companies in this category have shared it with advertisers, and there is a federal law written specifically to address that.

In April 2024 the Federal Trade Commission took action against Monument, an alcohol treatment service, over allegations that it disclosed users’ personal health data to third party advertising platforms including Meta and Google without consent, after telling users that information would be kept confidential. The complaint filed by the Department of Justice alleged the disclosures involved as many as 84,000 users, and the settlement banned Monument from disclosing health information for advertising and required it to seek deletion of data already shared. The FTC action followed a joint investigation by STAT and The Markup, which found that Monument was one of dozens of telehealth companies leaking health data through third party website trackers.

Part of the case was brought under the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act of 2018, known as OARFPA. Section 8023 of that law lets the FTC seek civil penalties for unfair or deceptive practices involving any substance use disorder treatment service or product, and it defines a treatment service broadly enough to include services offering referrals to treatment or recovery housing, not only treatment itself. It exists because this category attracts deceptive marketing, and almost nobody explains it to the people it was written to protect.

Whether OARFPA reaches a particular app depends on what that app holds itself out as doing. A telehealth service like Monument plainly falls inside it. A day counter with no treatment claims probably does not. The practical point for you is narrower and more useful: an app that markets itself as treatment, or as a route into treatment, and then breaks a promise it made about your privacy is not just behaving badly. It may be exposed to federal penalties, and you can report it to the FTC.

Applied to this page: Sober Tracker collects the least, because it stores nothing off the device and requires no account. Apps with community forums and cloud sync necessarily hold more, and provider owned apps such as Nobu connect what you log to a company that sells treatment. Our own sibling app, Sober, carries an App Store privacy label stating that identifiers may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies. We are telling you that for the same reason we would tell you about any other app on this page.

Recovery apps you can get through Medicaid, insurance, or a treatment program

The three mechanisms with the best research behind them, contingency management, recovery support services, and cognitive behavioral therapy, are mostly not sold to individuals in app stores. They are delivered through health plans, state programs, and treatment providers. That means the best available digital tool for you may depend on your coverage rather than your budget.

Four routes worth asking about:

• Medicaid – Five states now cover contingency management as a Medicaid benefit: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, and Washington. Michigan and Rhode Island have applications pending. These programs pay you for verified abstinence, usually from stimulants, because unlike opioid and alcohol use disorder there is no approved medication for stimulant use disorder. California’s version is called the Recovery Incentives Program and runs through participating Drug Medi-Cal counties. Reported incentive totals across these programs run from roughly $596 to $1,092 over an enrollment period, and Delaware extends its program up to 64 weeks for pregnant and postpartum members. If you are on Medicaid in one of those states, ask your county behavioral health office or plan about contingency management by name. See how Medicaid covers addiction treatment for what else may be included.
• Commercial and marketplace plans – Some plans contract directly with digital recovery vendors, which makes an otherwise expensive subscription free to members. WEconnect is one example: qualifying insurance unlocks its paid peer support. Check your plan’s behavioral health benefits, or read more on using health insurance for addiction treatment.
• Your employer – An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is employer paid, confidential, and frequently includes digital tools and coaching. It is one of the most underused benefits in this category. See how EAP coverage works for addiction treatment.
• A treatment program you are already in – Many outpatient and medication assisted treatment programs provide app access as part of the program. Ask your counselor before you subscribe to anything, because you may already have it.

If you do not have coverage yet, checking whether you qualify is the highest value thing you can do today, and it is worth more than any app on this page. Free and low cost programs are listed in our treatment directory.

How to check an app yourself before you download it

App listings change faster than any comparison page can keep up with, including this one. Six checks take about four minutes and will tell you more than any review, including ours.

1. Confirm you have the right app. At least five different apps are called some version of “Sober.” Match the developer name, not just the icon, before you install.
2. Read the data disclosure. Data safety on Google Play, App Privacy on the App Store. Look specifically for whether data is shared with third parties.
3. Find the real price. Open the in-app purchases list on the store page. It shows every subscription tier, including the ones the marketing does not mention.
4. Check the last update date. An app that has not been updated in over a year may be abandoned. Recovery apps get delisted regularly and lists keep recommending them anyway.
5. Test the phrase “science backed.” If an app claims evidence, look for a named published study. Marketing language is not a citation.
6. Check whether it works offline. If you are on a limited prepaid plan, an app that needs a connection for every screen will fail you exactly when you need it.

What we left out, and why

A list of every recovery app would be longer and less useful. These are the categories we excluded and the reasons, so you can judge whether our criteria match your situation.

• Apps that no longer work. Sober Grid was one of the most widely recommended recovery apps for years. It was unpublished from the Apple App Store in November 2023 and the company behind it is no longer operating. Delisted apps keep circulating on recommendation lists long after they stop working, which is why the update date is worth checking yourself.
• Clinical care delivered through an app. Virtual intensive outpatient programs (IOP) and telehealth buprenorphine services involve a licensed clinician and are treatment, not self help. They belong with the rest of the levels of care, and you can read about finding a Suboxone prescriber separately.
• Mutual aid and meeting finders. AA, NA, SMART Recovery and similar organizations run their own free finders. Third party meeting apps tend to carry stale listings.
• Overdose response tools. Naloxone locators and related services sit with free naloxone access and the rest of our harm reduction coverage.
• Apps making medical claims without support. Several apps in this category advertise clinical outcomes with no published research. Some, per the research cited above, promote harmful use outright.

When an app is not enough

An app is a supplement. It cannot manage withdrawal, prescribe medication, or sit with you at three in the morning. If you are physically dependent on alcohol or benzodiazepines, withdrawal can be dangerous and needs medical supervision, so start with medically supervised detox rather than a tracker.

There is also a practical limit worth naming, because no app maker will. These tools assume a working smartphone, enough storage, and enough data. If you are between housing situations or on a limited prepaid plan, an app is the least reliable support on offer, and an in person meeting, a phone number, or a drop in center will serve you better. Sober Tracker is the only option above that functions fully without a connection.

Where to go instead, depending on what you need:

• Treatment that fits your situation and budget, in our directory of free and low cost programs
• Levels of care explained, from outpatient to residential, in our guide to treatment options
• Naloxone, fentanyl test strips, and syringe services through harm reduction
• Crisis and support lines on our list of emergency phone numbers

If you are in immediate danger or thinking about suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. More options are on our suicide prevention resources page.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a completely free sobriety app?

Yes. NewForm, run by the nonprofit The Phoenix, is free with no ads and no premium tier. Nobu is also free at every feature, though it is owned by a treatment provider. Several trackers including Sober Time and I Am Sober offer working free tiers supported by ads or by paid upgrades.

Do recovery apps actually work?

The research is limited. A 2024 umbrella review in Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Digital Health found no statistically significant effect on substance use outcomes across the available studies, and found that most commercially available apps do not include any component of an evidence based approach. Apps built on cognitive behavioral therapy, recovery support services, or contingency management have the strongest support.

Are recovery apps confidential?

Not automatically. Most consumer recovery apps are not covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and some have shared user data with advertisers. In 2024 the Federal Trade Commission acted against the alcohol treatment service Monument over allegations it disclosed users’ health data to advertising platforms without consent. Anyone considering an app should read its data disclosure on Google Play or the App Store before installing.

Can Medicaid pay for a recovery app?

Sometimes. Several states fund app based contingency management programs through Medicaid, where participants earn incentives for verified abstinence or appointment attendance. Availability varies by state and managed care plan, so the reliable step is to ask the plan directly whether digital recovery support is a covered benefit.

What is the best free app for tracking sober days?

It depends on what else is needed. I Am Sober has the most complete free tier for people who want community features alongside a counter. Sober Time is the strongest option for a simple visible clock. Sober Tracker is the choice for anyone who does not want to create an account or send data off their phone.

Do apps replace treatment or meetings?

No. Apps are a supplement to care, not a substitute for it. They cannot manage withdrawal, which can be medically dangerous for alcohol and benzodiazepine dependence, and they cannot prescribe medication for opioid or alcohol use disorder. Anyone using an app while waiting for a treatment placement should keep pursuing that placement.

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Sources

1. Federal Trade Commission. (2024, April 11). Alcohol Addiction Treatment Firm will be Banned from Disclosing Health Data for Advertising to Settle FTC Charges that It Shared Data Without Consent.
2. Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Digital Health. (2024, April). Therapeutic Content of Mobile Phone Applications for Substance Use Disorders: An Umbrella Review.
3. Tofighi, B., Chemi, C., Ruiz-Valcarcel, J., et al. (2019). Smartphone Apps Targeting Alcohol and Illicit Substance Use: Systematic Search in Commercial App Stores and Critical Content Analysis. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 7(4), e11831.
4. Williamson, A., Heydarshahi, B., Finley-Abboud, D., et al. (2025). What smartphone apps exist to support recovery from opioid use disorder? A content analysis of publicly available opioid-related smartphone apps. Addiction Science and Clinical Practice. doi:10.1186/s13722-025-00549-y
5. Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act of 2018. Subtitle B of the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, Pub. L. 115-271, title VIII, secs. 8021-8023, 132 Stat. 4082 (2018), codified in relevant part at 15 U.S.C. sec. 45d.
6. KFF. (2025, January 9). Section 1115 Waiver Watch: A Look at the Use of Contingency Management to Address Stimulant Use Disorder.
7. California Department of Health Care Services. Recovery Incentives Program: California’s Contingency Management Benefit.
8. US Food and Drug Administration. De Novo authorization DEN160018, reSET (2017).
9. Apple App Store. Sober: Recovery Tracker, Red Penguin LLC. App privacy label and in-app purchase listing, retrieved 5 August 2026.
10. WEconnect Health. Pricing and access statement, weconnecthealth.io, retrieved 5 August 2026.
11. Sunnyside. Pricing page, sunnyside.co, and Apple App Store listing, Cutback Coach, Inc., retrieved 11 August 2026.