Your distracting apps stay locked by default. To unlock them, you earn credits from walking, working out, focusing, or visiting nature — then spend them for a timed window. One credit, one minute.
Grounded does none of those things. No streak-or-die guilt, no social-accountability shame, no backend collecting data it doesn't need. Just a clear trade: earn your screen time, one minute at a time.
Pick them from Apple's Family Controls picker — Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit, whatever. They stay shielded at the iOS system level when DeviceActivity is operating normally — see our reliability notes for the rare cases where iOS may delay re-shielding.
10 credits per 1,000 steps from Apple Health — and logged workouts (cycling, swimming, strength and more) earn 1 credit per 2 minutes, sharing the daily movement cap with steps. 1 credit per 2 minutes of focus (Premium boosts mindfulness to 1 credit per 90 seconds). +15 to +30 credits for checking in at a park, trail, or beach. Hold a 7-day streak and everything earns ×1.1 (×1.25 from day 30 on Premium).
Spend credits for a 15 or 30-minute window (60-minute windows are a Premium perk). Your apps stay open for the full window — on the clock, not on how much you use them. Lock early and unused credits come back. (Strict Mode, a Premium toggle, is the exception: it commits the window to its full length.)
Wall-clock windows, not pretend usage tracking. iOS doesn't give us real-time app usage, so we don't lie about having it. Family Controls shields are applied at the system level.
Reads step count from Apple Health. 10 credits per 1,000 steps, capped at 60 movement credits per day (Premium: 120) — a cap shared with workout earning. Your step data never leaves your phone.
Finds real parks, trails, and beaches near you. Check in for 15 to 30 credits per visit. Premium adds your own custom spots and a wider search radius (up to 20 km).
Three types — Deep Focus, Mindfulness, Movement. Each runs at 1 credit per 2 minutes. Premium boosts Mindfulness to 1 credit per 90 seconds and unlocks the longer durations (60 + 90 min Deep Focus, 15 + 20 min Mindfulness, 30 + 45 min Movement).
Cycling, swimming, strength, HIIT, yoga, rowing, elliptical, stair climbing — workouts logged in Apple Health earn 1 credit per 2 minutes. Walking and running are deliberately excluded: your steps already count them. Shares the daily movement cap with steps.
Recurring no-spend windows — school nights, work mornings, wind-down hours. Shields stay on and credits can't be spent, but earning continues. One schedule on the free plan; Premium is unlimited.
A 5 or 10-minute micro-window for "just one message" moments — cheaper than committing to a full 15. 3 per day on the free plan (Premium unlimited). They spend the same credits and share the free plan's 60 daily unlock minutes.
Premium. Shield everything on your phone except an essentials list you choose, until a time you set. The strict variant can't be ended early — that's the point.
Drag the sliders. See what a realistic day could give back.
10 credits per 1,000 steps, from Apple Health.
Cycling, swimming, strength & more — 1 credit per 2 minutes, sharing the daily movement cap with steps.
Assuming Deep Focus (1 credit per 2 minutes). Premium boosts Mindfulness to 1 credit per 90 sec.
15 to 30 credits per visit, averaged at 20.
Streak boosts apply to each source before its daily cap — you reach the ceiling faster; the ceiling doesn't move. Free tops out at ×1.1; ×1.25 needs Premium and a 30-day streak.
A respectable scroll allowance. Or one long bath with a podcast and a real book.
Free plan can spend up to 60 unlock minutes/day across 2 windows (quick checks share the same 60 minutes). Free credits reset at midnight; Premium carries up to 30 unspent credits to tomorrow.
Clean, quiet, fast. Made for the moments you don't want your phone in the way.
Try Premium free for a week. The free plan stays free forever with 3 blocked apps and every earning method.
Or keep using Grounded free — 3 blocked apps, 15 / 30‑minute unlock windows (60 min/day, 2 windows/day), all four earning methods (steps, workouts, focus, nature), 3 Quick Checks/day, 1 Protected Time schedule, the ×1.1 streak boost from day 7, weekly Steps chart and today's credit summary in Progress.
Prefer to pay once? Premium Lifetime — US$99.99, a single purchase that unlocks everything in Premium forever. No renewals, no subscription. Available inside the app under Other plans.
A quick note on how subscriptions work: Grounded Premium Monthly and Yearly are auto-renewable subscriptions, and both include a 7-day free trial for new subscribers. Nothing is charged during the trial; your Apple Account is charged when the trial ends (or on confirmation of purchase if no trial applies) and at each renewal, within 24 hours of the end of the current period, unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends. Manage or cancel anytime in iPhone Settings › your name › Subscriptions. Premium Lifetime is a one-time purchase, not a subscription — it never renews and there is nothing to cancel. Prices in USD; your local currency is applied at checkout. See Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Grounded is the screen-time app that couldn't spy on you even if it wanted to. Here's what actually happens to your data.
Most 'wellness' apps either wanted my email forever or turned the attention problem into its own attention hook — streak-or-die mechanics, public shame, dopamine treadmills. Grounded uses credits and streaks to reward showing up, but it won't guilt-trip you for stepping away, never asks you to post a score to a leaderboard, and leaves no trace on our side when you stop.
— Alexie, maker of Grounded
No. Grounded is a self-regulation tool for adults. It doesn't support child accounts, remote device management, or any observer role. One adult, one device.
No. There is no account, no login, no password, and no backend. Your identity is a random UUID stored locally on your iPhone's Keychain.
Both are optional. Health is used to read your step count and logged workouts (to convert into credits) and — only when you complete a Mindfulness session — to write a Mindful Session entry to Apple's Mindful Minutes category. Deep Focus and Movement sessions never write to HealthKit. Skip Health and you can still earn through focus sessions and nature check-ins. Location is used to detect when you arrive at a nature spot, and to find nearby parks via Apple MapKit (a network-backed Apple service governed by Apple's privacy policy). Neither your health data nor your live coordinates are ever transmitted to Grounded's servers — we don't run any.
Yes — the gentle kind. You earn credits for activity, keep a streak for consecutive-day consistency, and unlock a small set of achievements. What Grounded doesn't do: public leaderboards, social-accountability features, or any dopamine-treadmill push to keep you inside the app. Your Focus Score and streak live on your device only — nothing is broadcast, ranked, or shared. Streaks also boost your earning rate: from day 7 everything earns ×1.1 (both tiers), and from day 30 Premium earns ×1.25 — applied before the daily caps, so the boost helps you reach the ceiling faster without raising it. Premium users also get Streak Freeze — one rest day per rolling 7 days that keeps a missed day from resetting the count. The goal is to reward showing up without punishing you for stepping away.
Yes, via Apple's Family Controls framework. Grounded received Apple's approval to use this entitlement. When an unlock window expires, the system reapplies a shield to every app you selected — under normal operation they stay shielded until you spend credits to start another window. Apple's DeviceActivity has known reliability edges (we have multiple fallback signals) — see our support page for the rare cases where re-shielding may be delayed and what to do.
Deleting Grounded from your home screen does not auto-cancel your subscription (that's an Apple-wide behaviour). Use iPhone Settings › Subscriptions to cancel. If you want to also wipe the on-device data, open Grounded and tap Settings › Delete Account & Data first.
More in the help centre.
Free to download. Premium is optional — unlimited apps, themes, and custom nature spots if you want them later.
Questions? Email alexiedemo1@gmail.com.