Why I Built a Free Habit Tracker With No Habit Limit

Every free habit tracker I tried worked the same way. You'd set up a few habits, get into a rhythm, go to add one more, and find out the free version stopped somewhere around three to five. After that it wanted a subscription.

I understand why apps do this. Someone has to pay for them. But a habit limit is an odd thing to charge for, because it gets in the way right when the tool starts working for you. So I built Habit Horizon to track as many habits as I wanted, for free, and that is still the whole point of it.

A cap changes what you track

The cost of a three-habit limit isn't only the money. It changes how you track long before you see a payment screen.

With three slots, you start ranking. Exercise gets one, reading gets one, and then you're choosing between drinking enough water, taking your medication and the language practice you keep meaning to get back to. Whatever loses doesn't get tracked at all. The habits that end up outside the tracker tend to be the small, boring ones, and those are often the ones that slip without anyone noticing.

You also start merging things that don't belong together. "Health" becomes one checkbox covering stretching, vitamins and a walk, so a check on that box might mean you did one of them or all of them. The grid looks tidy, but it has stopped telling you much.

Tracking a lot is not the same as doing a lot

No habit limit doesn't mean you should start twenty new habits on Monday. Trying to change everything at once is a reliable way to change very little.

The useful split is between habits you're building and habits you already have. A new habit needs effort and attention. An existing one, like taking your vitamins or getting to bed before midnight, mostly needs somewhere to be seen, so you notice if it starts to drift. A tracker with room for both lets you keep the second group visible while you spend your effort on the first.

It also leaves room for things that aren't really goals. How often you called your parents this month. Days you got outside before noon. Nobody is building a streak on those, but a few months of marks can still show you something you wouldn't have guessed.

Some habits aren't one thing

The other reason I wanted room was sub-habits. My "Climbing" habit is really indoor lead, outdoor bouldering, finger training at home and a few other things, and one box for all of it never felt honest. In Habit Horizon any habit can have sub-habits nested under it, so a varied habit gets several rows without crowding the main list. There's more on that in Why Sub-Habits Might Be the Missing Piece in Your Habit Tracker.

What free means here

There's no premium tier, so there's nothing to unlock. You can start using it without signing up, and your habits are saved in your browser. If you want the same habits on another device, you can create an account to sync them. That's the only thing an account is for.

It's a one-person project, supported by optional donations. It's a web app that works best on a computer for now; the phone layout works but is still rough. It doesn't send reminders, and you can't export your data yet. I'd rather say that here than have you find out later.

If you're hitting a limit right now

If your current tracker has you deciding which habits deserve a slot, try writing down everything you would track if space weren't a problem. You'll probably find a few habits you dropped without ever really deciding to. Those deserve a row somewhere, whichever tool you end up using.