The comparisons
Every page below works through the same questions, in this order. How does a day get proved? A system that takes your word for it is a diary with a scoreboard. Can the terms be reopened? The moment you most want to renegotiate is the moment the tool has to hold. Who can see it? Someone watching is the one mechanism nobody has to pay for. And only then, what does a miss cost?
Worth saying before anything else, because it's easy to miss: on Commit the money is a setting, not the premise. A commitment can run on no stake, just streak. You still have to prove the day, the people you named still see whether you showed up, and a miss costs you momentum and nothing else. Beeminder is built the other way round; its FAQ says collecting the fees is the business model. StickK's contract is written around what you're putting at risk, which is the idea it invented.
Commit vs Beeminder →
Beeminder verifies numbers, not actions: you feed it data, often auto-imported from Strava, Fitbit, RescueTime and others, and it scores the trend against a slope. That's honest and precise for anything a sensor already counts, and it can't tell whether you did the thing when nothing is counting. Commit asks you to prove the day instead, with evidence reviewed by friends you choose or by Commit AI. Beeminder is also solo by design, so nobody is watching but you. Its pledge escalates every time you derail, up to $7,290, and the money goes to Beeminder.
Pick Beeminder if your goal is a number something already tracks, or you want to start today on any platform.
Commit vs StickK →
StickK invented the online commitment contract in 2007, built by Yale economists Dean Karlan and Ian Ayres with Jordan Goldberg. Verification runs through a human referee you nominate, who reviews what you report. That's powerful when the person is reliable, and a single point of failure when they aren't. Commit answers that objection by taking verification off any one person's shoulders: proof is verified by friends you choose or by Commit AI, and a rejection can be appealed, judged at a deliberately lower bar. Supporters can follow a StickK contract, so someone is watching there too. StickK also originated the anti-charity, where a forfeit goes to an organisation you oppose.
Pick StickK if your goal needs human judgement, you already have a dependable referee, or you want to stake money toward a specific person.
Quick differences
Ordered the way we think you should weigh them: what has to be proved, who sees it, then what a miss costs.
| Commit | Beeminder | StickK | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How proof is verified | Nine proof types, verified by friends you choose or by Commit AI, with appeals judged at a lower bar | Self-reported or auto-imported data | A human referee verifies what you report |
| Can the terms be reopened | No. Terms lock when you sign, and an open check-in cannot be re-priced | Goals can be changed; changes take effect after a built-in delay of about a week | Terms are set when the contract starts |
| Who sees whether you showed up | A group of up to 10, sharing the same commitments | Nobody. Solo by design | Supporters who follow along |
| What a miss costs | Your choice: nothing but the streak, the apps you chose blocked, or $1 to $500 per missed check-in | An escalating pledge, $5 → $7,290 | You set it per contract |
| Where a forfeit goes | A service fee to Commit; during the beta, funds go to building the app | Beeminder | A friend, charity, or anti-charity |
| Platforms | iOS (public beta) | Web, iOS, Android | Web, mobile |
The first row is the one we'd argue hardest about. All three can record that you said you'd run. Only some of them can establish that you ran. If you already recognise yourself as the person who marks a day complete at eleven at night and feels briefly fine about it, the verification row is the whole decision and the rest is detail. If your problem is instead that nobody notices when you go quiet, read rows three and four first: a witness who can see whether you showed up does work that no amount of money does.
Competitor figures verified 12 August 2026 from each company's own published documentation; the individual comparison pages name the sources.
Background reading
- What is a commitment device, and do they actually work? The behavioural-economics research, why proof matters as much as the consequence does, and what the evidence honestly shows.
- Commitment Agreement The contract you'd actually sign, including what you're promising to prove and who gets to verify it.
Commit is in public beta
iOS, free while in beta. No App Store listing yet. We'll email you when a spot opens.
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