Fitness app complaints: 7,161 reviews show the paywall is the problem

Workout apps promise to get people moving. Their negative reviews say something else: users are stopped before the first workout. We collected 7,161 recent reviews of six home and gym workout apps, read the 2,632 negative ones and counted 2,778 distinct complaints.

Key findings:

• 59% of complaints are about pricing, the highest share of our three studies.
• Users hit a paywall right after onboarding, sometimes after five minutes of questions, with no free workout to try: 210 mentions across 30 Day Fitness and GetFit.
• Weekly prices of $5 to $7 (£4.49 to £4.99) are compared to a gym membership, and lose: 228 mentions across 30 Day Fitness, Fitness Coach and GetFit.
• Cancelling is the next wall: 236 mentions of users who can't find how to cancel, and 218 charged after cancelling.

The apps we analyzed

Fitness Point Pro is the only paid app of the group ($6.99, no subscription), and the only one of the five main apps where pricing is not the first complaint.

Complaints by family

The complaints that come back most

1. "Free" in the ad, paid in the app (305 mentions)

The store listing and the ads say free: 30 Day Fitness (115 mentions), Fitness Coach (95), StrongHer (55) and GetFit (40). The price shows up after users have entered their age, weight and goals.

It’s only after you’ve entered all your info that it reveals it costs £200 a year

2. A paywall before the first workout (210 mentions)

30 Day Fitness (140 mentions) and GetFit (70 mentions) show the subscription screen right after onboarding, often with no way to close it and no sample workout.

you can’t see any workouts unless you agree to get charged almost 7$ a week

3. No way to cancel (236 mentions)

Users can't find a cancel option in the app, on the website or in their Apple subscriptions, and support doesn't answer: 30 Day Fitness (120 mentions), GetFit (60), Fitness Coach (38) and StrongHer (18).

App doesn’t even show up under my subscriptions in the App Store so I can’t cancel from here.

4. A weekly price higher than a gym (228 mentions)

30 Day Fitness (125 mentions), Fitness Coach (65, for its weekly or monthly price) and GetFit (38): users do the math, and the gym wins.

£4.99 a week which is £259.48 a year

A gym membership where I live is £18 per month.

5. Charged after cancelling (218 mentions)

GetFit (95 mentions), 30 Day Fitness (90 mentions) and Fitness Coach (33 mentions) users report charges after cancelling the trial, the subscription, or deleting the app.

I HAVE DELETED THIS APP 9 MONTHS AGO AND TO THIS DAY I AM GETTING CHARGED $15A FORTNIGHT

6. "Just make it free with ads" (156 mentions)

Many Fitness Coach users (110 mentions) are teenagers, students or on a low income, and would rather see ads than pay. StrongHer (30) and GetFit (16) users also ask for a free version.

rather have ads then have to pay just to do a few jumping jacks

7. Workouts that don't adapt

Beyond pricing, the features users miss are concrete: more variety (40 mentions of repetitive workouts in 30 Day Fitness), easier levels for beginners, seniors or injuries (25 mentions), and the ability to swap an exercise for lack of equipment (25 mentions in StrongHer).

I just want an a workout, simple easy, medium or hard option.

What this means if you build a workout app

The market doesn't lack workout content. It lacks an app people can try before paying, at a fair price, that they can leave easily. That's the strongest signal of all our studies so far:

• A home workout app with honest pricing and a real free tier: it answers 1,103 complaints across five of the six apps, and gets the best score in our ranking, 8/10.
• A one-time-purchase workout logger with iCloud sync, for users who refuse subscriptions: 103 complaints, 7/10.

The full report ranks 15 app ideas for this niche, from a fast one-tap gym logger to low-impact workouts for beginners and seniors, each with its score, complaints and quotes. To see how these numbers are produced, read how to find app ideas in negative reviews.

Method

• Sources: public App Store reviews, the most recent ones, up to 500 per app and per country (US, UK, Canada, Australia, France).
• Analysis: every 1–3★ review is read by an AI model (Claude, by Anthropic), which writes down each distinct complaint. Similar complaints are merged and counted. One review can contain several complaints.
• Limit: reviews over-represent unhappy users. The counts measure how often a problem is raised, not how many users have it.

FAQ

Why are fitness apps so expensive?

Most of the apps we analyzed charge weekly, $5 to $7 or £4.49 to £4.99 a week. Over a year, that is more than many gym memberships, which is exactly what users point out in 228 complaints.

What do users hate most about workout apps?

Pricing, in 59% of complaints: paywalls before the first workout, apps advertised as free, cancellations that don't work and charges after cancelling.

Are there fitness apps without a subscription?

Yes, but few. In our sample, Fitness Point Pro is sold once for $6.99, and it is the only one of the five main apps where pricing is not the main complaint. Users of the other apps regularly ask for a one-time purchase.

Is there room for a new fitness app?

The data says yes, on one condition: be honest about pricing. A real free tier, a clear price and an easy way to cancel answer more than a thousand complaints in our sample.