Comparison

quitSTART vs Pivot Journey

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

quitSTART

This app supports individuals aiming to quit smoking by offering personalized tips, inspiration, and challenges based on their smoking history. It helps users prepare for quitting, track progress with badges, manage cravings, and stay motivated on their journey to a healthier, smokefree life.

Highlights
  • Personalized quitting tips
  • Progress monitoring and badges
  • Craving and mood management
  • Distraction games and challenges
  • Customizable Quit Kit
  • Social media sharing
Features
Read full description

quitSTART is a free app made for people who want to quit smoking. This app takes the information you provide about your smoking history and gives you tailored tips, inspiration, and challenges to help you become smokefree and live a healthier life. quitSTART helps you: • Get ready to quit with tips and information to prepare you for becoming smokefree • Monitor your progress and earn badges for smokefree milestones and other achievements • Get back on track if you slip and smoke • Manage cravings and bad moods in healthy ways • Distract yourself from cravings with games and challenges • Store helpful tips, inspirations, and challenges in your Quit Kit • Share your progress and favorite tips through social media quitSTART is a product of Smokefree.gov, a smoking cessation resource created by the Tobacco Control Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute in collaboration with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and input from tobacco control professionals, smoking cessation experts, and ex-smokers.

About

Pivot Journey

This app provides a structured plan and support to help users quit smoking at their own pace. It offers educational resources, skill-building activities, and daily check-ins to manage triggers, cravings, and maintain a smoke-free lifestyle long-term.

Highlights
  • Personalized quit plan
  • Skill-building activities
  • Trigger and craving management
  • Daily check-ins and accountability
  • Carbon monoxide breath sensor
  • Progress tracking
  • Life coach support
Features
Read full description

Quitting smoking is really hard - and like anything really hard you’ll be more successful going into it with a plan, skills, confidence and support. Pivot is here to support you on your journey to become smoke free. Quit now or start reducing and quit for good at your own pace – with Pivot you quit your way. Small Steps to Success: Pivot helps you understand how quitting smoking can positively affect your health and life and gives you motivation for change. Activities and educational resources help you learn your personal smoking habits, develop personal strategies to overcome your triggers and stressors, build skills to quit, practice quitting and gain confidence in your ability to control your urges and stay quit. Break up quitting into small steps to make it easy for you to stop smoking. Stay Quit: Quitting smoking for good takes time, the journey doesn’t end the second you stop. Daily check-ins from Pivot help keep you accountable. Educational resources for after you quit help you learn how to deal with tough situations. Pivot supports you long-term to maintain your smoke free lifestyle. Whether you’re ready to quit now or thinking about quitting, Pivot can help. Your Pivot Journey to Quitting: -Learn. Increase your motivation and interest in quitting before you quit smoking, learn quit skills and build confidence. Coaches provide you support along the way -Reduce. If you’re not ready to quit right away, reduce your smoking and practice coping with triggers and habits. Keep reducing and you can eventually quit -Prepare to Quit. If you’re ready to quit, use Pivot to build your quit plan right away. You’ll explore your triggers, build strategies to fight cravings and have a plan to deal with tough situations -Quit. When your quit date comes, put your quit plan into action. Don’t worry if you slip up, Pivot can help you get back on track. Your coach will rally behind you to give you support throughout your smoking cessation process - Maintain. Sustaining change after a long time with any habit takes time and effort. Pivot can support you and help you keep learning to make sure your quit is stable. Daily Tracker for Progress: -Pivot has an FDA cleared smart sensor that measures carbon monoxide in your breath from smoking. The sensor gives you immediate feedback for how smoking affects your carbon monoxide levels, and increases your motivation to reduce and quit cigarettes. -The breath sensor provides a reading of your carbon monoxide levels: green (non-smoker), yellow (on the way to smoke-free) or red (smoking) -Use the sensor to challenge yourself: reduce or quit smoking to get to green levels -Every day is an opportunity to improve and reduce your levels of carbon monoxide Build Motivation: -Explore your reasons for smoking and quitting, build knowledge, and develop coping skills to increase motivation -See your progress by tracking cigarettes and skipped cigarettes Life Coaches: -Trained smoking cessation coaches know the unique challenges smokers face -Get paired with a coach to guide you with expert advice and no-stress support Based on science and rooted in empathy, let Pivot Journey be your guide to quitting smoking. We would be honored to help you achieve your goal. Join our community & follow us on social media. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pivotjourney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pivotjourney/ For information about our Privacy Policy, click here: https://pivot.co/privacy-policy/

Screenshots

quitSTART2 screens
Pivot Journey4 screens

Verdict

The call

quitSTART and Pivot Journey both sit at 4.6 stars, but that hides the real split: 72% of quitSTART's written reviews are positive against 35% of Pivot Journey's. quitSTART also leads on ratings volume (2.4K vs 774) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 15.0). Pivot Journey's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 4 months). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for quitSTART against 4.7 for Pivot Journey. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2.4K and 774 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 72% of quitSTART's written reviews are positive against 35% of Pivot Journey's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

quitSTART ships an update every 4 months, Pivot Journey fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
quitSTART versus Pivot Journey: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterquitSTARTPivot Journey
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (2.4K ratings)4.7 (774 ratings) — better
Positive reviews71.8% of reviews — better34.8% of reviews
Number of ratings2.4K — better774
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPod
Requires iOS11.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size69 MB441 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperICF InternationalPivot Health Technologies Inc.

Customer experience

quitSTART

All ratings2,422 ratings
Positive91.1%
Neutral5.7%
Negative3.2%
Written reviews163 reviews
Positive71.8%
Neutral13.5%
Negative14.7%

Pivot Journey

All ratings769 ratings
Positive92.7%
Neutral3.6%
Negative3.6%
Written reviews23 reviews
Positive34.8%
Neutral8.7%
Negative56.5%

User reviews

quitSTART

From 2.4K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Helpful for quitting smoking
  • 💡 Provides motivation and inspiration
  • 🚀 Consistent support and check-ins
  • 👍 Free and easy to use

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Games and features not working properly
  • 🔧 Confusing and not user-friendly
  • 💰 Inaccurate cost savings calculations
  • 🔄 Ongoing count not from quit date

Pivot Journey

From 774 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💪 Effective smoking cessation tool
  • 👨‍🏫 Supportive life coach assistance
  • 💊 Free NRT patches and gum provided
  • 📊 CO2 level tracking and progress visualization
  • 🎯 Personalized approach to quitting

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent app crashes on launch
  • 🔌 Device pairing and connectivity issues
  • 💰 High subscription pricing
  • ❌ Login and authentication failures
  • ⚙️ Server connectivity problems

Bugs and requests

quitSTART

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Distract me games not loading
  • Challenges not working properly
  • Inconsistent behavior across devices

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add more mood options for check-ins
  • Allow editing of quit date and settings
  • Improve navigation and make it more intuitive
  • Provide instructions and a help section

Pivot Journey

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • App crashes on startup
  • Device sensor fails to pair after battery depletion
  • Device reset button unresponsive
  • Login page next button non-functional
  • Tobacco type submission error
Show 2 more
  • Server not responding errors
  • App stops opening after initial use

Requested features

4 requests
  • Support for higher nicotine concentrations (50mg pods)
  • Cigarette consumption tracking graph
  • Accessibility features for deaf/hard of hearing users
  • Free tier for users with disabilities

In-app purchases

None

quitSTART

No in-app purchases

None

Pivot Journey

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is quitSTART free?
quitSTART is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Pivot Journey free?
Pivot Journey is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, quitSTART or Pivot Journey?
Pivot Journey is rated higher. quitSTART averages 4.6 out of 5 from 2.4K ratings, while Pivot Journey averages 4.7 from 774 ratings.
Do quitSTART or Pivot Journey have ads?
Neither quitSTART nor Pivot Journey shows ads.
Which is updated more often, quitSTART or Pivot Journey?
quitSTART ships an update every 4 months, and Pivot Journey fortnightly. Most recently, quitSTART was updated on November 10, 2026 and Pivot Journey on November 6, 2026.

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