The Program by Bandit Running vs PulseBeats
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
The Program by Bandit Running
This app offers a free guided training experience for marathon and half marathon runners. It generates personalized training plans based on your race, goal time, and weekly mileage. Get instant answers to training questions with the integrated coach feature.
- Free guided training plans
- Marathon and half marathon focus
- Personalized plan generation
- Interactive training schedule
- Instant coach answers
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The Program is a 100% free guided training experience for marathons and half marathons powered by Bandit Running. Select your race, goal finish time, and weekly mileage, and an interactive training plan will be automatically generated for you. Plus, access Coach for instant answers to all your fundamental training questions.
PulseBeats
This app automatically creates personalized visuals of your workouts, set to the music you listened to. Analyze your performance trends, top songs, and pacing insights.
- Personalized workout visuals
- Music synchronization
- Performance trend analysis
- AI performance insights
- Pacing insights
- Shareable visuals
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PulseBeats helps you relive your workouts through the music that moved you. It automatically generates personalized, shareable visuals of your runs, rides, and training sessions. View trends, top tracks, AI performance analysis, and pacing insights synced to your playlist.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: PulseBeats at 5.0 against The Program by Bandit Running's 3.9. PulseBeats also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 73%) and update cadence (every 3 days vs every 2 weeks). The Program by Bandit Running's advantage is ratings volume (112 vs 8). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
PulseBeats holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: The Program by Bandit Running has 112 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 73% of The Program by Bandit Running's written reviews are positive against 100% of PulseBeats's.
The Program by Bandit Running ships an update every 2 weeks, PulseBeats every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | The Program by Bandit Running | PulseBeats |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.9 (112 ratings) | 5.0 (8 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 72.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 112 — better | 8 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 | 13.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 31 MB | 21 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bandit Running | Zoe Maisel |
Customer experience
The Program by Bandit Running
PulseBeats
Bugs and requests
The Program by Bandit Running
Reported bugs
3 issues- Login screen freezes
- Incompatible with older devices
- Account creation problems
Requested features
2 requests- Dark mode option
- Advanced analytics dashboard
PulseBeats
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
The Program by Bandit Running
No in-app purchases
PulseBeats
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is The Program by Bandit Running free?
Is PulseBeats free?
Which has better reviews, The Program by Bandit Running or PulseBeats?
Do The Program by Bandit Running or PulseBeats have ads?
Which is updated more often, The Program by Bandit Running or PulseBeats?
Other comparisons
