Comparison

Pace by NorthBound Labs vs Footfall

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

Head to head
About

Pace by NorthBound Labs

This app helps you achieve your daily step goals with a clear and focused interface. It tracks your progress over various periods, shows live step counts, and provides detailed insights into your activity trends and streaks. Your data remains private and on your device.

Highlights
  • Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly progress tracking
  • Live step updates
  • Trends, streaks, and goal completion overview
  • Adjustable daily goals
  • Detailed day and month views
  • Reads data from Apple Health
Read full description

Pace helps you stay consistent with your daily step goal using a clean, focused experience. 1. Track your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly progress 2. See live step updates while the app is open 3. Review trends, streaks, and goal completion at a glance 4. Adjust your daily goal anytime 5. Explore detailed day and month views for deeper insights Pace reads your step data from Apple Health and uses Motion & Fitness for live step updates. No account required. Your data stays on your device.

About

Footfall

Features
Read full description

Footfall shows the steps your iPhone already counted, and almost nothing else. It has no step counting algorithm of its own, and that is the point. It reads the daily totals from Health, the one place on iOS where an iPhone and an Apple Watch are added up without the same walk being counted twice. The number here is the number there. No second opinion, no arguing with your watch about this morning. The rest of the app puts that number in front of you. A widget on the Home Screen. A circle or a rectangle on the Lock Screen. A medium widget for the week. They refresh through the day, and say so rather than pass off yesterday's total as today's. ON YOUR WRIST Ten years after the first Apple Watch, no built-in complication shows a step count as a number. Footfall does, in four shapes, on any face with room for one. The watch reads Health on the watch, so the count is right even when the iPhone stayed at home, and there is nothing to fall out of sync. The complications are free, like every other widget here. ONE SCREEN, TOP TO BOTTOM A ring that warms from clay to amber and turns gold at your goal, with the count rolling in the middle. The shape of the day: twenty four hourly bars that show when you walked, not only how much. The week in seven bars you can tap, and tapping one moves the top of the screen to that day. The month as dots, each one sized by its steps, and a swipe back through the months before it. Then four numbers: your seven day average, your thirty day average, your best day, and the days you met your goal. NOTHING YOU DID NOT ASK FOR No account. No ads. No analytics. No notifications, no badges, no levels. The streak stays off until you turn it on, because a streak nobody asked for turns into a debt. The app opens no network connection at all, so nothing can leave the phone. Nothing is written back into Health either. FOOTFALL PLUS Counting, the widgets, the watch complications, the goal, kilometers or miles, the day, the week and the month are free and stay free. Footfall Plus is one payment, once, and it adds every past month one by one, the full year day by day, your rhythm by day of the week, records and totals from the first day Health holds, and a CSV export. No subscription. Nothing renews. WHAT IT NEEDS Permission to read steps and walking distance from Health, and nothing else. iOS has been recording those since you got the phone, so your history is usually there the first time you open the app. If you have never walked with the iPhone on you, Footfall will show you an honest empty day. Available in 45 languages. iPhone, iOS 18 and later. Apple Watch, watchOS 11 and later.

Screenshots

Pace by NorthBound Labs4 screens
Footfall4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Pace by NorthBound Labs at none against Footfall's 1. Pace by NorthBound Labs also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs weekly). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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. Footfall sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Pace by NorthBound Labs asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pace by NorthBound Labs ships an update every 3 days, Footfall weekly. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Pace by NorthBound Labs versus Footfall: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPace by NorthBound LabsFootfall
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS17.6 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShankar SethuramanTHEO MARTIN

In-app purchases

None

Pace by NorthBound Labs

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Footfall

One-time1
  • Footfall Plus$4.99

Questions

Is Pace by NorthBound Labs free?
Pace by NorthBound Labs is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Footfall free?
Footfall is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Pace by NorthBound Labs or Footfall have ads?
Neither Pace by NorthBound Labs nor Footfall shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pace by NorthBound Labs or Footfall?
Pace by NorthBound Labs ships an update every 3 days, and Footfall weekly. Most recently, Pace by NorthBound Labs was updated on October 31, 2026 and Footfall on October 31, 2026.

Other comparisons