Focus Drift vs Barriers
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Focus Drift
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Focus Drift isn't another to-do list, and it isn't another time tracker. It tracks the gap between the day you planned and the day you actually had — so you can finally see where your time goes and take it back. Plan your day with priorities. Log interruptions the moment they hit, with their source and real cost. Reflect at day's end. Then let AI turn it all into a report that actually tells you something. FREE TO USE • Plan your day with time estimates and a real capacity bar • Log interruptions and unplanned work — who or what caused it, and what it cost • End-of-day reflection and a daily Focus Score • Today's report, ideas, and deadlines • Works fully offline, single device, no account needed UPGRADE TO PRO • Sync across your devices • Cloud backup and restore • Weekly and custom-range reports with trends • Full report history, plus PDF and image exports • Connect your AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, any MCP client) to read your plan, add tasks, and pull your reports — hands-free WHY FOCUS DRIFT To-do apps track what you planned. Time trackers total your hours. Focus Drift tracks the difference: interruptions and their sources, unplanned work and its cost, your real daily capacity, and what carries over — then explains the patterns. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your data lives on your device. No ads, no trackers, nothing sold. Sync is optional and encrypted in transit. Tasks you mark private are never shared with AI or in reports. Plan your day. Then see what actually happened. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Barriers
Organize tasks with a calm, newspaper-like interface. Share responsibilities with family, track finances, and manage receipts. Your data stays private on your device or iCloud.
- Calm, newspaper-style task interface
- Family task sharing and assignment
- Finance tracking and savings overview
- Receipt scanning and filing
- Recurring task scheduling
- Live Activities and Lock Screen integration
- Alexa voice integration
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One place for the things you have to do and the money they cost. Check off "pay the gas bill, $86.40" and Barriers offers to book it into June. Barriers is a planner for tasks and money, made for ADHD minds and for anyone whose week does not fit in their head. It reads like a newspaper rather than a checklist: one quiet page a day. No streaks, no confetti, no points. THE TASKS — FREE, AND UNLIMITED • Deadlines with a countdown, and a morning page that says what is overdue and what is due today • Routines that repeat themselves — daily, weekly, monthly, yearly — and, with family sharing, can take turns around the house • A Backburner for what matters but is not urgent, and "At some point" for what has no date at all • Five-minute tasks: mark the small things, and one comes back to you a few times a day • An evening edition that moves whatever is left to tomorrow, in one tap • Check a task off from the Lock Screen, a widget or your wrist — no app to open • One search box across tasks, expenses and receipts SAY IT ONCE "Pay the gas bill $86.40 on Friday, book the dentist Tuesday morning, milk for $3 on the way home." Barriers hears three tasks, two dates and two amounts, and shows you every one of them before a single thing is saved. Dictation is on-device by default. Or photograph a written list and let it read the lines in. One task at a time is free; several in one breath comes with the money side. THE MONEY — ONE PAYMENT, NOT A SUBSCRIPTION • A statement for each month: what came in, what went out, what is left — with your pay stub photographed straight in • A bill sits in the months it is actually paid. A quarterly bill lands in those three months, not smoothed into twelve, so a month's total is what really left the account. Copy one forward and it strides four years ahead. • 23 currencies, folded into yours at reference rates • A year-end figure worked out from your own numbers, and a switch that hides every number while you are reading in public • The Annual: a one-page year-end broadsheet with its own headline, saved out as an image • Receipts: photograph one and the store, total and date are read off it. File it to the month it belongs to; an unfiled banner keeps count of the ones still waiting. Finance and Receipts are free for fourteen days. After that it is one payment. A single purchase, not a subscription, and not a renewal to remember to cancel. SHARE IT WITH THE HOUSE A household of two is free, whether you start it or join one. A third person needs family sharing: a separate auto-renewing subscription, monthly or yearly, two weeks free if you are new to it. It seats six, adds shared receipts and task photos, and lets you be in three households, not one. Whoever holds it pays for everyone they invite. • Give a task to one person — they accept it, or decline and say why • Put one to everybody at once • Rotate a routine around the house, so "whose turn" has an answer • A nudge, at most one per task every twelve hours • Hand a task back • A ledger of who is carrying what Joining someone's family gives you the family desk. It does not unlock Finance and Receipts — those stay on your own plan, and a table inside the app says so before you buy anything. PRIVATE, AND PLAINLY SO No ads, ever. No tracking. No third-party analytics. Usage statistics are off until you turn them on; turn them off and what is still on your device goes, and what was already sent is deleted after ninety days. Your tasks, months and receipts live on your device and sync through your own iCloud; what you hand to a family goes to that family, and if you sign in and have paid, your receipt photos are backed up so a reinstall does not take them. No account is needed for anything except family sharing. WHERE IT RUNS iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. 19 languages. Barriers does not give financial, tax or investment advice. It is your own numbers, added up the way you would add them up yourself.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: Barriers at 5 against Focus Drift's 3. Barriers also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence, 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
Both are free to download. Focus Drift sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Barriers sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Focus Drift ships an update every 2 days, Barriers every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on September 14, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Focus Drift | Barriers |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 2 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 3 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 19 MB | 56 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Nico Poorta | IV Technologies Ltd |
In-app purchases
Focus Drift
- Focus Drift Monthly7 Days trial$9.991 Month
- Focus Drift Annual7 Days trial$59.991 Year
Barriers
- Barriers Premium$1.99









