Threshold vs Sprout
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Threshold
This app creates personalized, periodized running plans based on your goals, fitness, and schedule. It adapts to your progress, incorporates Norwegian threshold training principles, and offers coaching support. Track your runs, adjust your plan, and prepare for races with structured guidance.
- Adaptive training plans
- Norwegian threshold sessions
- Precise training paces
- Progressive training weeks
- Log, edit, and adjust workouts
- Coach chat support
- Apple Health integration
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The Norwegian running method, adapted to your life. Threshold builds a complete, periodized running plan around your goal, current fitness, training history, and weekly schedule. It applies the principles behind Norwegian threshold training while scaling the dose to your level. This is a connected training plan rather than the same week repeated. Your training moves through base, build, peak, taper, and transition phases, with progressive volume and recovery weeks built in. HOW IT WORKS Tell Threshold about your running background, race goal, available days, and current training. The app creates a multi-week plan with clear warm-ups, intervals, target paces, recoveries, and coaching notes. WHAT YOU GET Adaptive Training Plan Your next sessions and weeks respond to what you actually complete, the effort you report, schedule changes, and missed training. Norwegian Threshold Sessions Controlled threshold work inspired by the Norwegian Method, including double-threshold days when they fit your experience, volume, and recovery capacity. Precise Training Paces Training zones and targets use your race results and current fitness so every easy run, threshold session, and interval workout has a clear purpose. Progressive Training Weeks Volume and intensity develop across real phases. Recovery weeks and guardrails help keep changes measured when your training load increases. Log, Edit, and Adjust Record completed sessions, correct the details later, skip or move a workout, and continue into the next block without losing your history. Coach Chat Ask questions about the plan, report fatigue, and get answers grounded in your completed training and current week. Apple Health Import Connect Apple Health to import completed runs and relevant workout details into your training history. WHO IT IS FOR - Runners preparing for a 5K, 10K, half marathon, marathon, or longer race - Runners who want a structured plan without hiring a full-time coach - Experienced athletes who want to apply Norwegian threshold principles with a practical weekly schedule - Developing runners who need the method scaled to their current training ABOUT THE METHOD Norwegian threshold training centers on accumulating high-quality work near threshold while keeping intensity controlled enough to recover and repeat. Threshold turns those principles into a plan you can understand, complete, and adjust week by week. Threshold provides training guidance and is not medical advice. Privacy Policy: https://thethresholdapp.com/privacy Terms of Use: https://thethresholdapp.com/terms Support: https://thethresholdapp.com/support
Sprout
This app helps users understand their food choices and build healthier habits by tracking nutrition and providing insights into food categories linked to cancer risk. It offers flexible logging options, including AI-assisted photo recognition, and allows users to set daily goals and care for a virtual pet.
- Manual food logging
- AI-assisted photo food recognition
- Food-category evidence indicators
- Daily food-group goals
- Virtual pet for habit building
- Privacy controls for AI features
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Log what you eat and watch your pet perk up. Sprout is a food tracker built around food groups, not calories, with a virtual pet that cheers you on. Sprout was designed and built by Heeva Alavi, a 17-year-old student developer, for people ages 13 and up. You can use every feature without creating an account. YOUR PET GROWS WITH YOUR HABITS • Pick your pet: a cat, bunny, bear, chick, pup or octopus, in nine colors, and give it a name. • Your pet gets happy when you log, gets hungry when you forget, and naps at night. • When it's hungry, it asks for a food from a group you haven't eaten yet today. • Keep your pet on your Home Screen and Lock Screen with Sprout widgets. LOG FOOD THE EASY WAY • Snap a photo of your meal and AI lists every food in it for you to check. • Or type a whole meal, like "turkey sandwich and an apple", and Sprout splits it up. • Or add foods by hand, with portions in cups, slices, ounces and more. • AI is optional. Turn it off and manual logging still works. SPROUT ON APPLE WATCH • Tap "What did you eat?" and just say it. Your note waits on your iPhone so you can check it before anything is logged. • Add a Sprout complication to your watch face to see your pet and how it's feeling. • Tap your pet on your wrist to give it a boop. FOOD GROUPS, NOT CALORIES • Daily goals for grains, vegetables, fruits, protein and dairy, based on USDA Dietary Guidelines for your age and sex. • See how each food counts toward your goals. • Track your streaks and look back over your week and month. KNOW WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS • When a food belongs to a category that cancer research organizations have studied, like processed meat, Sprout adds a note you can tap to read the evidence and its sources. • These notes come from a fixed, versioned list and fixed matching rules, never from AI. PRIVACY AND CONTROL • Choose whether to use AI features, and change your mind any time in Privacy & AI settings. • Delete any entry, or delete your account and its data in the app. • No ads, and Sprout does not track you across other apps and websites. IMPORTANT Sprout gives educational nutrition information. Evidence notes describe research about food categories, not your personal risk, and they can be wrong for homemade or unclear foods. Sprout is not a medical service and does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease. Talk to a qualified health professional before making health decisions.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Sprout at none against Threshold's 3. Sprout also leads on ratings volume (5 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). Threshold's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs weekly). On price, rating, ads and device support 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. Threshold sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $7.99 per 7 days. Sprout asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Threshold against 5.0 for Sprout. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sprout has 5 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Threshold ships an update every 2 days, Sprout weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Threshold | Sprout |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 5 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPod, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 33 MB | 34 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Athlete Mindset Inc. | Ali Alavi |
Customer experience
Threshold
Sprout
In-app purchases
Threshold
- Threshold Pro$7.997 Days
- Threshold Pro7 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Threshold Pro7 Days trial$69.991 Year
Sprout
No in-app purchases









