Focustown vs Cold Focus
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Focustown
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Can't stop reaching for your phone? Turn your focus into something you can watch grow. FocusTown is a gamified deep-work timer: every focus session you finish earns coins that build a cozy pixel town, block by block. Stay off your phone, and a tiny hamlet slowly becomes a thriving city. Pay once and it's yours forever โ no subscription, no ads, and nothing about you is ever collected. HOW IT WORKS 1. Start a focus session โ Pomodoro-style or a custom length. 2. Put your phone down and do the work. 3. Earn coins for every session you complete. 4. Spend them to build and upgrade houses, libraries, parks and more. WHY YOU'LL STICK WITH IT โ See your progress: abstract "focus time" becomes a town you can actually look at and feel proud of. โ Build real habits: streaks and gentle momentum keep you coming back, day after day. โ Calm by design: no social feeds, no attention-grabbing notifications, no endless scroll. โ Your data stays yours: the app collects nothing. Nothing to leak, nothing to sell. โ Pay once: unlock everything with a single one-time purchase โ never a subscription. FEATURES โ Flexible focus timer for work, study, reading, writing or mindfulness. โ A cozy town builder with unique, beautifully styled buildings to collect and arrange. โ Clear statistics: track daily, weekly and monthly focus trends. โ Ambient sounds to help you settle in and block out distractions. WHO IT'S FOR Students revising for exams, remote workers fighting distraction, writers chasing flow, and anyone who wants to reclaim their attention โ without renting their tools by the month. Plant your first building today and watch FocusTown grow. Questions or ideas? Reach us through the support link on our App Store page.
Cold Focus
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Your phone was designed by teams of engineers to hold your attention. One app standing against that has to be serious. Cold Focus is a calm, disciplined focus timer for students and anyone doing deep work. Start a session and the distractions get locked away. Not hidden behind your willpower. Actually blocked. No cheating your way out. Cold Focus is a subscription app. There is no limited free version: you get everything from day one. WHY COLD FOCUS IS DIFFERENT Most timers trust you to behave. This one doesn't have to. When you start a session, Cold Focus locks the apps that pull you away and watches for the little escapes: picking up your phone, bailing early. It keeps you honest, so the time you set aside actually becomes focused time. FOCUS SESSIONS - Set a session, put the phone down, go deep. - Distracting apps stay locked until you're done. - Optional penalties raise the stakes when you break focus, as gentle or as strict as you want. FOCUS SOUNDS - A calm ambient sound plays while your session runs, and keeps playing with the screen off or when you leave the app. - Rain, wind, a river, forest, brown and pink noise, or quiet music. Let them flow one after another, or pick one and stay there. - Mute it any time from the session screen. It mixes with your own music, so it never interrupts what you are already listening to. MEET STEVE Steve is your focus companion. Calm when you're locked in, honest with you when you drift. A little character, a lot of accountability. Focus doesn't have to feel cold and clinical. BUILD A DISCIPLINED IDENTITY - Keep streaks and climb through focus levels. - You're not just logging hours. You're becoming the kind of person who finishes what they start. SEE YOUR FOCUS CLEARLY - Clean weekly, monthly and yearly stats. - An AI focus coach reads your patterns and tells you, in plain language, where your attention is leaking and how to fix it. YOU'RE NOT ALONE See how many people are in a focus session right now, around the world. Quiet company for deep work. BUILT FOR THE ENEMY OF FOCUS Endless feeds, notifications, the reflex to check your phone every few seconds. Cold Focus is built to break that loop, for exams, deadlines, reading, or any work that deserves your full attention. YOUR SUBSCRIPTION Everything above is included. No locked corners, no ads, no upsells inside the app. Subscribe monthly or yearly. It's never too late to take your attention back. Your focus data stays yours. We only sync what you allow. Cold Focus is an auto-renewing subscription (monthly or annual). Payment is charged to your Apple ID at purchase. It renews automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the period ends. Manage or cancel anytime in your App Store account settings. Terms: https://coldfocusapp.github.io/coldfocus/terms-of-service.en.html Privacy: https://coldfocusapp.github.io/coldfocus/privacy-policy.en.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Focustown at every 5 days against Cold Focus's every 2 weeks. Focustown also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.1). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Focustown sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Cold Focus sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $7.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Focustown ships an update every 5 days, Cold Focus every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Focustown | Cold Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days โ better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 โ better | 15.1 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 42 MB | 241 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ALEXANDAR VINCENT PAULRAJ | HASAN BURAK ERDIN |
In-app purchases
Focustown
- Unlock Focustown Premium$2.99
Cold Focus
- Cold Focus Premium (Monthly)$7.991 Month
- Cold Focus Premium (Yearly)$49.991 Year
- Cold Focus Premium (Yearly)$59.991 Year









