Step It Up vs Ascend
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Step It Up
This app tracks your daily steps, distance, stairs climbed, and active calories burned. It offers insights into your progress over time and allows for customization. Compatible with iPhone and Apple Watch, it provides a privacy-first approach to monitoring your activity.
- Track daily steps, distance, and stairs
- Monitor active calories burned
- View trends and insights for progress
- Set daily step goals and track exercise minutes
- Syncs with Apple Watch and Watch face complications
- Home Screen Widgets for quick activity glance
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Track Your Steps, Distance, and Workouts — Right from Your iPhone or Watch. Step It Up helps you stay active and motivated by tracking your steps, distance walked or run, flights of stairs climbed, workouts, active calories burned, and more. Built for iPhone and Apple Watch, it's a sleek and privacy-first way to stay on top of your daily movement. That big orange ring on your Home screen isn't just decoration — it's your whole day. Steps, miles, floors, and how close you are to today's goal, updated in real time. Hit it, and Step It Up tells you so. Step It Up also checks the weather so you don't have to. It'll nudge you toward the best window to get outside, and tell you why — so you're never guessing whether it's worth lacing up. Step It Up isn't just about daily numbers — it's about progress over time. With built-in trends and insights, you can see your weekly average, how many days you hit your goal, and whether you're trending up or down over the last month, so you can build habits that actually stick. Running, cycling, walking — Step It Up records your workouts properly: pace, heart rate, calories, and distance live, with a clean history you can view as a list or on a map. Not sure what your step goal is or how this week compares to last? Just ask. Step It Up's built-in AI answers in plain language, right where you're already looking. Features: • View your daily steps, distance, flights climbed, and steps from the past hour. • Get a weather-smart nudge for the best time to walk. • Set a daily step goal and track your weekly exercise minutes. • Adaptive Step Goal that changes based on your activity, so you're always ready for a challenge or to take a break. • Record workouts — running, cycling, and walking — with live pace, heart rate, and calories. • Explore Insights and Trends to see how your fitness has changed over time. • Check your full History to review previous days' data. • Ask Step It Up's about your stats, goals, and more with built-in support for Apple Intelligence. • Built-in coach powered by Apple Intelligence to give you motivation as you go through your day. • Add Home Screen Widgets in a variety of sizes to quickly glance at your activity. • Syncs with Apple Watch, including support for Watch face complications so your data is always at a glance away. • Integration with Apple Weather so you always know when the weather is best to beat your goal. • Integration with Apple Music so you can have your playlist ready for your next workout. • Workout tracker with your step goal always visible so you can see how far you are from your goals. • Ability to upload your workouts to Strava. Step It Up is yours for good — one price, no subscription. Buy it once and get every feature, every update. Thank you for checking out Step It Up — I hope it helps you move a little more each day. — Casey
Ascend
This app visually tracks your daily stair climbing by using your Apple Health data. Set goals, monitor your progress with dynamic charts, and earn achievements for your efforts. It offers personalized themes to customize your experience.
- Integrates with Apple Health
- Dynamic tracking charts and graphs
- Daily, weekly, monthly, and lifetime tracking
- Personal record tracking
- Real-life equivalent achievements
- Personalized themes and icons
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Ascend is a visually dynamic way to track the stairs you climb each day. By interpreting your Apple Health data, Ascend helps you set goals and track progress. With this app, you’ll see just how high your steps can take you; even all the way to the moon. Features: · Integrates with Apple Health · Dynamic tracking charts and graphs · Daily, weekly, monthly, and lifetime tracking · Personal record tracking · Real life equivalent achievements · Personalized themes and icons
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Ascend at 78% against Step It Up's 28%. Step It Up's advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 5 months) and ratings volume (823 vs 14). 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. Step It Up sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Ascend sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Step It Up holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Step It Up has 823 ratings behind it against 14, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 28% of Step It Up's written reviews are positive against 78% of Ascend's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Step It Up ships an update monthly, Ascend every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Step It Up | Ascend |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (823 ratings) — better | 4.2 (14 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 28.0% of reviews | 77.8% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 823 — better | 14 |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 5 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, Apple Watch — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 34 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bean's Bytes, LLC | Eddie Koranek |
Customer experience
Step It Up
Ascend
Bugs and requests
Step It Up
Reported bugs
3 issues- App crashing or disappearing from Apple Watch
- Incorrect distance and calorie tracking
- Inability to set or save user preferences
Requested features
3 requests- Ability to track weight and other fitness metrics
- Competitive features like challenges with friends
- More customization options for step goals and reminders
Ascend
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Step It Up
- Step It Up Plus$4.99
Ascend
- Small Tip$0.99
- Feature Unlock$1.99
- Coffee sized tip$2.99
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Feature Unlock$2.99
- Feature Unlock$3.99
- Lunch sized tip$4.99









