Paid apps can be a bit tricky to commit to, especially when you don’t know what you’re getting into. But many premium iPhone apps come with big advantages, like a one-time purchase for all your Apple devices, iCloud sync, and unlimited access to features, which skips any ongoing subscriptions.

Here are six paid iPhone apps that justify the purchase, along with free app alternatives that give you the same experience or concept.

1Forest ($3.99)

Also available for:iPad, Apple Watch

Forestis one of the best focus andPomodoro appsto help you reduce your screen time. With this gamified app, you plant a seed, which eventually grows into a tree, as long as you stay on the app to complete your focus session. When you exit the app, your plant will begin to wither. As you improve your focus and productivity, you can grow a forest of trees to commemorate your productivity. With progression comes new tree species, rewards, and white noise.

With iOS 16 or above, you can create personalized allow-lists for apps so you can get important notifications even while working. You can collaborate and compete with friends and family members by sharing your forest with them. The best part about Forest is that you’re not just growing a virtual forest with your focus; the app’s collaboration with Trees for the Future ensures that real trees are planted.

Free alternative: Flora

Florais a free, green focus app with the same concept as Forest, complete with a gamified plant timer with negative repercussions when you exit the app during a focus session. With progress, you build a garden instead of a forest, which also works as your habit tracker.

The app comes with a to-do list and reminders to track your tasks, and a widget that can be added to your home screen. you’re able to collaborate with friends through focus sessions that require all parties to stay committed to the timer. Flora also commits to planting real trees with its opt-in Price and Care services.

2Awesome Calendar ($9.99)

Also available for:iPad

Awesome Calendaris an all-in-one time-management calendar with additional features like notes, weather, and reminders, helping you plan your schedule better. If you don’t want to download multiple apps to keep track of your time, this app is worth the purchase.

You can write diary entries, make to-do lists, attach photos to notes, and check the weather. But the best part about this calendar is how you can customize it, including stickers, themes, templates, event colors, and different views.

Awesome Calendar syncs with iCloud for notes and calendar support. It is also compatible with other Apple-supported calendars like Google Calendar and CalDAV. You can also enable custom alarms and reminders and set customizable recurring rules for events and reminders. The app comes with time zone support for better collaboration and scheduling.

Free alternative: Fantastical Calendar

Fantastical Calendaris an award-winning calendar app known for its sleek interface design. It offers the full package, including reminders, contact sync, location-based events, and task lists. The display options include full-screen daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly views. Event templates can be reused once added, and the app theme can be changed.

Fantastical uses AccuWeather integration to give you a three-day weather forecast. you may add third-party apps like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, so it’s easier to view any scheduled calls or meetings. Fantastical is complete with widget options for your iPhone, custom app icons, and iCloud sync.

Fantastical Calendar offers a Premium subscription ($6.99/month or $56.99/year) with a 14-day free trial, with family subscription options that let you access calendar sets, conference calls, extended weather forecasts, and more.

3Things 3 ($9.99)

Also available for:Apple Watch

A winner of the 2017 Apple Design Awards,Things 3is one of the best task management apps to get your life and productivity in order. The app has been praised for its perfect balance between interface design and functionality, with features like to-do, projects, areas, and plans helping you structure your priorities better.

You can compartmentalize your work, family, finance, and other aspects with the app’s Areas spheres. Things 3 has features like reminders, tags, Magic Plus (to manage your to-dos better), markdown, and Quick Find to organize every task or project you log. With simple drag-and-drop options, you can repeat events, insert to-dos, and notes. Things 3 is tailored for your iPhone screen, so you can expect a seamless experience when you start creating your tasks.

One of the best features of the app in this regard is the Share extension, which lets you create to-do lists instantly with content from other apps, including links. You can also take advantage of home-screen widgets, Siri and Reminders integration, and Shortcuts integration for custom workflows.

Free alternative: TickTick

Another powerful task manager to try out if you like the concept of Things 3 isTickTick. With features like to-do lists, calendars, tasks, and a priority matrix, organizing your day and life is easy. TickTick also comes with a Pomodoro timer, Habit Tracker, and a Countdown for important events.

The app lets you customize your interface based on which features are most important to you, making the app design sleek and uncluttered. The priority (or Eisenhower) matrix is one of the best features of TickTick, which lets you get a clear picture of how to tackle your tasks in order of urgency. With a Premium subscription ($3.99/month or $35.99/year), you can access constant reminders, unlimited widgets and themes, statistics, and Notion integration.

I’ve found task managers with all-in-one features to be beneficial for organizing both work (especially if you work remotely) and personal tasks, with both Things 3 and TickTick being effective in scheduling and viewing tasks easily on my iPhone.

4Dumbify ($6.99)

Want totackle doomscrolling, reduce your iPhone screen time, or simply battle noise during focus sessions? If your iPhone is a major source of distractions,Dumbifycan be an effective way to strip your iPhone of its appeal. This is a text-based, minimalist launcher that simplifies your home screen by giving it a blank, minimal look that only displays the most important apps you need for productivity.

After you select a theme (dark or light mode), you can customize the list of apps to see on your home screen, so any apps that encourage doomscrolling or brain rot can be out of sight (and out of mind). This also clears your home screen of distracting widgets and notification count.

Dumbify is exclusive to the iPhone and can be very effective if you’re trying to tackle excessive screen time and procrastination.

Free alternative: Blank Spaces

Blank Spacesis a free minimalist home screen launcher aimed at reducing digital distractions. Like Dumbify, the app lets you pick your most important apps, which can include third-party productivity, utility, or focus apps, too. Once you set this up, Blank Spaces widgets can be added to your home screen, with top and bottom widgets taking up space on your home screen pages.

Apps on these widgets can be clicked to open them and keep distractions away from your home screen. You can create multiple widgets for each home screen page to categorize apps, and change your wallpaper to dark or light mode in the app. Blank Spaces also tracks your daily streak with a calendar. After a seven-day free trial, a subscription ($3.99/month or $17.99/year) is required.

5Paprika ($4.99)

Paprikais a one-stop app for all your cooking needs. This app is a recipe manager to track all your favorite recipes with features like grocery list manager, meal planner, reusable menus, and pantry manager, helping you organize your kitchen tasks more efficiently. With Paprika, you can convert measurements, cook in real-time with the recipe card and score off steps, and use a built-in timer for baking and other tasks. Paprika recipes can be managed by categories and looked up easily with ingredient names.

Apart from these features, you can also sync Paprika with apps like Calendar and Reminders for meal plan export, and other third-party cooking apps for recipe import. Print formats for recipe cards, link attachments for recipes, and an expiration date tracker are a few other perks you get with this recipe manager.

Free alternatives: Recipe Keeper and Crouton

A recipe manager alternative to Paprika that can be used for scanning recipes, importing recipes from websites, and creating cookbooks isRecipe Keeper. This app supports meal planning with a weekly view, lets you create shopping lists and recipe collections, and view nutritional information for ingredients.

Recipe Keeper comes with customizable themes and formatting options, with integration with third-party recipe apps for import or export. It can also generate random recipes based on your suggestions, with offline access letting you look up recipes on the go. With a Pro upgrade ($19.99), you can add unlimited recipes, share your meal planner with calendar apps, and backup recipes to iCloud.

Croutonis another recipe manager to check out if you want to sync your recipes to more Apple devices (Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple Vision). The app is praised for its interactive design (winning anApple Design Awardfor it) and hands-free mode to enable easy cooking.

6Buddhify ($6.99)

Also available for: iPad

Buddhifyis a meditation and mindfulness app for different parts of your day (sleep, work, study) and stressful situations. The app boasts over 200 mediation guides for these purposes, varying between three and 40 minutes. Sessions for beginners include custom voices and styles, with mediation guides for children also being available. For experienced users, a solo timer is available for self-guided meditation. Buddhify also offers mindfulness exercises to beat stress.

The app offers an optional membership subscription ($29.99/year) for more features like group meditation, formal sessions, and karaoke-style sessions.

Free alternatives: Balance

Balanceis a meditation app that offers a one-year free trial and is perfect for beginners and experts alike. Its minimalist interface, combined with personalized sessions, plans, and sleep meditation, can tackle your daily stress. Balance offers a progress calendar, badges, and skills to track progress.

I also like to use free YouTube videos and theHeadspace episodes on Netflix, which is a quick way to access guided meditation if you have a subscription.

If you’re not happy with a paid app that you’ve purchased from the App Store, you canrequest a refundfor eligible purchases. This includes subscriptions that you no longer want. After 24 to 48 hours, you can view whether Apple approved your request.