Subscription fatigue is real, and fitness apps earned their share of it. The average lifter's phone now carries two or three recurring fees that each looked harmless on their own, and a logger asking for £80 a year to store numbers you typed in yourself is exactly the kind of charge that gets cancelled in January and missed by nobody.
So here is what training without a subscription looks like in 2026. Three routes: apps that are free outright, free tiers designed to be lived in, and one-time lifetime unlocks. Details below are accurate as of October 2026; pricing models shift, so check before committing. This is our blog, and our app appears in the list with its limits stated plainly, same as the others. For a deeper look at what each free tier includes, the free workout tracker roundup goes app by app.
Route one: apps that are just free
FitNotes is the standing answer here. On Android it has no subscription, no ads and no premium tier: full logging, history and progress charts for nothing, forever, offline. The developer simply never built a paywall. The catch stays the same as ever: the iPhone version is a separate release that caps saved workouts until a one-time unlock, so the pure-free story holds on Android only.
Jefit takes the other deal. The free tier is deep (a huge exercise database, unlimited logging, community routines) and it pays for itself by showing you ads. Nothing you need is locked; the paid tier mostly buys quiet, plus extras like deeper analytics. If you can tune out banners mid-session, this is a lot of app for no money.
One caution for the whole category: "free forever" apps live on goodwill or ads. FitNotes survives because one developer keeps it alive; that has been true for a decade, and it is still a thing you are trusting.
Route two: free tiers you can live inside
Most big loggers run a freemium model, and the free tiers are better than their reputation. The trick is knowing which cap you personally will never hit.
Strong limits free users to three custom routines but puts no cap on logging or history. Run one programme (push, pull, legs: three routines) and the free tier holds indefinitely. You pay only if you like keeping a shelf of programme variations.
Hevy gives you four routines and its social feed for free, with the squeeze applied to history: past sessions thin out after roughly three months on the free tier. Day to day it feels unrestricted; the wall shows up the first time you go looking for what you lifted last spring. The Strong vs Hevy comparison covers the two in more depth.
Fitness Vault, our app, caps the library instead: 20 imported videos and one programme on the free tier, with manual tagging, set logging and the full stats dashboard all free and no expiry on your history. That fits a real working week of training; you hit the edge when the video collection grows past 20 or you want several programmes running at once.
A free tier is a bet by the developer that you will eventually hit the cap. If you know your training shape (one fixed split, a modest video library, no archive habit), you can win that bet for years.
Route three: pay once, own it
The middle path for people who want the full app and no recurring line on the bank statement.
Hevy sells its Pro tier as a one-time lifetime unlock alongside the monthly plan, which quietly makes it one of the few mainstream loggers you can fully own. FitNotes on iPhone works the same way at a smaller scale: a one-time payment lifts the workout cap.
Fitness Vault has a lifetime tier at £99 one-time, the current early-access price. That buys everything Premium has (unlimited videos and programmes, plus AI auto-tagging, which reads each video's title and details to label it and is strongest on YouTube) with no renewal, ever. Against the £47.99 annual plan it breaks even just past the two-year mark.
The arithmetic on any lifetime deal is the same: divide the one-time price by the annual subscription and you get the number of years at which owning beats renting. Two to three years is typical. If an app has already survived your free-tier trial and you train from it weekly, that is usually an easy clear. The real risk is betting on an app that folds, which is why the sensible order is free tier first, lifetime after it has earned a place in your routine.
The options, side by side
| App | No-subscription route | What it costs you | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| FitNotes (Android) | Free outright | Android only; plain interface | Oct 2026 |
| FitNotes (iPhone) | One-time unlock | Small payment to lift the workout cap | Oct 2026 |
| Jefit | Free tier, ad-supported | Ads mid-session | Oct 2026 |
| Strong | Free tier | 3-routine cap | Oct 2026 |
| Hevy | Free tier or lifetime unlock | ~3 months' history free, or pay once | Oct 2026 |
| Fitness Vault | Free tier or £99 lifetime | 20 videos and 1 programme free, or pay once | Oct 2026 |
How to choose
Start from how you train, because each route punishes a different habit.
- You log a fixed barbell split and want to pay nothing, ever. FitNotes on Android. On iPhone, Strong's free tier if three routines covers you, or FitNotes' one-time unlock.
- You want breadth for free and can live with ads. Jefit.
- You want a full modern logger with no recurring fee. Hevy's lifetime unlock, bought after the free tier convinces you.
- Your training comes from videos saved on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. Fitness Vault: free tier first, £99 lifetime if the library outgrows 20. If you never train from video, a dedicated logger above will serve you better; that cuts both ways.
The bottom line
Nobody needs a subscription to track training in 2026. The honest hierarchy: FitNotes gives logging away, Jefit trades it for ads, Strong and Hevy let you camp on free tiers with one cap each, and Hevy and Fitness Vault will sell you the whole thing once. Decide which trade fits your training, run the break-even arithmetic on anything lifetime, and put the monthly fee toward plates.