The short version
Every workout tracker I liked asked me to pay $12 a month to log the same barbell squat I logged for free in a notebook the year before. The ones that didn't ask for a subscription were either abandoned, broken, or covered in banner ads.
I'd been lifting for fifteen years. I'd used spreadsheets, notebooks, Hevy, Strong, Strava, Training Peaks, and a dozen others. None of them were my tracker. They were someone else's business model.
So I built Rackd. Pay once, own it forever. One deal.
Apps used to come in a box
I'm an eighties kid. I grew up watching software ship on CDs at Best Buy. You paid once, you owned it, your stuff worked offline, and if the company disappeared the software still worked because it was on your hard drive. That's the deal I grew up with.
Somewhere between 2012 and 2020, that deal died. Every piece of software I'd normally buy once — Photoshop, Office, a password manager, my notes app, my weather app, a timer app — quietly turned into a monthly bill. Usually $10 a month. Sometimes $15. A few of them $30.
Individually, fine. Stacked, it's a utility bill. And half the apps on my phone don't deserve a utility-bill relationship. A calculator does not earn $60 a year from me. Neither does a workout tracker that logs, at its core, four numbers per set.
What Rackd actually does
Rackd is a workout tracker. The core function is simple:
- Pick a program. Rackd has 15 built in, or import one you already trust
- Set your training max on the key lifts
- Show up. Rackd tells you what to lift today, loads the next exercise automatically, manages your rest timer, and logs every set
- Over time, Rackd watches your progress, detects stalls, suggests deloads, and tracks the numbers that actually move
That's the whole thing. It's not AI-powered. It's not a social network. It's not a "fitness lifestyle platform." It's a tracker built by someone who uses a tracker.
The pricing, plainly
You get the app free during beta. When v1.0 ships, you can buy:
- Half Rack. Free, forever. Pick a program, run it, log your sets. The core tracker, no asterisks.
- Power Rack. $49.99 once on the web. Every program, every progression system, the custom program builder, RPE tracking, advanced analytics, muscle-balance coaching, strength projections, long-term trends, sync across up to 3 devices. The whole app, unlocked.
There's also a $2.99/month sub in the iOS and Android apps for people who genuinely prefer monthly billing. It unlocks the same things as Power Rack while it's active. The math is straightforward: $2.99/mo × 17 months = $50.83. After that, subscribing costs more than owning. The sub's there if you want it. Most lifters won't.
Beta users get 50% off the one-time purchases at v1.0, plus a fresh 30-day trial. That's how I say thank you.
What it will never be
- It will never be subscription-only
- It will never sell your data
- It will never add banner ads
- It will never become a social network
- It will never email you about "engagement"
If I ever need to make a new pricing decision that contradicts this, I'll write about it here first and you can tell me I'm wrong.
One more thing
I lift. I've made every programming mistake a person can make. I've stalled on 5/3/1, thrown my back out on a heavy deadlift because I skipped the warm-up, switched programs every six weeks because I got bored, and tracked nothing for six months because my spreadsheet got lost in a phone migration.
Rackd is built from every one of those mistakes. It's the app I wish I'd had in 2012 and still wanted in 2026.
If you lift, try it. If you don't like it, email me — support@rackd.fitness. I read every reply.