what step counters cost: the raw data
We read 18 App Store listings by hand and wrote down what they said. The file is public, machine-readable, and free to reuse with credit. It exists because the one number people most want — what an app charges once you've installed it — is not available from Apple's search interface at all. It's only on each app's own page, and only if you scroll.
What's in it, in four numbers
These are the things you can only see once the rows are side by side. None of them are on any other page of this site.
| what | number | out of |
|---|---|---|
| list no in-app purchases at all | 4 | 13 checked for purchases |
| mention a widget in their own description | 12 | 18 |
| in-app prices run from | $0.99 – $49.99 | the 9 that sell something |
| median rating count | 1,267 | 18, where the largest has 291,037 |
Twelve of the eighteen mention a widget — and only six mention a lock screen. Those two numbers are worth reading together: on this evidence the word widget on a store listing usually means the home screen alone, so a buyer who specifically wants the count on their lock screen cannot go by that word. Putting steps on the lock screen covers what to do about it.
The last row is the one worth sitting with. Half of these apps have fewer than about thirteen hundred ratings, while the biggest has nearly three hundred thousand. This is not a category with a few good options and a few bad ones — it's a very long tail under two or three well-known names, which is exactly why "best step counter app" lists keep recommending the same three.
The four that sell nothing at all are Pedometer α, Steps — Simple Pedometer, STEPPI and Plod. That is not the same as "no ads": the App Store doesn't disclose advertising, and a listing with a clean purchases block tells you nothing about it.
The file itself is for people building on this rather than reading it: step-counter-survey.json, 7 KB, one record per app, plus the four numbers above as computed fields — or step-counter-survey.csv, the same eighteen rows flat. It is also mirrored on GitHub, Hugging Face and Kaggle. If you only wanted the numbers, you already have them.
How it was measured
Each app's App Store page was opened and read. Prices come from the In-App Purchases block on that page — Apple's search interface returns ratings and descriptions but not purchases, which is why every "free step counter" list you've read was probably assembled from marketing text instead.
Two honest limits, stated rather than buried. "Widget per its description" means the listing says so, not that we installed the app and verified one exists. And the numbers age: the file carries its measurement date, and a listing you check today may differ.
Using it
Take it. The compilation, its structure and the method description are published under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, republish or build on it, with credit to Angel Step, angelstep.app/data.
How to cite it: Angel Step (2026). In-app purchases, ratings and
widgets of iPhone step counters [Data set]. Measured 17 August 2026.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22032007
The dataset also has a permanent identifier — 10.5281/zenodo.22032007 — which keeps working if this site ever moves, and always points at the most recent measurement.
What we do not claim is the facts themselves. Prices and rating counts are Apple's public store listings; nobody owns them, and we're not pretending otherwise. What's ours is the work of collecting them into one file and describing how.
The same data, written out
If you'd rather read than parse, the rows live on three pages, each asking a different question of them:
- what step counters actually cost — the prices, per app.
- cute step counters — the nine that are pleasant to look at.
- simple step counters — the nine that ask least of you.
- how to choose one — what the numbers do and don't decide.
Who made it
These rows were collected by the people building Angel Step — a step counter for iPhone built around one number, with widgets on the home screen and the lock screen. It is on its way to the App Store, which is why it is not one of the eighteen above.
It is also why there is no ranking on this page. A participant scoring its own market is an advertisement, and these numbers are meant to hold up for someone who has never heard of us — including the reader who takes them and never comes back.