PulseCheckFree, and here is the catch
A heart rate app with no subscription and no paywall
Most free pulse apps are free until the moment your number appears. PulseCheck has no subscription and no in-app purchase at all, and this page explains what pays for it instead.
Free to download and free to use. Rated 5.0 out of 5 from 1 rating on the App Store.
PulseCheck is a fitness and wellness app. It is not a medical device, it does not diagnose anything, and it is not a substitute for advice from a doctor.
The four ways a free pulse app makes money
Knowing which one you are looking at takes about thirty seconds and saves a lot of irritation.
- The trial that renews. Three days free, then an automatic subscription. It is legal, it is disclosed somewhere, and it catches people who genuinely meant to cancel.
- The paywall over the result. The measurement runs, the app announces that your reading is ready, and the number itself sits behind an upgrade. This is the pattern people mean when they say a health app felt dishonest.
- The one-time unlock. Basic measuring is free, extra features cost a single payment. Old fashioned, easy to understand, and nobody gets billed twice.
- Ads. The app is fully usable and advertising covers the cost. You pay with attention and with whatever the ad network is allowed to learn about you.
How to check any app before you install it
- Look under the app icon on its App Store page. Apple prints In-App Purchases there whenever the app has any. No line, no purchases.
- Scroll to Information and open the in-app purchase list. It shows every product and its price, including yearly subscriptions that are easy to miss inside the app.
- Read the one star reviews first. Billing complaints and cancellation problems land there long before they reach anywhere else.
- Look at the screenshots for the word free. If a trial is advertised in the screenshots, a subscription is the business model.
Run those four checks on PulseCheck and you will find no in-app purchase line, because there are no purchase products behind the app at all.
What PulseCheck does instead
It shows ads. A banner sits at the bottom of the app, and occasionally a full screen ad appears between actions. That is the entire arrangement, and these are its consequences, stated plainly.
- Nothing is held back. Measuring, Post-Workout Mode, the full history, tags, the trend line, the breathing exercise, the widgets, the Live Activity, CSV export and the Apple Health write are all in the free app, because there is no paid version for them to be missing from.
- Advertising is Google AdMob. Ads mean an ad network, and an ad network is a third party. The privacy policy spells out what that means.
- iOS may ask whether the app can track you. Answering no is a real answer: you still get the app, and the ads become non-personalised.
- Settings has an ad privacy option so you can revisit that decision later rather than living with a tap you made once.
- Your readings are not the product. They are stored on the iPhone itself, there is no account and no server behind the app, and no measurement is uploaded anywhere.
If ads are the thing you cannot stand
Then this is the honest recommendation: a paid app with a single one-time price is a reasonable purchase, and several exist in this category. An app with no revenue at all is the one to be suspicious of, because the money is coming from somewhere.
What PulseCheck will not do is take your money and keep the ads, or promise a permanent unlock and then move features behind a new subscription a year later.
No subscription, no in-app purchase, no sign-up.
Common questions
Is there a paid version of PulseCheck?
No. There is one version, it is free, and it has no in-app purchase products at all.
Will a subscription appear later?
Nothing is promised forever by anyone, but the app is built without a paywall layer and the entire product argument is that your reading is not something to be sold back to you.
Do I have to allow tracking to use it?
No. Decline the prompt and everything keeps working. The ads simply stop being personalised.
Do I need an account?
There is no account to make. No email, no password, no sign in with anything. Your history lives on your iPhone.