I built a minimal CrossFit timer that costs $2.99 once, no subscription
Every workout timer I tried as a CrossFitter wanted something from me. An account. An ad break. A subscription. A pop-up asking for a review mid-WOD. I just wanted a timer, so I built one.
WODrounds does two things well: EMOM and interval timers. Nothing else. It's native on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac and Apple TV. Start a workout on iPhone and the Watch picks it up in real time via WatchConnectivity. Finished workouts save to Apple Health as HIIT sessions.
The build:
- Pure SwiftUI, one shared target for iOS/iPadOS/macOS/tvOS, separate watchOS target
- A Date-based timer engine (no frame timers, so it's deterministic and stays correct even when the app is backgrounded)
- HKWorkoutSession on Watch to keep the app alive through a workout
- No third-party dependencies except Sentry for opt-in iOS crash reporting
- Built nights and weekends
The pricing bet is the part I'm most curious about. WODrounds is a one-time $2.99 purchase. No subscription, no ads, no in-app purchases, no tracking. In a market where everything is $2.99/month, I wanted to find out if "pay once, own it" still works for a small, focused utility.
The constraint that mattered most was resisting scope creep. I could add AMRAP, For Time, multi-stage intervals, workout tracking, Android. I won't. The wedge is "minimal, private, Apple-first", and every feature I add weakens it.
So far it's been on Product Hunt, TinyLaunch, and a handful of directories, with no paid ads and no big launch sequence. Curious whether pay-once plus word of mouth still gets you anywhere in 2026.
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/wodrounds/id6759229877
Site: https://wodrounds.iamjarl.com
Happy to answer questions about SwiftUI multi-platform, WatchConnectivity gotchas, HealthKit, or pay-once vs subscription economics for indie apps.
One thing I'd be careful with:
The interesting question may not be whether pay-once still works.
It may be what role the pricing model is actually playing in the decision to choose WODrounds over the alternatives.
Those can look like the same question while leading to very different conclusions.
Good distinction, and I think you're right that I was blurring the two.
Honestly, I doubt pricing is the deciding factor for most people who pick WODrounds. What seems to actually win is narrower: it's native across iPhone, Watch, Mac and Apple TV with real-time sync, it's minimal, and it asks nothing of you (no account, no ads, no tracking). Pay-once fits that same "asks nothing of you" promise, so I suspect it works more as a trust signal that removes a reason to say no, than as the reason people say yes.
The hard part is that I can't cleanly separate the two with App Store data. I see the sale, not the why. So "pay-once works" really just means "the app sells and the price wasn't a blocker", which is a much weaker claim than "people choose it because it's pay-once".
Curious how you'd try to measure the role of pricing here, when the App Store gives you no funnel and no attribution. That's the part I haven't cracked.
Possibly, but that's exactly why I stopped short earlier.
I don't think the interesting part is measuring the role of pricing.
I think it's the decision that measurement is being used to make.
I'd be careful answering that casually in a thread.
If you'd like the tighter version, drop your email and I'll put it together properly.