Best Apps to Set and Reach Weekly Goals (2026)

Last updated: 2026-10-01

Quick answer: Sunsama is the one built around a weekly planning ritual, where you set objectives at the start of the week and review the time you spent on them at the end of the week. Beeminder turns "three times a week" into a daily rate and charges a pledge when you fall below it. Streaks lets you give each habit its own weekly frequency. Todoist counts finished tasks against a weekly number, 25 by default. Routinery schedules routines on the weekdays you pick and runs each one step by step, though it has no field for a weekly target.

Three runs by Sunday is an odd thing to store. A plain daily checklist can't show one down and two to go. We compared five apps on how they treat a week that goes badly, with prices and platforms in the table.

Why weekly goals slip: what two 2026 reviews found

A 2026 meta-analysis pooled 89 randomized trials of exercise programs, covering 10,219 people. Most participants missed their goals. In the 30 trials judged at low risk of bias (4,204 participants), the share of people who missed their physical activity goals ran from 57.9 percent to 77.0 percent depending on the timepoint, and achievement fell the longer a program went on. Goals handed to people by someone else did worse than goals they set themselves or agreed on together. The search ran to September 2024.

A second 2026 review looked at graded tasks, where a goal is climbed in small increments. Across 39 trials the approach raised physical activity with a medium effect, g = 0.61. The number of increments explained a big chunk of the variation between studies (an R-squared of 0.47). Certainty was rated low. Graded tasks were always paired with goal setting and action planning, so the effect cannot be pulled apart from those. Both reviews are about exercise. Carrying them over to weekly goals in general is our step, and their authors do not make it.

The five apps side by side: platforms, price, and where the weekly number goes

Apps are listed alphabetically.

We make Routinery. It's in the table on the same columns and in its alphabetical slot, and its section below says what it cannot do.

Beeminder: the week is really seven small deadlines

Beeminder asks you to think in days, even when your goal is weekly. Its own help page is blunt that you cannot build a goal that only derails at the end of a calendar week. You enter the weekly amount as a fraction, so "run 3 times a week" becomes 3/7 per day, and the app checks at the end of every day whether your data is still on the right side of the line. Running ahead earns safety buffer. With a week's worth banked, you can take days off.

Pledges usually start at $5 and climb through $10, $30, $90 and up each time you derail. You choose a cap per goal. Money on the line is the whole design, and Beeminder calls itself self-tracking plus commitment contracts. The iOS app is billed as a data entry companion. Goal setup lives mostly on the web.

Routinery: weekday scheduling and a timer, but no weekly target

Routinery has no place to type "four workouts this week" and watch a counter fill up. We checked the App Store description, the update notes, and the product site, and none of them describe a target field or a weekly planning screen. It does have scheduling by weekday and time ("Weekdays only, three times a week, whatever your schedule," in the App Store's words), a voice-guided timer that walks through each step, and weekly and monthly stats next to a streak plant.

So it covers the doing side of a weekly goal. If the goal is three gym sessions, you'd build a gym routine, schedule it for Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and the reminder arrives at the time you set. You'd open the weekly stats to see whether you hit three. The September 2026 update added one-off tasks, and the notes say priority levels, project folders, and complicated repeat rules were left out on purpose. For a weekly target that fills up as you go, Beeminder's daily-rate goal is the closer fit. Routinery's free plan covers two routines. It shows ads.

Streaks: a frequency on every habit

Streaks attaches the weekly part to each habit. Its site uses "Go to the gym (3 days per week)" as an example, and the App Store listing says you choose how often each task needs to be completed. The App Store listing caps it at 24 tasks a day. It's a one-time purchase. Apple devices only.

Sunsama: objectives at the start of the week, a review at the end

Sunsama builds a ritual around the week itself. The weekly planning ritual opens by showing what you were working on last week, lets you drag unfinished objectives forward, and ends with a short written reflection. Its help docs say the ritual centers on objectives and leaves the daily tasks to daily planning. Individual tasks get filled in day by day.

The end-of-week review shows the time you put toward each objective, broken down by day. Planned and actual time are separate fields on every task. That lets the review set the hours you spent against what you guessed while planning. There's no free plan. The 14-day trial has every feature on and covers two full weekly cycles.

Todoist: a weekly number that counts finished tasks

Todoist keeps a weekly goal in its Productivity view, starting at 25 completed tasks a week and 5 a day. You can change both, or set the daily one to zero to switch it off. The number measures output across every project, groceries included. Days off and vacation mode sit in the same settings.

You can mark days off, and Todoist's own example turns off Saturday and Sunday to protect a weekday streak. Vacation mode keeps your streak intact while you're away. If you already run your life in Todoist, the weekly goal costs nothing extra to try.

Logging through week three: what self-monitoring studies show

In one 21-day study of 97 people doing dietary self-monitoring (a weight-loss program), adherence ran 0.55 in the group with no support against 0.83 in the group with intensive support, with tailored feedback in between. All three groups declined. The unsupported group fell fastest.

In a 2025 qualitative study, 27 adults who had struggled to keep exercising described skipping the activity entirely when they could not meet their ideal standard, instead of doing a smaller version. Apps that forgive a day off (Todoist's days off, Beeminder's buffer) are built around that problem in different ways.

How to choose: match the app to the way your weeks fall apart

You plan well at the start of the week and lose track by Thursday. Sunsama's start and end of week rituals are the most complete structure here, and the trial runs long enough to cover two full weeks.

You know what to do and keep letting it slide. Beeminder adds a cost to sliding and checks your progress every day.

Your weekly goal is a handful of habits. Streaks puts a weekly frequency on each one, on Apple devices.

You measure a good week by how much got done. Todoist's weekly task goal is already built into the app you may be using.

You've got a plan. You just don't start. Routinery schedules the routine for the right days and talks you through each step, and it won't track a weekly target for you.

Getting started: write the weekly number down before you pick an app

Write one weekly goal as a count and a unit, like "3 runs" or "4 hours of writing." Then check where that count would live in each app above, because in Todoist and Routinery it will not live anywhere in the form you wrote it. If the goal comes from something bigger, our guide on how to plan goals quarterly and break them into daily tasks covers the step before this one. For the Sunday side of things, there is a separate piece on weekly planning that actually sticks. And since the trial data above favors goals you set yourself, read the art and science of setting achievable, motivating goals before you type the number in.

Frequently asked questions: weekly goal apps

What are the top apps to set and reach weekly goals?

Sunsama, Beeminder, Streaks, Todoist and Routinery each cover a different part of the week. Sunsama runs a guided planning ritual each week and closes it with a review of the time you spent. Beeminder converts a weekly target into a daily rate and charges a pledge when you fall below it. Streaks gives each habit its own frequency, such as 3 days per week, on Apple devices. Todoist counts completed tasks against a weekly goal of 25 by default. Routinery schedules routines on the weekdays you choose and guides each step with a timer, but it has no weekly target field. Pick by where your weeks usually break down.

Can I set a weekly goal in Beeminder without paying every day?

Yes, though Beeminder still checks daily. You enter the weekly amount as a fraction, such as 3/7 per day for three sessions a week, and doing more than the daily rate builds safety buffer. Once you're ahead, you can skip a few days without derailing. Its help page says a goal cannot be set to derail only at the end of a calendar week. Once a goal is running, it's judged at the end of each day. Starting a new goal with extra leeway delays that start by a few days.

Which weekly goal app is free?

Beeminder is free for up to three active goals, though you pay pledges if you derail. Todoist has a free tier, and its weekly task goal sits in the Productivity view. Routinery is free for two routines, with ads. Streaks costs $5.99 once and has no free tier. Sunsama has no free plan and offers a 14-day trial instead, with full access during it. Sunsama's trial needs no credit card. Prices here are US.

Is it better to set weekly goals myself or use suggested ones?

The 2026 meta-analysis of physical activity trials found lower achievement when goals were prescribed than when people set them alone or agreed on them with someone. It covered exercise programs. Todoist is the one app here that presets a weekly number, 25 completed tasks, and you can change it in Productivity settings. Routinery has no target number at all. Sunsama's ritual and Beeminder's setup both ask you to choose the weekly amount directly.

What should I do when I miss a day in a weekly goal?

Keep the week alive with a smaller version of the task. A 2025 study of 27 adults found that people who could not meet their ideal standard tended to skip the activity entirely. Some apps soften this. Todoist lets you mark days off and use vacation mode, and Beeminder's buffer absorbs a missed day if you're ahead. In Routinery you can adjust a step's timer or skip a step mid-run, which lets you run a shorter version of the routine on a bad day.

About the author. Written by the Routinery team. Routinery is one of the five apps compared above, and its missing weekly target field is stated in the table and in its own section.