Why should I use Beeminder over StickK?

StickK has historically been our main competitor, and we know that sometimes people get stuck on the choice between the two. Let's see if we can convince you!

For a starting point, Beeminder is, in our humble opinions, far superior to StickK for graphable goals. But it’s not just our pretty graphs or our data import/export or bot reminders. More fundamentally it’s that Beeminder understands that commitment contracts suck. You’ve probably noticed that you often (ironically) procrastinate on using them, even when you see the clear need. What sucks is the loss of flexibility — maybe losing weight will be more painful than you think, maybe something will come up at work. So many unknowns. Committing is scary (and rationally so!).

Beeminder offers the best of both worlds: meaningful commitment with maximal flexibility, with some limits to help you stay focused on the long-term consequences. Beeminding means committing to keep your datapoints on the right side of the bright red line, but the steepness of the line is under your control, with a one-week delay. So if something turns out to be more difficult than you thought, then you don't have to break your commitment contract to get out of it: you can make the adjustment, hang in there (or accept the cost of the derailment!), and then the rate will change after seven days.

In other words, biting off more than you can chew and needing to stop doesn't undermine the whole idea of a commitment contract. The "out" clause is built in, because circumstances change all the time. Plus if things are going really well, it's also easy to turn up the pressure: you can change the rate, or just ratchet away extra safety buffer.

And all that time, your graph shows you how much you're achieving. As well as the sting, you can visualise your progress despite any setbacks.

In short: Don’t dogmatically stickK to your goals, beemind them!

PS: That said, we know Beeminder isn't for everyone. Maybe the graphs just don't do anything for you, or you want more help with very short-term goals, or you're just less of a data nerd than we are. In that case, see also our list of Beeminder competitors, such as Forfeit. And let us know if something's missing!

Keywords: competitors, StickK, Forfeit.app, other commitment device apps and tools