Free 7-day trial · then $7.99/mo or $59.99/yr
Daylio's stats page was the best part — Mendly starts there
Daylio's two-tap mood-and-activity logging is genuinely well-designed, and its stats page is the reason a lot of people stuck with it. But the free version paywalls core features and pushes upgrade prompts hard enough that long-term users notice. Mendly keeps the fast entry and puts the full pattern view in the trial, no upsell layer.
The research
Daylio holds a 4.7 rating from over 500,000 reviews, and its most consistent complaint — visible across app store reviews and independent write-ups — is that its free version paywalls core statistics and export features while prompting upgrades aggressively, and that even the paid CSV export is described as text-heavy and hard to actually use.
— App store review analysis, 2026
What it actually looks like
Tapping through a two-second mood log and then hitting a paywall to see the trend behind it.
Exporting your data as promised and opening a CSV that's technically there and practically unreadable.
Getting an upgrade prompt mid-entry, right when the habit was supposed to be the low-friction part.
Choosing from a smaller icon set on the free tier and wondering what you're missing on the paid one.
Wanting the weekday-correlation view Daylio advertises and realizing it's behind the subscription.
Sticking with the app for months and still not being sure what the premium tier actually unlocks.
When it tends to be worst
The first time you try to review your own trend
This is when the paywall is most visible — you've done the logging work and the payoff view is the part that's gated.
Right after exporting your data
Discovering the export is technically complete but practically unusable is a specific kind of letdown that tends to happen once, right when you actually needed the data.
Mid-streak, mid-upgrade-prompt
An interruption during what's supposed to be a two-second habit undercuts the exact thing that made the app appealing in the first place.
Quiz
What's driving you away from your current mood tracker?
Question 1 of 4
When did the app's limits become most obvious?
What people usually try first
Paying for Daylio Premium
This unlocks the stats and better export, but for users who chose Daylio specifically for its low-effort free entry, paying to see your own data changes the value proposition after the fact.
Logging in the free tier and manually tracking trends yourself
Doable, but it defeats the purpose of a pattern-tracking app — you're back to doing the pattern-spotting work by hand that the app was supposed to do for you.
Switching to a plain calendar or spreadsheet
This avoids paywalls entirely but loses the fast two-tap entry that made Daylio sticky in the first place — most people who try this stop logging within a week.
“A mood tracker that paywalls your own historical data has the incentives backwards — the whole point of tracking is being able to look back, and that's exactly the part apps like Daylio hold hostage.”
Where Mendly fits in
Mendly's entry is as fast as Daylio's — one tap, optionally a 15-second voice note — and the hourly and weekly pattern view that comes from it isn't held back for a second subscription tier. What you log during the 7-day trial is what you can see: the full pattern data, from the first entry, with a CSV export that's actually usable. The habit stays low-effort; the payoff doesn't get gated behind it.
Free 7-day trial · then $7.99/mo or $59.99/yr
Features
One-tap logging
One tap marks the thought — no typing, no prompts. The friction is so low it actually works mid-meeting, mid-walk, mid-spiral.
Milestone badges
16 badges that celebrate your awareness, not your perfection. First Catch, Streaks, Early Bird, Voice Found — each one earned.
Weekly reports
A gentle summary of your week. Not a grade — just a window into your patterns.
Daylio's two-tap mood-and-activity logging is fast and well-designed, but its free tier paywalls the stats page and export tools that make tracking worthwhile long-term. Mendly matches the entry speed and keeps the full pattern view in the trial.
See the full comparisonCommon questions
Is Daylio actually bad? Why compare against it?
Does Mendly have a free tier like Daylio does?
How is this different from a journaling app?
What does the free trial include?
See for yourself — 7 days free.
Try Mendly on iPhone. Cancel anytime via Apple subscriptions.