Most health apps are free. That is not generosity — it is a business model.
Your behavioral data, dietary patterns, and health metrics are valuable. They are sold to advertisers who want to target you, to insurers who want to price you, and to data brokers who aggregate and resell them. The app is the funnel. You are the inventory.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It is how the economics of free software work. If you are not paying for the product, you are the product. In health apps, this is not an abstraction — it is your calorie logs, your weight history, your exercise patterns, and your sleep data being monetized without your meaningful awareness.
"If you are not paying for the product, you are the product. In health apps, this is not an abstraction."
Some apps are more careful than others. Some have privacy policies that genuinely protect user data. But the structural incentive — to collect more data, to retain it longer, to find new ways to monetize it — is always present when the business model is advertising or data licensing.
We chose a different model.
Daily Mind and Body has no server. There is no account. There is no analytics SDK. There is no ad network. There is no crash reporter that phones home.
Every byte of your data — food logs, exercise logs, weight entries, drink logs, mind activity, goals — lives in your own private iCloud using Apple's CloudKit. It is stored using Apple's SwiftData framework, with no transmission to our servers or any third party. Your data syncs privately via Apple's CloudKit to your own iCloud account. We never see it.
Because we have nothing to sell, we charge a simple one-time price: $4.99. Once. Forever.
This is not a loss leader. It is the entire business model. We make money when you buy the app. We have no incentive to collect your data, because we have no mechanism to monetize it even if we wanted to.
Our barcode scanner is powered by Open Food Facts, a free, open-source, nonprofit food database built by volunteers around the world. It is available under the Open Database License (ODbL).
Open Food Facts is the kind of infrastructure the internet needs more of: a public good, built in the open, owned by no one, available to everyone. It is the reason our barcode scanner works without us building or licensing a proprietary food database.
We donate 10% of every purchase to Open Food Facts to support their mission. This is not automated — we calculate it manually and donate quarterly. We believe that if you benefit from open-source infrastructure, you should contribute to it.
"We donate 10% of every purchase to Open Food Facts to support their mission."
Private iCloud sync is not a marketing phrase. It has specific technical implications that are worth stating plainly.
Your iCloud, not ours. Daily Mind and Body syncs your data using Apple's CloudKit private database. Your data lives in your own iCloud account. We have no access to it, and neither does any third party.
No developer server. There is no Daily Mind and Body server. We never receive, store, or process your health data. The sync goes directly between your devices and Apple's iCloud infrastructure.
No app account required. You don't create an account with us. Your Apple ID is the only identity involved.
Syncs across your devices. If you use Daily Mind and Body on multiple iPhones or upgrade to a new phone, your data is available automatically via iCloud.
Deleting the app removes it from your device. Your iCloud data persists until you delete it from iCloud Settings. To fully remove all data: Settings → [Your Name] → iCloud → Manage Account Storage → Daily Mind and Body → Delete Data.
If you have questions about how your data is handled, read our privacy policy — it is written in plain language, not legal boilerplate. Or email us at app@dailymindandbody.com.
We are a small team building a tool we use ourselves. We charge $4.99 because that is a fair price for a useful app, and because it lets us build something we're proud of without compromising on privacy to do it.
$4.99. One-time purchase. No subscription, ever.