I Am Sober vs Sobermark: An Honest Comparison

Short answer: Pick I Am Sober if community keeps you going: its daily pledge and shared milestones are the best of their kind. Pick Sobermark if you want your recovery to stay private on your phone with no account, plus built-in craving tools. Both are free to try, so run them side by side for a week.

I Am Sober is the biggest name in sobriety tracking. Sobermark is a small app made in the UK by one developer. Comparing them is a bit like comparing a busy support group to a quiet notebook: both help people stay sober, but they feel nothing alike, and most people have a clear preference once they see the difference.

Full disclosure: Sobermark is our app, so we are not neutral. We have tried to keep everything below fair, and we tell you when a rival is the better fit.

Short version: I Am Sober wins on community and reach. Sobermark wins on privacy, calm and pricing flexibility. The details are below.

Approach: pledges and people vs quiet and private

I Am Sober is built around a daily rhythm: pledge in the morning, review at night, milestone by milestone. Around that sits its real engine, a large community of people sharing what each stage felt like. When you hit 30 days, you can read hundreds of other day-30 stories. For a lot of people that is the feature, and it is one Sobermark deliberately does not have.

Sobermark is quiet by design. There is no feed, no forum and no pledging to anyone but yourself. You get a counter, your numbers, a journal, and Bern, a friendly blue bear who offers steady encouragement without ever guilt-tripping you. A slip resets the counter and that is the end of it; no scolding, no lost face in front of a community. Which philosophy is right depends entirely on whether other people's presence motivates you or drains you.

Tracking: pledges and community vs numbers and craving tools

Both apps do the fundamentals well: a day counter, milestones and badges, and a way to reflect. I Am Sober adds its pledge ritual and community milestones, and it is polished on both iOS and Android.

Sobermark tracks one habit at a time, chosen from alcohol, smoking, vaping, weed, gambling or a custom habit, and shows money saved, time reclaimed and units avoided, calculated from your own numbers rather than averages. It also builds in craving SOS tools, a hold-on breathing exercise and a ride-it-out timer, plus a journal with moods and shareable progress cards. If in-the-moment help with cravings matters to you, this is where Sobermark is genuinely stronger.

Privacy: account vs no account

This is the sharpest difference. Sobermark has no account and no sign up; your entries stay on your phone. Sobriety is sensitive data, and the simplest way to protect it is to never collect it, so we do not. There is also nothing social to manage, no username, no post history, nothing you might later wish you had not shared.

I Am Sober's community features naturally involve an account and sharing, which is not a flaw, it is the product working as intended. Its community is genuinely supportive. But if your priority is that no record of your recovery exists anywhere but your own phone, Sobermark's model is the stronger fit. As always, read any app's privacy policy yourself, including ours.

Cost: subscription vs a lifetime option

Both apps are free to start. I Am Sober's free tier covers the core counter and pledges, with a subscription for premium features; tiers and prices change, so check their store listing for what is current.

Sobermark gives every new user a 3 day free trial, then costs £17.99 a year, or you can pay weekly, and Google Play also has a one-off lifetime option. The lifetime option is the one people tend to care about: one payment, and you are done paying forever. If you dislike the idea of a subscription attached to your sobriety, that is a real difference between the two apps.

What the evidence says

• Relapse rates for substance use disorders are 40% to 60%, similar to illnesses like asthma and high blood pressure, according to the US National Institute on Drug Abuse. A slip is common, not a verdict.
• The US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says “urges to drink are short-lived, predictable, and controllable”, and advises riding one out because “it will soon crest like an ocean wave and pass” (Rethinking Drinking).

Who should pick what

Pick I Am Sober if community is what keeps you going: its pledge ritual and shared milestones are the best of their kind, and no private tracker can replicate the feeling of being seen by people on the same road.

Pick Sobermark if you want your recovery to stay between you and your phone, if you want built-in craving tools, or if you want the option to pay once and never think about billing again. If you are unsure, both are free to try; run them side by side for a week and keep the one you still open.

Common questions

Is Sobermark on iPhone?

Yes. Sobermark is on both Google Play and the App Store, so on iPhone you can pick either of these two.

Can I switch from I Am Sober to Sobermark and keep my streak?

Yes. Sobermark lets you set your quit date, so your counter starts from the day you actually quit, not the day you installed the app.

Does Sobermark really have no community at all?

Correct, and it is deliberate. You can share progress cards to wherever you like, but there is no feed or forum inside the app. If community support matters to you, I Am Sober or a group like AA or SMART Recovery is the better route.

Which is better for quitting drinking and smoking together?

Sobermark, in our view, because side-by-side habit tracking with separate counters and savings is core to how it works. I Am Sober is at its best focused on one main pledge.