An accountability app with a real person on the other end

What an accountability app should actually do

You already know what you should be doing. The gym, the reading, the early nights, the essay. The trouble isn't knowing. It's that when the moment comes, nobody notices if you don't.

That's what accountability fixes. Being accountable means someone else expects an answer. Plenty of apps call themselves accountability apps and then send you a notification, which you swipe away while lying on the sofa. A notification doesn't care. A person does.

So an accountability app worth using needs three things: a clear promise with a deadline, a way to prove you did it, and a real consequence if you didn't. Dobdob is built around all three.

How Dobdob works

1. Make a promiseGym by 7pm. Read 10 pages. Up by 7. Pick the days it repeats and the exact deadline.
2. Pick your snitchChoose a mate, a sibling, your mum. They have to say yes first, and they only ever see the promise they're snitching on.
3. Prove itBefore the deadline, by our server's clock, not your phone's. Changing the time on your phone does nothing.
4. Or get grassedMiss it, and the flop lands in your snitch's Snitching inbox with a line from Dobdob written for that flop.

Proof that isn't just your word

When you make a promise, you pick how you'll prove it:

• A tap, for the honest stuff.
• A photo, taken there and then.
• Being at a place, like the gym or the library.
• A screenshot, of your steps, your screen time or your revision app.
• Apple Health or Health Connect, so workouts and steps can prove it for you.

If a photo isn't clear, your snitch or your board gets the final say. Did it but forgot to prove it? You can appeal a flop from the app.

Why a person works better than a notification

There's a well-known idea in behaviour change called social accountability: people follow through more when someone they respect will know whether they did. It's why running clubs work and why people book a personal trainer they could easily do without. Dobdob gives you that without paying anyone or joining anything. You just pick someone who'll enjoy finding out.

It also works the other way. When you keep a promise, your snitch sees that too. Your mates can leave hearts and comments on the mates feed. Being noticed for turning up is half the fun.

How Dobdob compares to money-pledge apps

Some accountability apps ask you to put money on the line: miss your goal and you lose it. That suits some people. Here's an honest comparison of the two approaches:

Neither is wrong. If paying a penalty would just make you resentful, or you'd rather not hand over card details to stay motivated, a social consequence is often the better fit. Dobdob never takes money for a flop.

Made in the UK, works anywhere

Dobdob is made by Northcube Ltd in Bury, Greater Manchester, and it's written in British English with a British sense of humour. It works anywhere in the world: deadlines follow your phone's timezone, so 9pm stays 9pm when you travel. It's on Google Play for Android, and in beta on iPhone through TestFlight. Want the bigger picture first? See how Dobdob works or read our guide to picking an accountability partner.