Hevy app review: free vs Pro, and who should pay

Hevy against its closest alternatives

As a log, Hevy beats Strong on price, routines, platforms and the feed. If you want the app to decide the weight, Hevy charges for it and RIRLift doesn't.

What decides whether Hevy, free or Pro, is right for you

• Logging: Hevy's strongest part

  Weight, reps, duration and RPE, with warm-up, drop, failure sets and supersets, a rest timer and a plate calculator, all free. It's on iPhone, Android, the web, Apple Watch and Wear OS.

• Free: 4 routines, 7 custom exercises, 3 months of stats

  Workouts are unlimited. Stats show the last 30 days or 3 months; Pro opens 1 year and all time. Drop back to free and the routines and exercises you made on Pro stay, you just can't add more.

• Pro: cheap, and the lifetime is rare

  $2.99/month, $23.99/year or $74.99 once. It adds unlimited routines and custom exercises, all-time stats, set count per muscle group, the warm-up calculator and Hevy Trainer.

• Who picks the weight

  On free, Hevy shows what you did last time and you decide. Hevy Trainer, in Pro, builds a program and suggests weights and reps. RIRLift sets every weight from the load, reps and reps in reserve you just logged, free. How it decides.

  

• The feed

  Follow friends, comment on their workouts and compare lifts. For some lifters it's why they train; for others it's noise. Hevy lets you turn it off.

Hevy free, Hevy Pro or something else, in two real situations

Fifth routine, and Hevy asks for Pro

Two years on Hevy free: upper/lower plus a deload week you keep as its own routine. You want a fifth for a short travel day, and you've stopped guessing whether to add weight.

App	What it does here	For this lifter
Hevy free	Keeps your 4 routines and every workout. A fifth routine needs Pro, and charts stop at 3 months.	Fine if 4 routines cover your week and you plan the weights.
Hevy Pro	$23.99 a year or $74.99 once: unlimited routines, all-time stats, and Trainer to suggest weights.	The easy answer if you love Hevy. The lifetime pays for itself in about three years.
RIRLift	Free: 4 active routines, the same cap, but a suggested weight for every set and progression included. Imports your Hevy CSV.	Fits if the weight is what you wanted. No public feed and no Android.

If the routine cap is the problem, Hevy Pro solves it cheaply. If deciding the weight is the problem, that's a different app.

Week one in RIRLift after importing Hevy

Leg-and-back day at a commercial gym, with the hack squat at 230 lb for 10 / 10 / 9 in your last Hevy session. This is what RIRLift does with that history and today's sets.

Exercise	You logged	Next session	Why
Hack Squat	Imported: 230 lb × 10 / 10 / 9	230 lb × 8–12, From history	Worked out from your Hevy sessions, so you start where you left off.
Hack Squat	Set 1: 230 lb × 10, 4 left	Set 2: 240 lb × 10	14 reps to failure against a planned 10 with 2 left, so 230 × 43 ÷ 41 ≈ 241 lb, loaded as 240 lb.
Seated Cable Row	140 lb, 12 / 12 / 12 reps, 2 left	150 lb × 8	Every set at the top of 8–12: one step up the stack, reps back to 8.

In Hevy you'd have looked at last week's 230 and decided. Here the 240 came from the set you just did.

Plans to run after Hevy

• The best workout routine for the days you can train

  4 days a week: upper/lower

  Four days in four routines, the same count Hevy's free tier allows.

  4× a week · 68 sets a week · ~40 min

  Add to RIRLift

  Add to RIRLift

  Scan with your iPhone camera to add this plan.

  See the plan

• The best workout plan for muscle gain, for where you are now

  Past a year of lifting, gains have stalled

  For the lifter who logged in Hevy for years and stopped adding weight.

  4× a week · 76 sets a week · ~50 min

  Add to RIRLift

  Add to RIRLift

  Scan with your iPhone camera to add this plan.

  See the plan

Make it fit you

• Export from Hevy first

  In Hevy, export your workout data as CSV, then import it in RIRLift. Weights worked out from it are marked From history.

• Turn your RPE into RIR

  Hevy logs RPE; RIRLift logs reps in reserve. RPE 8 is 2 left, RPE 9 is 1. Set the targets once per exercise.

• Use Ask first while you build trust

  With Ask first, next session's weights wait on the recap until you confirm them.

When a different app fits better

• Your friends train on Hevy and the feed keeps you going. Stay on Hevy. RIRLift has friends and challenges, but no public feed, and only on iPhone.
• You're on Android. Hevy. RIRLift is iPhone and Apple Watch only; Android is a waitlist.
• You'd rather pay once than every year. Hevy Pro lifetime at $74.99. RIRLift Pro is monthly or yearly.
• You plan every weight yourself and only need a fast log. Hevy free is hard to beat.

Questions

Read next

• Hevy vs Strong: which workout log to pick

  The other big logger, row by row.

• The best Hevy alternatives, ranked

  Ranked for lifters ready to leave.

• Lyfta vs Hevy

  The closest free rival, with unlimited routines.

• StrengthLog vs Hevy

  A bigger free tier against a cheaper Pro.

• How RIRLift picks your next weight

  Where the 240 lb came from.

• Free workout tracker apps

  Free tiers compared.

More ways lifters use RIRLift

• Hevy on Apple Watch, and what RIRLift does differently

  Hevy's Watch app logs sets and rest. RIRLift adds reps in reserve and sets the next weight on the wrist.

• Hevy vs Strong: which workout log to pick

  Hevy gives more free and costs less; Strong is the quieter log. Row by row, and where RIRLift fits.

• The best Hevy alternatives, ranked

  Seven apps ranked for lifters leaving Hevy: free weights set for you, no routine cap, your history kept.

• A workout app you can train on for years without a subscription

  Unlimited workouts, weights set for you and Apple Watch, free with no trial countdown, account or ads.

Every lifter and goal