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I Am app review 2026: what it does well and where it falls short

By Vinay Karode, maker of little liftPublished 26 September 2026

A six-card deck for “I judge tools by how they treat me on a bad day”, the example this post uses.

I Am is the most-downloaded affirmation app on the App Store, and the one people compare everything else to. I make a competing app, so read this as a review from someone with a stake, checked against the store listing and the developer’s own site rather than my opinions. Facts are as of the date at the bottom; prices change.

What I Am is

I Am, by Monkey Taps, is a library app. You choose categories, such as self-love, anxiety, work or gratitude, and the app shows you affirmations from those categories on a schedule you set. The lines appear as notifications, as lock-screen widgets, and inside the app on a swipeable feed with changeable themes and backgrounds. You can also type your own affirmations and add them to the rotation.

The pitch is passive presence: you set it up once and the words come to you throughout the day. For a lot of people that is exactly the right pitch. You do not have to remember to practise, and you do not have to write anything.

What it does well

The library is enormous and organised. Whatever you are going through, there is a category for it, and the writing inside the categories is consistent in tone. If you like the tone, you have effectively unlimited supply.

Widgets and notifications are the product, and they are polished. The lock-screen widget is the reason many people keep the app. A line you did not choose, at a moment you did not plan, can be a small good interruption.

The free tier is real. You can use I Am without paying, with limits on categories and customisation and with ads. Plenty of people stay on the free tier for a long time, which tells you the core loop works.

Custom affirmations exist. You can write your own and mix them into the schedule. This is the feature that turns the app from a feed into a tool, and it is easy to miss during onboarding.

The company has been at it for years. Monkey Taps’ own site and a TikTok for Business case study describe an app that has grown steadily, which matters for whether it will still be there next year.

Where it falls short

These are the recurring themes on the store listing and in the alternatives round-ups linked below, paraphrased rather than quoted. I have not invented any of them and I have left out one-off complaints.

Repetition. The most common complaint. After a few weeks the same lines return, and because they were written for everyone they start to sound like wallpaper. Custom lines help, but you have to write them.

Ads that outlast the paywall. Some paying users report still seeing promotional content. Whether that is ads in the strict sense or in-app promotion of other tiers, it reads as ads to the person who paid to remove them.

Quiz, then paywall. Onboarding walks you through a personalisation quiz and lands on the subscription screen before you have used the app. The free tier is behind a small close button. This is standard in the category and still annoying.

No cross-device sync. Your settings and custom lines live on the device. If you switch phones or want the same set on a tablet, you set it up again.

Reliability of notifications and widgets. Reviews across several years mention reminders not firing or widgets going stale. This is partly the operating system’s doing and partly the app’s, and it is worth knowing if the widget is the reason you would pay.

Price

At the time of writing the listing shows $14.99 a month, $69.99 a year, and lifetime tiers at higher one-time prices. Over two years the yearly plan is about $140. Lifetime tiers make sense if you are certain the library is what you want; the arithmetic is simple, and the store page has the current numbers.

Who should use I Am

Use I Am if you want a lock-screen presence without any writing, if the library’s tone suits you, and if a subscription is acceptable to you. The free tier is a fair way to find out. Set up the widget on day one; it is the best part.

Look elsewhere if the lines start feeling generic within a month, if you want your affirmations to mention your actual situation, if you need sync across devices, or if you want to pay once and stop thinking about it.

If you keep it, set it up well

Three settings make I Am noticeably better than its defaults. Cut the notification frequency to a handful a day inside two windows, so each line still registers as an event. Add five custom affirmations on the first day, written about your actual situation in the present tense; they will be the ones you notice in week three when the library lines have gone quiet. And put the widget on the lock screen rather than relying on notifications, because the widget is the part that has never needed a fix.

Where Little Lift fits

Little Lift is the other side of the same trade. There is no library; you type one goal and it writes six cards about it, then walks you through them in 30 seconds. You buy credits once: 5 free to start, one credit per deck, five for an optional 30-reminder plan, credits never expire, no ads, iOS and Android. If repetition is the reason you are reading a review of the app you already have, the side-by-side is at Little Lift vs I Am. For a wider look at the options without a yearly bill, see affirmation apps that don’t charge a subscription.

Try it: Download Little Lift — pay once, no subscription.

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