Sober44 vs Sober Me: Tools for Recovery

Quick answer

Sober Me: Tools for Recovery by Product Growth LLC is a 12-step companion. On Google Play it goes by 12 Step Tools for Recovery. Its listing describes the Big Book and other recovery reading, podcasts and speaker talks, a meeting finder, a community feed and a sobriety date counter with digital tokens. It has been on the App Store since 2015 and runs on iPhone, iPad and Android. The app is free to download with ads, and it sells subscriptions and ad removal in the app.

Sober44 (listed as Alcohol Free Tracker - Sober44) counts sober time to the second and offers a step-down taper to a quit day. From the drink profile you enter, it works out the money, drinks and calories you’ve avoided. It is free to download, and Pro costs $29.99 a year or $2.99 a week after a 7-day free trial.

If you follow a 12-step program and want the reading, the meetings and other people all in one place, pick Sober Me: Tools for Recovery. If you’re quitting or cutting back and want to watch your own numbers, with no ads and no account, pick Sober44.

Side-by-side

Where Sober Me: Tools for Recovery wins

The Big Book and other 12-step reading, built in. Its listing says the full Big Book text is in there, along with the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, As Bill Sees It, Daily Reflections, Prayers and Living Sober. The listing also mentions search, highlighting, adjustable font sizes and Light and Dark Mode. Reviewers say they like having the Big Book on their phone wherever they go, and the step, morning and night prayers come up often in their reviews. Sober44 lists no recovery reading.

Meetings, talks and other people. The listing describes a meeting finder for live meetings by phone, Zoom and other services, which you can filter by type, format, language and accessibility. There are podcasts, audiobooks and speaker talks too, the Joe and Charlie audio tapes among them, and a community feed where members share their stories. Sober44’s listing mentions no meetings, talks or community.

A long record and a large rating count. Sober Me: Tools for Recovery has been on the App Store since 2015, where it holds 4.8 stars from 14,700 US ratings. Google Play shows 4.7 stars from about 7,000 reviews and over 100,000 installs. Sober44 has only been on the App Store since 2026 and has no ratings there yet.

Where Sober44 wins

Sober Me: Tools for Recovery lists no money or drink figures. Its listing describes a counter based on your sobriety date, with digital tokens at milestones. It says nothing about money, drinks or calories. Sober44 counts to the second. It works out money saved from your own weekly spend and currency, along with drinks and calories avoided, and projects them over a week, a month, three months and a year. It also shows nine milestones from 20 minutes to one year, which its listing calls general estimates for motivation, not medical advice.

No taper plan is listed for Sober Me: Tools for Recovery. It starts from a sobriety date. With Sober44 you can stop now, or set a quit day and follow a step-down daily drink target until you get there. Sober44’s listing also says alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous and tells you to talk to a doctor or a qualified professional before you stop drinking.

Craving and relapse tools are not stated for Sober Me: Tools for Recovery. Its release notes mention adding a pledge and a Gratitude Journal and Nightly Review. Sober44 has a daily check-in (sober or drank, mood, trigger, note) and a craving log with box breathing and 10 meditation tracks. It also nudges you at the hour your cravings usually start. Logging a craving never resets the counter. A slip does restart it, but an honest “drank” check-in keeps your check-in streak going.

Sober Me: Tools for Recovery shows ads and declares tracking data. Its App Store age rating says it contains advertising. Its privacy label declares Usage Data and Diagnostics used to track you. A July 2024 update added an account creation flow. Reviewers report login trouble, and some object to being asked for an email or personal details in an anonymous program. Sober44 has no ads and no account. Your check-ins, cravings, journal entries and selfies stay on the device, and its privacy label declares no data used to track you.

Pricing

• Sober44 is free to download. Pro costs $29.99 a year or $2.99 a week and comes with a 7-day free trial. The store listing doesn’t say which features are free and which need Pro.
• Sober Me: Tools for Recovery by Product Growth LLC is free to download, with ads. Its store page lists a Monthly Subscription at $1.99, $2.99 or $3.99, a Yearly Subscription at $9.99, $19.99 or $29.99, an Annual Subscription at $9.99, and One Year Ad-free at $9.99 or $14.99. The store page states no trial and doesn’t spell out what the subscriptions include.

On the annual plan, a year of Sober44 Pro is $29.99. In Sober Me: Tools for Recovery, a year without ads is listed at $9.99 or $14.99, and its yearly subscriptions go up to $29.99.

Which one should you pick?

Pick Sober Me: Tools for Recovery if you follow a 12-step program, you want the Big Book, daily readings, speaker talks, a meeting finder and a community in one app, and you can live with ads.

Pick Sober44 if you’re quitting or cutting back, want a step-down taper to a quit day, and want to see the money, drinks and calories you’ve avoided worked out from your own numbers, with your check-ins kept on your phone and no ads or account.

The two cover different ground, so there’s no reason you can’t use both: one for the reading and meetings, the other for the drink numbers. To see how they stack up against the other apps we looked at, read our roundup of the best alcohol-free tracker apps.

Curious about the money before you download anything? Our free alcohol spending calculator adds up what your usual drinks cost per week, month and year, and over five years. It also shows what cutting back by 25% to 100% would save. It runs in your browser, so there’s nothing to install.