Alpha Progression Review: Is Pro Worth $79.99 a Year?

It depends on whether you want the app to choose your weights. As of October 2026, Alpha Progression Pro costs $12.99 a month or $79.99 a year in the US, with a 14-day free trial on the yearly plan only. Pay if you want a generated plan and a target for every working set, which also works in a plan you built yourself. Stay free if you follow your own program and pick your own weights. Free logging has no workout limit, no time limit and no ads.

I build GainsLog, a workout app that competes with Alpha Progression, so read this with that in mind. Every Alpha Progression price, limit and rule below comes from its US and Swedish App Store listings and its website, including its guides to the recommendations and the plan generator, read on 23 October 2026. There are no affiliate links or discount codes on this page.

Yes, and the free version doesn't expire. It logs unlimited workouts, lets you build your own plans and one-off workouts, and includes all 795 exercises with their videos, the rest timer, supersets and dropsets, personal records, body measurements and CSV export. It has no ads and needs no account (Alpha Progression, App Store).

Alpha's pricing card lists "No plan generator", "No recommendations" and "No charts" for the free version. RIR tracking, periodization, the plate and warm-up calculators and separate gym profiles are Pro too (Alpha Progression).

The yearly plan costs about as much as 6.2 months of the monthly one, in both countries (App Store, App Store). The trial is for new customers and only on the yearly plan. When it ends, the full yearly price is charged in one payment unless you cancel before your provider's deadline. The monthly plan has no trial (Alpha Progression, Alpha Progression).

Both listings also show a monthly and a yearly plan marked "[Legacy]", at $24.99 and $99.99 in the US and 299 kr and 1 295 kr in Sweden. Alpha's own subscribe page sells only the $12.99 and $79.99 plans (Alpha Progression), so check the price on the paywall before you pay.

Alpha offers a full refund on request, including for a payment taken after the trial or at renewal. If you bought through the App Store, you ask Apple first, and if Apple declines, Alpha says to contact them so it can arrange the refund (Alpha Progression, support).

From Alpha's features list and pricing card (Alpha Progression):

The recommendations are the main reason to pay. Before each working set, Pro shows a weight and a rep count to aim for. Alpha's guide says they come from your previous workout, the sets you've already done today, your planned rep target and the weights available in your gym, plus your RIR (reps in reserve, the reps you could still have done) if you track it. Internally it compares sets through an estimated 10-rep max, and the guide doesn't describe that calculation (Alpha Progression).

The available weights are a hard limit, so when the next dumbbell is a big jump, the app can add reps first. In Alpha's own example, after three sets of 10 with 20 kg dumbbells, the next recommendation is 20 kg for 11. Over the following workouts the reps climb to 15 before it moves you to 25 kg for 6. Alpha says 15 is not a fixed threshold. It can also suggest a lighter weight for more reps, and a weak set can lower the next set's target in the same workout (Alpha Progression).

There's no recommendation the first time you log an exercise, because the app has nothing to compare with. Alpha says it shows guidance for finding a starting weight instead (support). By default it compares with the same exercise on the same plan day, such as last week's Push day, and you can switch it to your most recent workout with that exercise. If the rep targets look unusually high, Alpha says the usual cause is a wrong weight setting, such as a maximum dumbbell set too low (Alpha Progression, support).

You don't need the plan generator or RIR tracking to get recommendations. They work with plans you build yourself and with one-off workouts (Alpha Progression). How Alpha's rule compares with other apps that set your next weight is in the progressive overload app comparison.

The generator, also Pro, asks for your experience, goal, gym and equipment, how often you train, how long sessions should be, your gender and which muscles to prioritize, and builds the split, exercises, sets and rep targets (Alpha Progression). Experience is counted by how long you've trained consistently: Beginner under 6 months, Intermediate from 6 months, Advanced from 1.5 years, Pro from 4 years and Elite from 8 years. The goals are Maximum strength, Muscle gain and Strength endurance, and the goal mostly changes the rep targets.

You can let the app pick the split or choose full body, upper-lower, push-pull, push-pull-legs or a push-pull-legs and upper-lower mix, depending on how many days you train. Muscle priorities are relative, so prioritizing every muscle gives no muscle extra emphasis, the same as prioritizing none. A plan runs 4 weeks by default, or 5, 6 or 7 weeks, or with no end date. You can edit everything, and the workouts run in order rather than on fixed dates, so a missed day doesn't need a new plan (Alpha Progression, support).

Pro stays active until the paid period ends. After that, logging and the plans you built yourself keep working on the free version. Recommendations stop, and so does starting a generated workout, "whether standalone or part of a generated plan" (Alpha Progression).

Make a free account if you want your history backed up. Without one, Alpha stores your training data only on your phone (support).

• No watch app yet. There's no dedicated Apple Watch or Wear OS workout app, though Alpha says both are on its roadmap; on iPhone the current set and rest timer show as a Live Activity instead (Alpha Progression).
• No web version. Alpha is an iOS and Android app with no workout logger in the browser (Alpha Progression).
• No import. You can't bring your history from another app, only add old workouts by hand (Alpha Progression).

• Pay if you want the app to build your plan and give you a target for every working set, and you'll check that the app's dumbbell and plate settings match your gym. Alpha ships default weights and says you only need to change them if your gym differs (Alpha Progression).
• Pay if you follow your own or a coach's program but want set-by-set targets. The recommendations work with plans you build yourself.
• Pay if you train at more than one gym. Pro keeps separate gym profiles, each with its own equipment and weights.
• Stay free if you pick your own weights from last session's numbers. Free logging has no limit on workouts, and you can build your own plans.
• Look elsewhere if you want to log from a watch or a browser, or bring your old history with you.
• If you try it, the trial is on the yearly plan, so note the end date. The full year is charged when the trial ends, though Alpha refunds on request.

GainsLog, which I build, is a workout app for iPhone and iPad, and you can carry a workout on to your Apple Watch. It sets each set's weight and rep targets from the weight, reps and reps in reserve you logged. Those targets are free for every exercise you've logged before, along with up to three saved workouts. On Alpha Progression, recommendations need Pro.

GainsLog's ready-made programs and program builder are Premium, at $5.99 a week with a free trial or $39.99 a year (Premium). The App Store also lists GainsLog Premium Lifetime at $79.99, paid once, the same as one year of Alpha Progression Pro (App Store).

Alpha Progression has things GainsLog lacks. It runs on Android, which GainsLog only has in closed beta. Its library has 795 exercises with filmed videos, and it exports your data as CSV, while GainsLog has no import or export. If you're comparing apps that plan for you, the RP Hypertrophy review and the Hevy review cover two more, and the progressive overload app comparison puts them side by side.

If you'd rather have the weight and reps for exercises you've logged before set for you, free, see how GainsLog works.

Researched and drafted with AI assistance from Alpha Progression's App Store listings, website and guides and from GainsLog's code, checked against those pages on 23 October 2026 and reviewed by me. Prices change, so the pages used are listed below.

• Alpha Progression on the US App Store: prices, free and Pro
• Alpha Progression on the Swedish App Store: prices
• Alpha Progression: features, pricing and FAQ
• Alpha Progression: subscribe page
• Alpha Progression: support and FAQ
• Alpha Progression: how the recommendations work
• Alpha Progression: how the plan generator works
• Alpha Progression: the complete guide
• GainsLog on the US App Store