20 Productivity App Gamification Examples

This post is part of a series on how gamification mechanics are used effectively in various types of consumer apps. You may find these gamification examples helpful if you are looking to incorporate gamification into your product strategy.

Productivity Apps and the Role of Gamification

Productivity apps aim to help users manage tasks, time, and information more effectively. They are interesting because they promise to improve efficiency, reduce stress, and help achieve goals. To boost engagement and retention, these apps often incorporate gamification elements. This can include points, badges, leaderboards, and progress tracking. These features make completing tasks more rewarding, provide a sense of accomplishment, and encourage continued use. This adds value by making achieving personal or professional goals more enjoyable and motivating. Now, without further ado, here are 20 productivity apps that use gamification to create engaging user experiences.

20 Productivity App Gamification Examples

Beeminder

Beeminder lets you commit to goals and tracks your progress. If you fail to meet your goals, you pay money.

Beeminder uses the following gamification features:

• Rewards: Beeminder uses a commitment contract with 'sting' to motivate users. If a user fails to meet their goal, they pay money.

• Progress Bars: Beeminder plots your progress on a graph to track your progress towards the goal. You can see where you are today, and where you need to be tomorrow.

• Streaks: Beeminder uses a bright red line called the 'road' to show where your progress needs to be. If you fall behind this road, you will be charged money. If you stay on the road you build a 'flatline' which shows your safety buffer.

Forest

Forest is a productivity app that helps users stay focused by planting virtual trees that grow while they avoid using their phones.

Forest uses the following gamification features:

• Rewards: Users earn virtual coins for successfully growing trees by staying focused. These coins can be used to plant real trees through Forest's partnership with Trees for the Future.

• Streaks: The app tracks how many days in a row you have successfully planted trees. Maintaining a longer streak increases your in-app rewards and signifies consistent focus habits.

• Achievements: Users unlock different types of trees to plant as they use the app, adding a collection aspect to the focus timer.

You can learn more about Forest's gamification strategy in our case study: How Forest Leverages Gamification to Boost Retention.

Habitica

Habitica is a habit-tracking app that turns real-life tasks into a role-playing game, where users earn rewards and level up by completing habits and tasks.

Habitica uses the following gamification features:

• Points: Users gain experience points (XP) for completing tasks and lose XP for failing to complete tasks, simulating character progression in a role-playing game.

• Levels: As users accumulate XP, they level up, unlocking new features, quests, and customization options.

• Rewards: Users can earn gold by completing tasks, which can then be spent on rewards, such as equipment, pets, or custom rewards they define themselves.

• Streaks: Habitica tracks how consistently users complete their daily tasks. Maintaining streaks provides bonus XP and gold.

• Challenges: Users can join challenges created by other users or the Habitica team. These challenges provide a set of tasks and rewards for participating and completing them.

You can learn more about Habitica's gamification strategy in our case study: Habitica's Gamification Strategy: A Case Study.

Productive

Productive is a habit tracker that helps you build a routine with positive, life-changing habits. Set personal goals, track your progress, and motivate yourself.

Productive uses the following gamification features:

• Streaks: Productive uses streaks to motivate users to consistently complete their habits. The app visually displays the current streak for each habit, encouraging users to maintain their progress and avoid breaking the chain.

• Progress Bars: The app uses progress bars to visually represent the completion of daily or weekly goals. This feature provides a clear and immediate sense of accomplishment as users track their progress towards their desired outcomes.

• Achievements: Productive awards users with achievements for reaching specific milestones, such as completing a certain number of habits or maintaining a streak for a designated period. This feature provides users with a sense of accomplishment and encourages them to continue using the app.

You can learn more about Productive's gamification strategy in our case study: Productive's Gamification Strategy: A Case Study.

StickK

StickK is a goal-setting website that uses commitment contracts to help you achieve your goals. Put money on the line to increase your chances of success.

StickK uses the following gamification features:

• Rewards: Users set a commitment contract with specific goals and stakes. If they fail to meet their goals, they pay the penalty they defined to an individual or charity of their choosing. This financial stake gamifies the process of achieving their goals.

• Challenges: Users define a 'referee' who monitors their progress and reports on whether or not they are adhering to the terms of their commitment contract. This helps to keep users accountable and on track to reach their goals, adding a layer of social accountability.

• Progress Bars: The platform tracks users' progress toward their goals over time. This allows users to visualize how far they've come and how much further they need to go, creating a sense of momentum and encouraging them to stick with their commitments.

Streaks

Streaks is a habit-tracking app that motivates you to complete tasks every day to build a streak. The goal is to build a long streak and form good habits.

Streaks uses the following gamification features:

• Streaks: The core mechanic of Streaks is to build and maintain streaks of consecutive days completing tasks. The app visually displays your current streak for each task, motivating you to continue the streak and avoid breaking it.

• Progress Bars: Streaks uses progress bars to visually represent the completion of tasks. Each task has its own progress bar that fills up as you mark the task as complete, providing a clear visual indicator of your progress towards maintaining your streak.

You can learn more about Streaks's gamification strategy in our case study: How Streaks Leverages Gamification to Boost Retention.

SuperBetter

SuperBetter increases your resilience, strengthens relationships, finds meaning, and achieves ambitious goals. Unlock your heroic potential and overcome real-life challenges.

SuperBetter uses the following gamification features:

• Points: Users earn points for completing quests, activating power-ups, and overcoming challenges. Points contribute to leveling up and tracking progress.

• Streaks: SuperBetter allows users to create and track daily, weekly, or custom streaks for positive habits and activities. Maintaining streaks provides a sense of accomplishment and reinforces positive behaviors.

• Challenges: Users set personal challenges related to their goals, such as overcoming anxiety or improving relationships. Completing these challenges earns rewards and contributes to overall progress.

• Achievements: Users unlock achievements for reaching milestones, completing quests, or demonstrating consistent effort. Achievements provide recognition and a sense of accomplishment.

• Levels: As users accumulate points and complete challenges, they level up, signifying their progress and growth within the app.

You can learn more about SuperBetter's gamification strategy in our case study: SuperBetter's Gamification Strategy: A Case Study.

TeuxDeux

TeuxDeux is a simple, design-focused to-do list app with a weekly overview. Completing tasks gives a sense of accomplishment.

TeuxDeux uses the following gamification features:

• Streaks: TeuxDeux uses a 'Streaks' feature by visually indicating how many consecutive days a user has completed tasks. This encourages continued use and task completion to maintain the streak.

• Progress Bars: The app uses a visual 'Progress Bar' for each day, representing how many tasks have been completed out of the total tasks scheduled for that day. This gives users a sense of accomplishment as they see the bar fill up.

You can learn more about TeuxDeux's gamification strategy in our case study: How TeuxDeux Uses Gamification to Improve Engagement and Retention.

Todoist

Todoist is a task management app that rewards users with points and levels for completing tasks and staying organized.

Todoist uses the following gamification features:

• Points: Users earn points for completing tasks, and the more complex or important a task, the more points it's worth. These points contribute to the user's Karma score.

• Streaks: Todoist tracks the number of days in a row a user has completed their tasks. The app displays the current streak to encourage users to maintain their task completion habits.

• Levels: As users accumulate Karma points, they advance through different levels. These levels are indicated by titles (e.g., Beginner, Intermediate, Expert) and are visually represented within the app, signifying progress and achievement.

• Badges: Todoist awards badges for achieving specific milestones, such as completing a certain number of tasks or using specific features of the app. These badges serve as visual acknowledgements of progress and encourage continued engagement.

You can learn more about Todoist's gamification strategy in our case study: Todoist's Gamification Strategy: A Case Study.

ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is a grammar checker, style editor, and writing mentor in one package. The app offers badges and tracks improvements to incentivize better writing habits.

ProWritingAid uses the following gamification features:

• Points: Users earn points for completing writing reports and using the ProWritingAid platform. These points seem to accumulate and might be tied to some kind of internal scoring or ranking system, although the specific usage isn't explicitly stated to the user.

• Progress Bars: ProWritingAid uses progress bars within each report to visually represent the user's progress in addressing suggestions and improving their document. This provides a clear indication of how much work is left to be done in each category (e.g., grammar, style).

• Streaks: ProWritingAid tracks how consistently a user engages with the app by measuring how many consecutive days they make edits within the platform.

• Badges: The platform awards badges to users upon completing certain actions in the app.

4theWords

4theWords is a writing game that challenges you to write against the clock to defeat monsters and complete quests. It's designed to make writing feel like an adventure.

4theWords uses the following gamification features:

• Points: Players earn points by defeating writing-related 'monsters' when writing.

• Levels: Players level up their characters by earning experience points from writing and defeating monsters.

• Badges: Players can earn badges for reaching certain writing milestones.

• Rewards: Players earn rewards such as in-game items to help their character in game play.

• Challenges: Players complete writing challenges to earn rewards

• Streaks: Players can earn a writing streak by logging in and writing consistently, rewarding regular engagement.

Write or Die

Write or Die is a writing app that encourages consistent writing habits through negative reinforcement. If you stop writing, the app will 'punish' you in various ways, making the process feel like a game.

Write or Die uses the following gamification features:

• Progress Bars: The app uses a progress bar to visually represent how close the user is to meeting their writing goal. The progress bar fills up as the user writes, providing a sense of accomplishment and motivation.

• Streaks: Write or Die utilizes streaks to encourage consistent writing habits. Users are motivated to write daily to maintain their streak and avoid losing their progress.

Dabble

Dabble is a writing software created by writers, for writers. They provide writing sprints where writers compete against one another to reach a certain word count in a set time. Dabble then displays all participants' progress on a graph and celebrates the winner.

Dabble uses the following gamification features:

• Points: Dabble uses a points system to reward users for completing writing sessions, providing feedback, and engaging with the community. Points can be earned by reaching daily goals, participating in writing sprints, and receiving upvotes on feedback.

• Progress Bars: Dabble employs progress bars to visually represent a user's progress towards their daily word count goal. This feature provides a clear and motivating indicator of how close a user is to achieving their target.

• Streaks: Dabble offers Streaks to encourage consistent writing habits. Users build streaks by writing on consecutive days, which motivates them to maintain a regular writing schedule.

Buffer

Buffer is a social media management platform that helps users plan, create, and schedule content across various social networks. It simplifies social media marketing by providing tools for content curation, analytics, and team collaboration.

Buffer uses the following gamification features:

Plot Factory

Plot Factory provides tools to help writers plan and organize their stories with gamified elements like progress tracking and achievements.

Plot Factory uses the following gamification features:

• Points: Users earn points for completing various writing-related tasks, such as creating plots, writing scenes, and outlining stories. These points contribute to their overall progress and standing within the platform.

• Badges: Users can unlock badges by reaching goals. For example, they can earn badges for writing regularly.

• Streaks: The app tracks a user's writing streak, showing how many consecutive days they have written. This encourages consistent writing habits.

Squibler

Squibler is designed for writers to organize books, screenplays, and stories. It incorporates project tracking and gamified goal setting.

Squibler uses the following gamification features:

• Progress Bars: Squibler uses a progress bar to visually represent the user's progress towards their daily or project word count goals. This helps users stay motivated and track their writing progress.

• Challenges: Squibler has word count goals that can be set up to help writers be consistent and write more.

Campfire Technology

Campfire Technology offers features for writers to build their world. Writers can earn badges as they create character sheets, timelines, locations, and more.

Campfire Technology uses the following gamification features:

• Badges: Users can earn badges for reaching writing milestone such as writing 10k, 50k or 90k words.

• Achievements: Users can earn achievements for completing tasks or reaching specific milestones. Achievements are often accompanied by a visual reward or notification.

• Streaks: Streaks track consecutive days or periods a user writes at least one word on Campfire.

TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit is a marketplace where you can find people to help you with tasks. You can earn badges and climb the leaderboard by completing tasks.

TaskRabbit uses the following gamification features:

• Badges: Taskers earn badges for completing certain types or a high volume of tasks. These badges are displayed on their profile, providing a visual representation of their expertise and experience, which can attract more customers.

• Points: TaskRabbit uses a system of ratings and reviews after each task. While not explicitly points, positive ratings act as a form of points, influencing a Tasker's overall score and visibility on the platform, encouraging high-quality service.

• Levels: Taskers are ranked based on several factors, which include the number of completed tasks, positive reviews, and response time. A Tasker can strive to improve their standing to gain more visibility in the app.

• Rewards: Taskers that are reliable and timely, and complete the work to the satisfaction of the client, are rewarded with an increased earning potential through an expanded range of available tasks.

Any.do

Any.do is a simple to-do list and task management app that provides badges and achievements for completing tasks efficiently.

Any.do uses the following gamification features:

• Streaks: Users earn streaks for consistently completing tasks, motivating them to maintain their productivity.

• Progress Bars: Progress bars visually represent the completion status of tasks, encouraging users to finish what they started.

• Challenges: Any.do offers daily planner challenges to help users create and stick to daily routines.

TickTick

TickTick offers a habit tracker and Pomodoro timer along with a to-do list. Earn rewards for staying focused and completing tasks.

TickTick uses the following gamification features:

• Points: TickTick uses a points system to reward users for completing tasks, achieving goals, and consistently using the app. Users accumulate points which motivate them to stay engaged and productive.

• Streaks: TickTick utilizes a 'Smart Habit' tracker that allows users to build and maintain habits. Streaks are displayed visually, showing the number of consecutive days a habit has been completed, encouraging consistent behavior.

• Progress Bars: TickTick displays progress bars for goals and tasks, visually representing the user's advancement and motivating them to complete their objectives.

• Badges: TickTick grants badges for achieving specific milestones or completing certain tasks within the app. These badges serve as visual recognition of accomplishments and encourage further engagement.

Conclusion

These are just a few examples of how gamification can be used effectively in productivity apps. We hope you found these examples inspiring and that they help you think about how you can incorporate gamification into your own product strategy.

If you're looking to build gamification into your app or platform, we encourage you to check out Trophy, a set of APIs and tools for building gamified product experiences in hours, not months.