“Was good before the paywall — I used Howbout for a couple of years and absolutely loved it. I originally started using it with my family after I moved out, and eventually added friends as all of our schedules became busier and harder to…”
Independent automated assessment · 3 signal sources · 621 reviews scanned · analyzed 2026-10-05.
4.8 ★50,468 ratings
—Downloads
12+Age rating
163 MBApp size
FreeIn-app purchases
About this app
The shared calendar for friends, couples, and family
This is the app you’ve seen all over TikTok. 10M downloads, 200M+ plans made, and 1B+ views across social media. Howbout is how millions of people actually see each other more.
Planning shouldn't take a hundred messages and a "when works for you?" thread that goes nowhere. Howbout fixes that. Find the gap, lock in the plan, actually see the people who matter to you.
…
WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH HOWBOUT
SEE WHEN EVERYONE'S FREE No guessing, it's right there on the calendar.
MAKE PLANS Add events, add details, and keep everything together, so plans don't fall apart.
SHARE YOUR CALENDAR OR AVAILABILITY Choose what people see. Stay private or share with friends.
KEEP ALL THE DETAILS IN ONE PLACE Plans, chats, locations, notes, photos… no switching apps or losing the details.…
Preview
Real screenshots from the store listing.
Independent evidence report
Evidence and review signals
This is where the page changes from an app-store listing into an evidence report: findings, important reviews, pricing and a dated history.
Which version this describes
When we ran this analysis, and what the store lists now.
This analysis describes version 16.5.3 of the app, analyzed 2026-10-05 . The app may have changed since.
The store currently lists version 16.5.3, updated 2026-09-30.
What we measured
Each line is a measurement published as a measurement, never a verdict.
Each line is a measurement, published as a measurement. Where we have not looked, the line says so rather than reading as a zero.
Developer replies to reviews
Replies to fewer than 1 review in 20
Price in the store description
States no price and billing period
Cancelling, in the store description
Does not say how to cancel
Themes reported by reviewers
1 theme reported
Counted from the reviews we have read for this app. "No theme reported" means no theme reached our reporting threshold — it is not a finding that nothing is wrong with this app, and we do not say it is.
Five-star share of ratings
80–89% five-star
Arithmetic on the stores' own published rating counts. It says nothing about why the ratings fall where they do.
In the package we scanned
No package has been scanned for this app, so nothing is published about what it ships. That is an absence of evidence about the app, not a finding about it.
Graded bands · predicate set 1.4 · how these are measured
What the analysis found
App-specific findings, grouped by what each one rests on. How they are graded lives on its own page.
One source only — shown, not confirmed 1
A single kind of evidence. We publish these because withholding them would be the bigger distortion, and we do not treat any of them as a finding we stand behind.
Reported by users: Paywall blocks the basics
The core of the app — not extras — sits behind payment, or previously-free function moved behind a paywall.
What we saw: Paywall blocks the basics: raised by 20 distinct reviewers (3.2% of 621 reviews scanned)
Highlighted reviews
Representative public review excerpts shown as user reports, not Appworthy audit evidence.
“becoming a money grab — i had this app for years and just recently it stopped letting you use any color for events and now you have to pay for colors. it was already getting bad with having to pay for a subscription for themes, widgets…”
“Color coding — I love this app and use it to visualize my schedule for classes and share my availability with my boyfriend, but I just realized now that I am coming back to school that they changed how color coding works and put it behind…”
Assessment & version history
App changes and Appworthy events in one timeline.
Store listing updated to version 16.5.3.
What this app sells
Useful store-disclosed pricing, kept below the app listing.
Business modelFree
Prices and terms as disclosed by the store listing.