25 iPhone Apps Worth Paying For

Making space in your day for some gratitude can improve not just your day but your whole life. 5 Minute Journal: Self-Care ensures you can take some time out to journal, no matter where you are. It has daily notifications and guided prompts, and it syncs across devices (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch). The free version has lots of features, but if you go premium (starting at $4.99 per month), you can add photos and videos, create your own prompts, take notes, track your mood, and add a widget to your home screen.

Angela Moscaritolo, PCMag's senior analyst for fitness and smart home, recommends Ahead. "Ahead is an anger management app that trains you to notice when you're getting wired up and teaches techniques to better manage your emotions. As a yoga teacher, I already know the power of deep breathing, but that's just one of the many techniques Ahead offers. I also like the in-app reflection tool that lets you track annoyed and angry moments." Ahead has a free seven-day trial, after which it's $39.99 for three months, $99.99 annually, or $199.99 for a lifetime.

Got any games on your phone? Blek ($4.99) appeals to gamers and nongamers alike. To play, you draw a line to connect all the color dots on the screen. It sounds simple, but it's simply addictive.

Buddhify is very welcoming to beginner and expert meditators alike. Mobile Analyst Iyaz Akhtar finds it very useful for maintaining his meditation practice. When you open the app, you're greeted with a wheel that has clickable categories for different situations. You can customize the wheel or choose from one of nine other preset ones: for exploring meditation, dealing with difficult times, sleep issues, work, meditations to do with others, meditations to do while going about your day, the latest meditations on the app, the original classic Buddhify meditations, and kid-specific meditations.

When you create something online and want clicks for it, you probably want to ensure it fits with the prevailing internet aesthetic. But if you're not a graphic designer, consider giving Canva a try. The app has templates for social media, videos, Zoom backgrounds, infographics, desktop wallpaper, posters, logos, and lots more. With a premium subscription ($14.99 per month or $119.99 annually), you can access all its templates, images, videos, and audio and graphic design elements, and you get use extra editing options, such as a background remover and resizing tools.

Adding text to your TikToks is a must for accessibility and to get and keep the attention of those who watch videos without sound. Captions makes the process easy. It comes with lots of other features, including one-tap editing, a teleprompter, background-noise removal, and more for $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year. Angela Moscaritolo, PCMag's senior analyst for fitness and smart home, uses it for the TikToks she makes of her review process.

Deputy Managing Editor of Software Jill Duffy likes Downcast for its one-time fee, as well as settings that let you automatically start and end your favorite podcasts at set times to cut down on ads.

When you want to gamify your language-learning, there's no better app than Duolingo. The app is free with ads—but if you get some answers wrong in a short period of time, it can freeze you out for a few hours. Paying for Super Duolingo gets rid of ads, enables unlimited hearts (eliminating freeze-outs), lets you practice anything you made a mistake on, and gives you unlimited attempts at earning trophies. It's $12.99 per month or $83.99 per year.

MyFitnessPal can be used for counting calories, keeping track of your nutrition, or losing weight. There are lots of features in the free version but if you want to use the barcode scanner to easily enter foods or track protein, carbohydrates, and fat, you'll need a premium subscription, which costs $19.99 per month or $79.99 per year.

Whether you want a VPN to keep your data safe or just want to watch shows and movies you wouldn't otherwise have access to, NordVPN is a top PCMag pick. Subscriptions run $131.99 per month and $126.96 per year.

There are so many good recipes online, but gathering them all together and saving them in a little box in your kitchen seems impossible. Instead, save them with Paprika. The app ($4.99) lets you collect recipes from all over and even add your own. It generates grocery lists from the recipes, has a meal planner, and syncs across devices. When you're using a recipe, you can adjust the serving size, convert measurements, and access one-tap timers.

Whether or not you own a Peloton product, you can download the Peloton app and get a great workout. It offers cycling and treadmill workouts, of course, but also cardio, HIIT, and strength workouts, outdoor running, walking, stretching, yoga, and meditation. A Peloton subscription is $12.99 a month.

Both PCMag's Lead Analyst for Cameras Jim Fisher and Security Analyst Kim Key recommend PhotoPills for astrophotography. It lets you know exactly where and when to capture the perfect cosmic moment.

PictureThis is not a Golden Girls app, but it would help those ladies take care of all their ficus plants. You can use it to identify plants of all kinds (indoors and outdoors), set care reminders, and diagnose problems. A premium subscription ($29.99 annually) includes features such as exclusive plant-care guides and advice from botanists. "I will always pay for PictureThis, the poorly named plant identification app," says PCMag Security Analyst Kim Key. "It's incredibly good for gardening." PCMag's Lead Analyst for Security Neil J. Rubenking used it when he moved to another state with very different flowers and trees. "PictureThis was amazingly helpful, identifying both the wild plants and the landscape items in my neighborhood," Rubenking says.

Instead of keeping tons of tabs open, you can save everything you mean to read later with Pocket. It stores stories offline, which you'll be thankful for in tunnels, on airplanes, and anywhere without free Wi-Fi. The free version of the app offers unlimited storage, the ability to tag everything, and a text-to-speech option. It also has extensions for most browsers. So why pay for premium? It backs up your library, searches the text of everything you've saved, and suggests tags when you save something new. It's $4.99 per month or $44.99 annually.

Both professional and amateur artists can sketch, paint, and illustrate with the iPhone-specific version of this popular iPad app. Procreate Pocket is packed with incredible tools, including ones for animation, and you can export via AirDrop, iCloud Drive, Photos, iTunes, Twitter, Dropbox, Google Drive, Facebook, Weibo, and Mail.

RoboKiller keeps most if not all spam calls at bay, and it even offers to answer known spam calls with prank recordings or less combative ones. It also filters out spam texts. A subscription is $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year.

Writers need an app that can sync seamlessly between devices. Scrivener is worth $23.99 because of how well it syncs to PCs. (If you've ever tried to work on a manuscript in Google Docs, then you know it can be a formatting nightmare between platforms.) Scrivener offers a great folder system, the ability to add notes to projects, and lots of formatting options for screenplays, theses, and novels. If you're looking for different features, check out these great writing apps.

Scrolling through Skillshare is like looking at the course catalog of your dreams. Its classes nurture creativity and can help you turn a passion into a profession—or just get you hooked on a new hobby. Some classes are free, but for access to all of them, you'll need a premium membership; the price varies according to region.

There's nothing literally written in the stars, but do you wish there was, so that you could identify them? That's what SkySafari does for you. You can put a name to individual stars, constellations, planets, and more. The app offers animations of celestial events over time. PCMag's Lead Analyst for Security Neil J. Rubenking uses it in its most pure form: pointing it at the sky to identify stars.

Tarot is having a moment, and if you're a practitioner, then you'll want Tarot!, which lets you do a reading without having to tote around a pack of cards. The app features the classic Rider-Waite tarot deck, has three built-in books, and has settings for all sorts of spreads.

There are lots of to-do apps, but as a group, customization is not a strong suit. Todoist, on the other hand, lets you take control of your to-dos with its premium version. You can create your own label system; attach PDFs, spreadsheets, and photos; get location-based reminders; add tasks through email; and track your productivity. The basic app is free, but if you're juggling lots of projects, you'll want to get a pro plan for $4.99 per month or $47.99 per year.

What might have been a great photo can be ruined by all sorts of things. TouchRetouch makes it easy to remove most of them. Random objects, power lines, mesh fences, and anything else standing in your pic's way can be removed in a click. TouchRetouch can also fine-tune your shots and make your 360-degree snaps smoother. It costs $14.99 annually.

You don't need to keep a bulky scanner around just to make sure that you can easily scan in essential documents, whether it's to store them or to send them out for applications, taxes, and the like. TurboScan uses your phone's camera to create sharp, shareable scans. PCMag Managing Editor, Shopping & Deals John Mihaly paid $9.99 for the premium version of the app and says he uses it much more often than he ever thought he would.

"The best of the white-noise apps," according to PCMag Features Editor Eric Griffith, is the literally named but effective White Noise. It's packed with features, such as the ability to mix sounds, background audio support, and a gentle-wake alarm. Its included audio ranges from the calming sounds of nature to the strangely comforting cacophony of the city.