If you are choosing a step counter on iPhone, Simply Step is the more motivating pick. Pacer is a broad fitness platform with coaching, weight tools, and community challenges. Simply Step is built around the part most people actually need help with: wanting to walk again tomorrow. Your real steps move a 3D character toward 21 real cities, earning coins, stamps, achievements, and social progress along the way.
Simply Step vs Pacer at a glance
Pacer is broad. Simply Step is focused. If you want coaching and weight-management tools, Pacer covers more categories. If you want a step counter that makes daily walking feel rewarding instead of administrative, Simply Step is the clearer match.
| Simply Step | Pacer | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free; optional Pro (free trial) | Free; Premium about $9.99/mo or $49.99/yr |
| Platforms | iPhone and Apple Watch | iOS and Android |
| Step sources | Apple Health, pedometer, AirPods motion, Apple Watch | Phone motion sensors, Apple Health |
| Core idea | Turn walking into a game | All-in-one fitness coaching and community |
| Standout | Adventure: walk a 3D world to 21 real cities | AI coach, guided workouts, group challenges |
| Best for | Staying motivated through play | Coaching, weight goals, big communities |
What is Pacer?
Pacer, made by Pacer Health, counts steps with your phone's motion sensors, runs in the background, and logs distance and calories automatically. Over time it has grown from a pedometer into a broader wellness app.
That breadth gives you:
- GPS route mapping, plus weight and BMI tracking with trends.
- Daily and group step challenges with a large, active community.
- Pacer Premium adds an AI coach, guided audio walks, and video workouts, at roughly $9.99 per month or $49.99 per year with a free trial.
- Cross-platform on iOS and Android, which matters if your friends are split across phones.
Those features are useful if you want one app to cover walking, coaching, and weight tracking. The tradeoff is focus: Pacer can feel more like a fitness dashboard than a reason to take the next walk.
What is Simply Step?
Simply Step is an iPhone step counter organized into four simple pages you swipe between: Steps, Workout, Activity, and Passport. Your live count is always front and center, and the Activity page shows weekly, monthly, and yearly charts plus distance, calories, best day, goals hit, average heart rate, and your streak.
The Steps page has two modes. Treadmill is the free, simple counter. Adventure (part of Pro) is the heart of the app: a 3D world your character actually walks through as you rack up real steps.
The Adventure: walk to 21 real cities
- Your steps carry a 3D character along a route. You start in Venice, then unlock a tier of cities including Paris, Barcelona, Tokyo, Seoul, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, and San Diego, then the rest, for 21 real cities in total.
- Each city is a step-based journey. You earn a passport stamp for finishing, a halfway stamp at the midpoint, and you collect landmarks as you pass them.
- Completion dates are saved, and lifetime laps track how many times you circle the world.
A character you actually build
- A SceneKit 3D character with 15 customization categories (body, hair, face, hats, glasses, tops, bottoms, shoes, gloves, full costumes, and more).
- You earn coins to spend in the shop: roughly 3 coins per 1,000 steps free, doubled to per 500 steps with Pro, up to a daily cap.
- Pro members also get a monthly token for a free item and unlock full-body costumes.
Progress and social, with a real backend
- 48 achievements across Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiers in 11 categories, from streaks to journeys to hidden ones like a single-day marathon.
- Walking groups of up to 20 people with group streaks, an optional weekly target, and member badges for best stepper and most improved.
- Add friends by code and compete on four leaderboards: daily, weekly, monthly, and a reputation board.
- People Seen: pass other real walkers on the path and the encounter is logged, powered by the app's Supabase backend.
- Daily goals and streaks, with a streak freeze so one missed day does not wipe your progress.
Workouts, Watch, and widgets
- Start walking or running workouts (running is auto-detected from cadence), indoors or outdoors, with full GPS route tracking you can replay in 3D afterward.
- Live heart rate and calories via Apple Health, auto-pause and auto-resume, and pace and cadence readouts.
- A dedicated Apple Watch app with its own step tracking, plus small and medium home screen widgets showing today's steps and a weekly chart.
- Four themes (Blue, Earth, Rose, and a Mono dark theme), and the app is localized in several languages including German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese.
You can read the full walkthrough in our Simply Step review.
So how do they compare?
Step tracking
On iPhone, Simply Step has the better fit. It pulls from Apple Health, the iPhone pedometer, AirPods motion, and Apple Watch, so your step count stays tied to the Apple ecosystem you already use. Pacer is useful if you need Android support too, but iPhone walkers get a cleaner setup from Simply Step.
Motivation
This is where Simply Step separates itself. Pacer motivates through structure: coaching, plans, and competitive challenges. Simply Step motivates through play: coins, a character you dress up, achievements, friends, and a city you are literally walking toward. For most people who struggle with consistency, that daily game loop is the more powerful nudge.
Depth versus focus
Pacer is broader: weight and BMI, guided video workouts, and trend analysis in one place. Simply Step is deeper where it matters for walking habit formation: 3D world walks, a full cosmetic economy, city progression, passport stamps, groups, leaderboards, and achievements. It does not try to be your whole wellness dashboard. It tries to make walking stick.
Which should you pick?
- Choose Simply Step if you are on iPhone and want a step counter that is genuinely fun to open, where your daily steps build a character, unlock rewards, and carry you to a new city. It leans on Apple Health and Apple Watch, so it stays in sync without turning walking into homework.
- Choose Pacer only if you specifically want a broader fitness platform with weight tracking, coaching, Android support, and large challenge communities.
The bottom line
For iPhone walkers, Simply Step is the better choice when motivation is the problem. Pacer gives you more wellness tools, but Simply Step gives your steps somewhere to go: a world to explore, a character to build, friends to compete with, and cities to unlock. If dashboards have not kept you consistent, the answer is not another dashboard. Download Simply Step and make the walk itself the reward.
Frequently asked questions
Is Simply Step a good Pacer alternative?
Yes. If you are on iPhone and want a step counter you actually enjoy opening every day, Simply Step is the stronger pick. Pacer is broader, but Simply Step is more focused on motivation: your real steps move a 3D character through 21 real cities, earn coins, unlock achievements, power groups, and keep your Apple Health and Apple Watch progress easy to follow.
Is Simply Step free, and what does premium add?
Simply Step is free to download. The live counter, activity stats and charts, the free Treadmill mode, workouts, achievements, and the character shop are all free. A Pro subscription (with a free trial) unlocks the Adventure city journeys, the Earth, Rose, and Mono themes, double coins, full-body costumes, workout export, and removes ads. Pacer is also free, with Pacer Premium at roughly $9.99 per month or $49.99 per year.
Does Simply Step work with Apple Health and Apple Watch?
Yes. Simply Step reads steps from Apple Health and the iPhone pedometer, can count steps from AirPods motion sensors, and includes a dedicated Apple Watch app plus home screen and Watch widgets. It shows weekly, monthly, and yearly charts along with distance, calories, best day, average heart rate, and streaks.
What makes Simply Step different from Pacer?
Simply Step makes walking feel like progress inside a world, not just a number on a dashboard. Your real steps move a customizable 3D character toward 21 real cities such as Venice, Tokyo, and Barcelona, earning passport stamps and landmarks along the way. Add coins every 500 steps, 48 achievements, walking groups, four leaderboards, and a People Seen encounter system.
