What is steps.org?
steps.org puts a price on skipping workouts. You pick one weekly goal in activity minutes, connect Strava, and your monthly price starts at $0. Miss a week and it goes up $5. Hit a week and it comes down $2.50. The maker calls keeping it at $0 the game.
Nobody wins money and nothing is paid out. Of what you do pay, after VAT and card fees, 30% goes to carbon removal through Stripe Climate and 70% runs the site. It's a website, with no app to install, operated by Pipedesk OÜ in Estonia and built by notacompany.
How the game works
One number a week
Choose 60, 90, 120, 150, 210 or 300 activity minutes. The default is 90, about three 30-minute cardio sessions. A week runs Monday 12:00 a.m. to Sunday 11:59 p.m. in your time zone, and a change to your goal starts the following Monday.
What counts
Moving time from any sport, as long as a watch, bike computer or phone recorded the activity with heart rate or a GPS track and it started during the week. Activities typed into Strava by hand don't count. A workout that reaches Strava up to 48 hours late still counts for the week you did it, and the price is corrected.
How the price moves
At the standard stakes a miss adds $5 and a hit takes $2.50 off, with a floor of $0 and a cap of $25 a month. Optional higher stakes multiply all three: ×2 is +$10, −$5 and up to $50; ×3 is +$15, −$7.50 and up to $75. The FAQ's rule of thumb: miss one week in three and your price stays flat. The new price shows the moment the week ends, Sunday at midnight.
How you're charged
Your card is saved with Stripe when your plan starts. Once a month you pay for the month just ended, by the day, each day at that day's price, so a whole month at $5 costs $5. At $0 nothing is charged. VAT is included.
The first week is a warm-up
Start any day. Your activities show up, nothing counts against you, and the first counted week starts the next Monday.
Emails
A Monday recap with last week's result, your new price and your streak, one the moment you hit your goal, and a Saturday reminder of what's left if you haven't. Each of those can be turned off in Settings.
What it reads from Strava
Strava to steps.org, read only. Strava is the only connection today; direct Apple Health, Garmin Connect, Health Connect and Fitbit connections are listed as coming soon. The privacy policy lists what it reads for each activity: start time, moving time, sport, name, the device that recorded it, whether it was entered by hand, and whether it has heart rate or a GPS track. It never posts to Strava. Activities are kept for 7 days at most, and each week's total, result and price are kept as the billing record.
Only you see your week and your price; there are no public pages. The privacy policy says nothing read from Strava goes to analytics, advertising or any AI. If you remove steps.org in Strava's settings, it deletes what it holds from Strava within two days, and your weeks count as missed until you reconnect.
Who It's For
- People who already record on Strava and want a reason not to let one skipped week become a month
- Anyone who's tried streaks and found them brittle: the goal is a weekly total, so one bad day doesn't sink it
- People coming back to exercise: the smallest goal is 60 minutes a week, any sport
The FAQ says it probably isn't for anyone who finds money on the line makes exercise feel worse, and that it isn't for anyone under 18 or anyone with an eating disorder or compulsive exercise, now or in the past. If you have a heart condition, are pregnant or injured, or were told to limit exercise, it says to ask your doctor before picking a goal.
What it doesn't do
It doesn't pay you for hitting your goal, coach you, or analyze your training; it adds up minutes and moves a price. Manual entries never count. Prices are listed in US dollars; the site doesn't mention other currencies. There's no phone app, though your week is one browser tab away.
Can I cancel?
Any time, in Settings. The game ends at once and the days you've played that month are billed right away. You can start a new game 15 days later, at $0, with another warm-up week.
What happens if I stop recording?
After 90 days with no activity on Strava, steps.org closes your account and deletes everything it holds, with an email 7 days before. A running plan ends with the month so far charged.
