Roundup
The best sleep apps for iPhone, sorted by what you're fixing
Sleep app covers about six unrelated products, which is why most roundups of them read like a list of things. Sort by what is actually going wrong and the choice gets short very quickly.
In short
For iPhone, the best sleep app depends on the problem. Tock is the best all-round pick when the alarm and the morning are what is broken, Apple Health Sleep is the free place to start, Calm is for people who cannot fall asleep, AutoSleep is for Apple Watch owners, Rise is for sleep debt and SnoreLab is for snoring.
What decided the order
- Which single problem it is genuinely built for, rather than which problems it lists.
- Whether it needs a wearable, or works with the phone on the nightstand.
- Whether it does anything at the moment of waking, or only reports afterwards.
- Whether it duplicates something your iPhone already does for nothing.
Tock
Best all-round if the alarm and the morning are the problem
It is an alarm first and the tracking exists to serve the alarm rather than the other way round. The ring is an AlarmKit system alarm, so it gets through silent mode and a Focus, it will not stop until you finish a small task, and it looks at the half hour beforehand for a lighter moment. The night behind it comes with playable audio of the snores and sleep talking it classified on the device, a score, and a coach you can ask why you keep waking at 3am.
The catchPhone-only stages are estimates, there is no Apple Watch app, there is no free tier and the coach needs a network connection. A 3-day trial, then from $39.99 a year.
More on TockApple Health Sleep
Best free starting point
It is already installed, it costs nothing, and it is the system of record every other app reads from, Tock included. Two weeks of schedule data answers the first question worth asking, which is whether you are keeping anything resembling a consistent bedtime. Half the people who install a paid app did not need one, they needed this answer.
The catchWithout an Apple Watch it is mostly a schedule rather than a night, and a schedule cannot tell you how you slept.
More on Apple Health SleepCalm
Best if falling asleep is the problem
If you lie there for an hour with your head running, no tracker helps, because there is nothing to track yet. Calm's narrated library is the biggest and best produced of its kind, with named voices and licensed music, and following a story until you drop is a real technique for people whose minds need somewhere to go.
The catchIt does not wake you, track your night or tell you anything in the morning, so it is half a night at a full price.
More on CalmAutoSleep
Best if you already wear an Apple Watch
Wear the Watch, get the night, press nothing. The readouts are famously dense and the heart data is the kind a phone on a table cannot produce. It is also a one-time purchase rather than a subscription, which for a lot of people settles it on its own.
The catchIt needs an Apple Watch and it is not an alarm clock, so you still need something else to wake you.
More on AutoSleepRise
Best if you are always running short
It organises everything around sleep debt and energy peaks rather than a nightly score, which is more useful if your issue is that you never get enough rather than that the nights are strange. It points at decisions in your day instead of charts from last night.
The catchIt will not chart the shape of your night and it generally is not the thing that wakes you.
More on RiseSnoreLab
Best if the noise is the problem
Snoring is its only job. It records, scores the night, keeps samples and tracks whether a change helped, and the scoring is built to be shown to a partner or a doctor. If somebody else in the house is the reason you are reading this page, start here.
The catchIt does not wake you or estimate your sleep, so it is a second app running alongside whatever else you use at night.
More on SnoreLab
Six problems that get sold as one category
Search for a sleep app and you get alarms, trackers, meditation libraries, wearable companions, snore recorders and coaching apps in one list, as though they compete. They mostly do not. Name the problem in your own words and the shortlist writes itself.
- I cannot get up. That is an alarm problem: a dismissal task and a system alarm that survives silent mode.
- I wake up feeling awful. That is a wake window problem, and possibly a bedtime problem.
- I cannot fall asleep. That is audio and a wind-down. A tracker will only show you the hour you already know you lay there.
- I do not know what my nights look like. That is a tracker, and the free schedule data on your phone is the cheapest first look.
- Somebody says I snore. That is a recorder.
- I never get enough sleep. That is not an app problem, and the honest apps here say so before they sell you anything.
Your iPhone already does some of this for nothing
Before installing anything, know what you already own. Sleep Focus quiets the evening, a sleep schedule in Health records when you meant to be asleep, and the Clock app rings as reliably as anything ever will.
That free layer is enough to answer whether you have a consistency problem, which is the most common cause of the vague complaint that sleep is bad. A paid app is worth it when you need something that free layer cannot do: watch the night, keep audio, move the alarm, or refuse to stop until you are awake.
One app is usually enough, and two is usually a mistake
People end up running a tracker, a sound app and an alarm, all fighting over the same microphone and the same battery, and none of them get a clean read. If two apps want the phone all night, one of them is going to have a bad night.
Pick the one aimed at your main problem and give it a fortnight on its own. Add a second only when you can say exactly what the first one is not doing.
None of these apps is a medical device, and none of them can assess a sleep condition. Persistent exhaustion is worth a doctor rather than another install.
Questions people ask
What is the best sleep app for iPhone overall?
If you want one app doing the whole night, Tock, because it is the alarm as well as the tracker and it is the part of the night you actually interact with. If your problem is falling asleep rather than waking up, or you already wear an Apple Watch, the answer changes, which is why this page is sorted by problem.
Do I need a sleep app if I have an Apple Watch?
You need a different one. With a Watch you can get measured stage data, so AutoSleep or Pillow make more sense than a phone-only tracker. Tock will read your Watch data through Apple Health, but it does not ship a Watch app of its own.
Are iPhone sleep apps accurate?
They are accurate about what they sense and estimating about the rest. Movement and sound are directly recorded. Sleep stages from a phone on a nightstand are estimates, and any app describing them as measurements is overstating what a bedside table can know.
Can one app cover the alarm, the tracking and the sounds?
Yes, and it is usually the better arrangement, because two apps competing for the microphone all night degrade each other. Tock covers all three: 63 fall-asleep sounds you can layer four at a time, tracking from the nightstand, and the alarm on top.
Other roundups
Same treatment, different question.
- The best sleep trackers that don't need a watchTock is the best sleep tracker without a watch. Leave the phone on the nightstand and it uses the microphone and accelerometer all night, classifies snores, coughs and sleep talking on device, and hands you a report plus the audio in the morning. SleepScore is the strongest alternative if you would rather nothing listened to the room.
- The best alarm clock apps for iPhoneFor most iPhone owners the best alarm clock app is the one already installed. The Clock app is free, reliable and enough. Tock is the upgrade worth paying for once the Clock app stops working, which usually means you dismiss it without remembering or you wake up feeling wrecked every morning.
- The best snoring apps, ranked by what they're forSnoreLab is the best dedicated snoring app: recording and scoring your snoring is its only job, and its remedy tracking is more deliberate than anything else here. Tock is the better pick if you want snoring in context, inside a night that also carries your sleep, your alarm and playable audio of what the room actually sounded like.
- The best white noise apps, and when a fan beats all of themIf you want one sound forever, a hardware noise machine or a cheap fan beats every app here and costs less over two years. If you want to change what you sleep to, layer sounds together and have the same app wake you up in the morning, Tock is the better pick.
Elsewhere on the site
A different corner of the same problem.
- Head to headRise vs Sleep CycleIf you want to plan a day around your energy and stop spiralling over one bad night, Rise. If you want the night itself drawn out and an alarm that finds a lighter moment, Sleep Cycle.
- FeaturesSleep coachThe sleep coach is a chat tab inside Tock that reads your recent nights before it answers. It can quote your score, play back a clip Tock recorded, and navigate the app to change a setting on your behalf. It needs a network connection.
- Sleep soundsRainfallSteady rainfall spreads its energy fairly evenly across the audible range, close enough to pink noise that it masks about as well while sounding a great deal less like a machine. The bigger variable is the surface: rain on canvas, on glass and on a car roof are three genuinely different sounds, and only one of them will suit your room.
- Tock for youEarly risersYou are up before your alarm most days, lying there working out whether to get up or risk another twenty minutes. On the days you go back to sleep, you feel worse than if you had just got out of bed.
- AlternativesTock vs Sleep as AndroidSleep as Android is Android only, so an iPhone owner cannot have it at any price. Tock is the nearest thing on iOS in spirit: sleep tracking from the phone, a smart wake window, snore detection and a task before the alarm stops. It is not as deep, and it does not talk to your smart bulbs.
- Wake timesWaking up at 8:00amBedtimes by sleep cycle for a 8:00am alarm.
Every pick on this page has a catch listed, including ours
Tock is iPhone only, has no free tier and no Apple Watch app. What it does have is an alarm that rings on silent and waits for a lighter moment.