Unstuck

Tagline (one line)

Untax catches your free trials before they charge you, and when ADHD freezes you, walks you out one tiny step at a time.

Summary

Untax is a working iOS app (Swift 6, iOS 26+) for adults with ADHD. It reads free-trial screenshots on-device, escalates to an AlarmKit alarm that only a decision can end, and breaks a frozen task or cancellation into one tiny step at a time. RevenueCat powers the Pro plan ($29.99 lifetime, or $24.99/year or $3.99/month) through one entitlement. It's verified on a real iPhone, backed by 112 passing automated tests, private by design (no account or server), and open source at https://github.com/yasaausman/untax. A criteria → evidence table with links to code and tests is at the top of the README.

Inspiration

79% of Americans have started a free trial meaning to cancel and got charged anyway. For the 15.5 million US adults with ADHD (CDC), the problem usually isn't remembering. It's starting. A reminder you can swipe away doesn't fix that. We call the money lost this way the "ADHD tax", and we built Untax to refund it.

What it does

Untax is an iOS app with one job: get you from "I should cancel that" to done.

Catch. Share a screenshot of any trial confirmation to Untax. It reads the service, price and charge date on-device and asks "Track it?" One tap saves it. You can also add a trial by hand.
Nudge. A Home Screen widget counts down, reminders arrive 3 days and 1 day out, and on the last day an AlarmKit alarm rings, even on Silent. Stop doesn't end it: the alarm comes back 30 minutes later until you decide.
Decide. One screen, four answers: Cancel it · Keep it · Snooze · Get unstuck.
Get unstuck. For the moment ADHD freezes you, Untax shows one exact step at a time ("Open Settings. That's it."), with a 90-second timer, optional voice, and "Break it smaller" when a step is still too big. It works for cancellations (hand-verified steps per service, Apple's own path for App Store trials) and for any task, like an essay due at midnight.
Refund. Every win lands on the ADHD Tax Refunded receipt: dollars kept, tasks unfrozen, and your best run. There is no streak to lose and no shame copy anywhere in the app.

How it meets the judging criteria

1. A clear, useful, original idea. Trial trackers remind you; task apps list your tasks. Neither helps with the part ADHD makes hard: starting. Untax joins the two. The same "Get unstuck" engine handles a cancellation and a homework deadline, and an alarm that only a decision can end. Research and competitor review: PLAN.md.

2. Meaningful progress toward a working app. Untax runs end to end on a real iPhone, not as a prototype:

The final-day alarm rang through Silent mode and re-armed after Stop, even after the app was force-quit.
A real subscription screenshot was read and tracked through the share sheet.
A RevenueCat Test Store purchase unlocked Pro.
112 automated tests (72 Swift Testing + 40 XCTest) cover date math, the escalation schedule, alarm re-arming, cancel-step data and AI output validation. All pass.
Cancel steps for 4 services (Spotify, Claude, Google AI Pro, Apple One) were checked by hand on real accounts and logged: cancel-steps-verification.md.
Dated device results: PROJECT.md. Tests: alarm, escalation, capture, AI output.

3. Thoughtful use of RevenueCat. RevenueCat (purchases-ios 5.91.0) powers every purchase and decides what Pro unlocks:

The paywall renders the current offering with localized prices, so plans and prices change from the dashboard, not an app update.
One entitlement drives all gating, through customerInfoStream, so Pro unlocks the moment a purchase, restore or renewal lands.
Free keeps reminders, hand-checked cancel steps, 5 trials and the first unfreeze step. Pro adds the final-day alarm, unlimited trials and step-by-step help for anything.
The headline plan is $29.99 lifetime ("no trial to forget"), with $24.99/year and $3.99/month.
An app about forgotten trials shouldn't be one: if you start Untax's own trial, it reminds you 24 hours before it ends, using the entitlement's expiration date.
Code: ProEntitlements.swift · PaywallView.swift · README: How RevenueCat is used. The Test Store key exists only in Debug builds; Release builds carry no key.

4. Thoughtful technical and product choices.

Private by design. No account, no server, no analytics. Screenshot reading and task steps use Apple's on-device Vision and Foundation Models.
AI that can't invent facts. The model may only pick prices and dates actually printed in the screenshot; anything else is dropped. AI-written steps never contain links and are labelled "Suggested steps". Every AI path has a non-AI fallback, so the app works on phones without Apple Intelligence. Code: TrialExtractor.swift (fact-check), StepSanitizer.swift (no links).
An alarm you answer, not dismiss. Stop runs an App Intent that re-arms the alarm: DeadlineAlarmIntents.swift.
Built for ADHD. One decision per screen, WCAG AA contrast in light and dark mode, Dynamic Type and VoiceOver labels. Design system: BRAND.md.

Honest limits

Alarms need a real iPhone (iOS 26+). The simulator has no Apple Intelligence, so there the task steps come from hand-written fallback templates. The final-day alarm is a Pro feature. The screenshots use demo data.

How we built it

Swift 6 and SwiftUI with SwiftData in an App Group, shared by the app, widgets and share extension. Two developers built in parallel through three local Swift packages: MoneyKit (capture, escalation, AlarmKit alarm, Decide, paywall), ParachuteKit (unfreeze engine, on-device AI step writer, audio, scoreboard, widgets) and SharedKit (models, protocols, design system). The app target only wires them together through protocols.

Challenges

AlarmKit won't allow an alarm you can't dismiss. It gives one Stop button plus one custom button, and Stop always works. So Stop runs an App Intent that schedules the next ring 30 minutes later, and only a recorded decision ends the chain.
Apple bills trials a day early. Apple asks for cancellation at least a day before renewal, so App Store trials count down to the day before the charge.
The on-device model doesn't run in the simulator. We built and tested every non-AI fallback first, then validated AI output against a strict schema.

Accomplishments we're proud of

A working alarm chain that respects Apple's rules and still can't be ignored; screenshot capture that never makes up a price; and an app a person with ADHD can use without being made to feel bad. Open source under MIT.

What we learned

Escalation only works if there's an easy way to answer it. The "Get unstuck" button mattered more than the alarm.

What's next

More hand-verified cancel guides, Live Activities for a trial's final hours, and shared "accountability" trials with a friend.

Built with

swift · swiftui · swiftdata · alarmkit · foundation-models · vision · widgetkit · avfoundation · revenuecat · xcodegen

Try it

The README opens with a criteria → evidence table: https://github.com/yasaausman/untax#for-judges-criteria--evidence Public repo with build steps: https://github.com/yasaausman/untax (MIT license). Alarms need a real iPhone on iOS 26+; the simulator runs everything else with non-AI fallback steps.